Short Synopsis
The epic clash of two American legends—their brutal war and a battle of ideas that defined America after Reconstruction.

Full Synopsis
Oliver Otis Howard thought he was a man of destiny. Chosen to lead the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War, the Union Army general was entrusted with the era's most crucial task: helping millions of former slaves claim the rights of citizens. He was energized by the belief that abolition and Reconstruction, the country's great struggles for liberty and equality, were God's plan for himself and the nation.

But as the nation's politics curdled in the 1870s, General Howard exiled himself from Washington, D.C., rejoined the army, and was sent across the continent to command forces in the Pacific Northwest. Shattered by Reconstruction's collapse, he assumed a new mission: forcing Native Americans to become Christian farmers on government reservations.

Howard's plans for redemption in the West ran headlong into the resistance of Chief Joseph, a young Nez Perce leader in northeastern Oregon who refused to leave his ancestral land. Claiming equal rights for Native Americans, Joseph was determined to find his way to the center of American power and convince the government to acknowledge his people's humanity and capacity for citizenship.

"Joe Barrett offers an engaging narration . . . Barrett's tone exactly fits the author's largely conversational style. While he varies his delivery to suit the material, he resists the urge to add false drama." ---AudioFile

"Daniel J. Sharfstein, a Vanderbilt University law and history professor, offers a brisk narrative of one of the last major collisions between Native Americans and white America." ---New York Times

"Deftly woven into the story are portraits of such fascinating figures as Charles Erskine Scott Wood, who served as Howard's aide and later became a political radical, and the fierce warrior Yellow Wolf, whose remembered accounts of battle provide Sharfstein with some of his most chilling descriptions." ---BookPage

"Sharfstein has provided a scrupulously researched and detailed revisiting of one of the most moving and saddest sagas in American history." ---Booklist Starred Review

“One of the epic tales of American history, rendered by a master storyteller. Daniel Sharfstein breathes new life into the fascinating figures at the heart of the Nez Perce War.” ---Karl Jacoby, author of The Strange Career of William Ellis

“Beautifully wrought and impossible to put down, Daniel Sharfstein’s Thunder in the Mountains chronicles with compassion and grace that resonant past we should never forget.” ---Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation

"This beautifully written book will change the way readers think about the era of Civil War and Reconstruction.” ---Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre

“Revelatory and riveting.” ---Gregory P. Downs, author of After Appomattox

Booklist Review