Blood on the Moon: Valentine McGillycuddy and the Sioux

"McGillycuddy seems to be enjoying one of his periodical troubles with Red Cloud. There appears to be blood on the moon," wrote a Laramie newspaperman early in the 1880s. Energetic and combative, principled and stubborn, Dr. Valentine T. McGillycuddy was one of the most colorful and controversial figures on the American frontier.

As head of the Pine Ridge Agency in Dakota Territory, beginning in 1879, he built a boarding school, organized the Indian police, and won the respect and affection of many Sioux. But his feuding with Red Cloud, his uncompromising stand against administrative laxness and corruption, and finally his loyalty to a subordinate forced him out of Pine Ridge in 1886. His stormy career as an Indian agent is related here, as well as his role as a mediator in the Wounded Knee troubles of 1890 and his tireless medical service during the influenza epidemic of 1918. The reader of Blood on the Moon will encounter not only a sadly dimin-ished Red Cloud but also Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Generals Crook and Custer, Buffalo Bill, and Calamity Jane.