Legend: Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard

by Joe De Barthe

That Frank Grouard was an important figure in the history of the Indian wars of the Great Plains is beyond any doubt. Nor can there be the slightest doubt of Grouard's position among his fellows, including General George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, and Chicago Times correspondent, John Finerty.

Six feet tall and 200 pounds of muscle, Grouard (also spelled Gruard) was well acquainted with Indian life. He knew Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and most of the Native American leaders. Having been captured by the Sioux, he spent years with them learning their language and ways, becoming accepted as one of their own. Returning to white society, he put what he knew to use as one of the greatest army scouts of the Old West.

In the Great Sioux War of 1876, he was a scout for General Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition that was supposed to unite with Custer's Seventh Cavalry to bring the Sioux and Cheyenne into reservations. Grouard fought with Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud just eight days before Custer was wiped out by the same Indians under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

By the time this book was written in 1894, Grouard was known all over the country. His exciting accounts of Indian life and the Indian Wars is a seminal contribution to our knowledge of the period.

Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the events that changed the country forever.

For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones.

Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

299 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 27, 2016

Reviews

[Ron Chinchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary book.

So much I didn't know about the history of middle America in the mid 1800s, even though I had read many biographies from that period. I've been researching the period for a personal project and this book helped greatly.

Grouard sounds like he was an amazing individual who was in the middle of so many of the major incidents occurring at that time, including the Little Big Horn battle and the developments that led up to that conflict and what followed. His first hand knowledge of some of the famed native American leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and his close relationship with them, as well as some of the famed scouts such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane and the only survivor of Custer's Little Big Horn troop, the Indian scout Curley, has certainly broadened my knowledge of those times.

The author has done a sterling job of describing the incidents in such a manner, one almost felt they were there. Loved the book and Joe De Barthe is to be commended for adding the meat to the bone of so much of the American west of the mid to late 1800s.

[Andy Herzfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting although at times dry account of one of the greatest scouts who ever lived. De Barthe was a contemporary of Frank Grouard although quite a bit younger. He got his facts from the source and only through his perseverance to do so. Frank was close mouthed to most about his adventures but when he spoke it had the ring of authenticity and honesty on the details that could only have come from someone who had been there done that. He was captured and adopted into the Sioux nation by no less than Sitting Bull himself who Frank speaks highly of although he admits Sitting Bull wanted to kill him several times. He was fluent in the Sioux language and could recognize and converse with all of the tribes in his area. He was most adept in sign language. He was the chief scout for Gen Crook as well as many others. His knowledge of the landscape of the mountains, rivers, the West in general was unsurpassed by any of the scouts in his time. interesting read you will learn some real facts about the Indian wars as he was there at most of the significant battles.

[Stuart Finnegan]

Frank Grouard was a lier & traitor
Frank Grouard was caught stealing Horses and lied to chief sitting bull & ran away to live in Crazy horse village
Later in 1876 Frank Grouard went to Fort Laramie and became a scout for the US Army under general Crook
Frank Grouard eagerly hunted his Indian friends and murdering them when attacking their village
The ultimate betrayal was when in September 1877 Frank Grouard deliberately mistranslated Crazy Horse words to Captain Philip Clark which caused Crazy Horse arrest and murder at Fort Robinson

[Dianne P. Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT!!

I am a voracious reader of Indian and Mountain Men stories, history and information. As a lot of it can be somewhat boring, I was totally surprised at how interesting and compelling this book was.

[T. Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book.

This is such an interesting book about an almost mythical western character. That fact that he was a living breathing human being had me deep in the books pages.

[A.S. Ember · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ll grant that there is a relatively interesting autobiography hidden in this glutted, long-winded volume—Grouard spins a few yarns engaging for a reader invested in the time period—but de Barthe is unforgivable as a writer/editor. Inserting painfully long and irrelevant chapters between autobiographical accounts would be bad enough, but de Barthe isn’t satisfied until he contradicts his subject, knots the line of continuity beyond comprehension, and waxes racist to an actually incredible degree. Surely only Grouard’s apparent reluctance to speak to biographers and the consequent value of his story in this volume can explain how these really terrible 700 pages exist at all. Recognizing that, with his terrific lack of ability and knowledge, de Barthe would never again get an opportunity to be published, he seized this chance with both translucent white hands and smeared his shit all over it. Ultimately, between de Barthe’s utter incompetence and Grouard’s braggadocio, this volume really shouldn’t be considered nonfiction.