Autumn of the Black Snake

The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West

By: William Hogeland

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

The forgotten story of how the US Army was created to fight a crucial Indian war

In 1783, with the signing of the Peace of Paris, the American Revolution was complete. And yet even as the newly independent United States secured peace with Great Britain, it found itself losing an escalating military conflict on its borderlands. The enemy was the indigenous people of the Ohio Valley, who rightly saw the new nation as a threat to their existence. In 1791, years of skirmishes, raids, and quagmires climaxed in the grisly defeat of a motley collection of irregular American militiamen by a brilliantly organized confederation of Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware Indians - with nearly 1,000 US casualties, the worst defeat the nation would ever suffer at native hands. Americans were shocked, perhaps none more so than their commander in chief, George Washington, who came to a fateful conclusion: the United States needed an army.

Autumn of the Black Snake tells how the early republic battled the coalition of Indians that came closer than any adversary, before or since, to halting the nation's expansion. In evocative and absorbing prose, William Hogeland conjures up the woodland battles and the hardball politics that formed the Legion of the United States, the country's first true standing army. His memorable portraits of soldiers and leaders on both sides - from the daring war chiefs Blue Jacket and Little Turtle to the doomed Richard Butler and a steely, even ruthless Washington - drive a tale of horrific violence, brilliant strategizing, stupendous blunders, and valorous deeds. This sweeping account, at once exciting and dark, builds to a crescendo as Washington and Alexander Hamilton, at enormous risk, outmaneuver Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other skeptics of standing armies - and Washington appoints General "Mad" Anthony Wayne to lead the Legion. Wayne marches into the forests of the Old Northwest, where the very Indians he is charged with defeating will bestow on him, with grudging admiration, a new name: Black Snake.

Autumn of the Black Snake is a dramatic work of military and political history, told in a colorful, sometimes startling blow-by-blow narrative. It is also an original interpretation of how greed, honor, political beliefs, and vivid personalities converged on the killing fields of the Ohio Valley, where the US Army's first victory opened the way to western settlement and established the precedent that the new nation would possess a military to reckon with.

©2017 William Hogeland (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Great Book

Excellent book about forming of US Army and westward expansion. Many new insights and explanations.

another swipe at American exceptionalism

A well read version of revisionist American history. The author took the time and made the effort to use the words white supremacists more than any other phrase to describe our founding fathers.

US History We Never Learn

The wildly charged and chaotic story of the opening of the American West and the establishment of the first standing federal army of the US by Mad Anthony Wayne; wholly engrossing and intimately revealing. How has it received so little attention in our public consciousness?
The audible version plays very well, but I found the maps provided in the hard copy added greatly.

Interesting history lesson!

Great book about America's 1st army, its foundation and our numerous wars with the Indians.

Gripping Account, Entertaining

Highly informative, yet entertaining. A lot of information. Important, yet not widely known American history. It is difficult to hear how brutal our founding fathers were, which is probably why this history is not common knowledge.

absolutely perfect telling

tells the history of the frontier land that is now known of as Ohio and the struggles that took place to gain what is now America

The most important Indian War

I’ve been looking for heart books on the Indian Wars. This book fulfilled all my expectations. I’d never heard of Wayne, Blue Jacket, or Little Turtle, but I’m not convinced that they were main actors in the nation’s most important Indian War.

First time I’ve heard this story

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This book puts Washington, Hamilton, Knox, and Jefferson in a whole new light. Glad I read it!

I learned a few things...

This was an enjoyable listen... It moved along at a nice pace. I thought the performance was done well.

Fascinating

Well written, compelling and balanced historical arguments about a little-discussed period of US history. Great narration as well.