UNIVERSITY OF for immediate release OKLAHOMA PRESS 9780806162782.tif BOOKNEWS

The first comprehensive biography of this colorful and significant Western character

Comanche Jack Stilwell Army Scout and Plainsman

By Clint E. Chambers and Paul H. Carlson

In 1863, the thirteen-year-old boy who would come to be called Comanche Jack was sent to the well to fetch water. Instead, he joined a wagon train bound for Santa Fe. Thus began the exploits of Simpson E. “Jack” Stilwell (1850–1903), a man generally known for slipping through Indian lines to get help for some fifty frontiersmen besieged by the Cheyenne at Beecher Island in 1868. Daring as his part in the rescue might have been, it was only one noteworthy episode of many in Comanche Jack Stilwell’s life—a life whose rollicking story is finally told here in full.

MARCH 2019 In his later years, Stilwell crafted his own legend as a celebrated raconteur. Authors $24.95 PAPER 978-0-8061-6278-2 Clint E. Chambers (whose grandfather was Stilwell’s nephew) andPaul H. Carlson 288 PAGES, 6 X 9 scour the available primary and secondary sources to find the unvarnished truth and 26 B&W ILLUS., 2 MAPS remarkable facts behind the legend. In a crisp, fast-paced style, the narrative follows BIOGRAPHY/MILITARY HISTORY Stilwell from his precocious start as a teenage runaway turned teamster on the Santa Fe Trail to his later turns as lawyer, judge, U.S. Marshal, hangman, and associate of FOR AUTHOR INTERVIEWS AND OTHER Buffalo Bill Cody. Along the way, he learned Spanish, Comanche, and sign lan- PUBLICITY INQUIRIES CONTACT: guage, scouted for the U.S. Army, and became a friend of George A. Custer and an KATIE BAKER, PUBLICITY MANAGER avowed, if failed, avenger of his kid brother Frank, an outlaw killed by Wyatt Earp. UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS TEL: 405 325 3200 Unfolding against the backdrop of the Civil War, cattle drives, the Indian Wars, FAX: 405 325 4000 the Oklahoma land rush, and the rough justice of the Wild West, Comanche Jack

[email protected] Stilwell takes a true American character out of the shadows of history and returns to the story of the West one of its defining figures. AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES, ONLINE BOOKSELLERS, AND OUPRESS.COM Clint E. Chambers is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma School of Medi- cine, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and Clinical Associate Professor of ORDER BY PHONE Surgery at Texas Tech University School of Medicine. Paul H. Carlson is Professor INSIDE THE U.S. 800-848-6224 EXT. 1 Emeritus of History at Texas Tech University and author, co-author, or editor of INTERNATIONAL 919-966-7449 more than twenty books, including The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and CALL CENTER HOURS: 8:30AM-5:00PM EST Culture and Pecos Bill: A Military Biography of William R. Shafter.

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