But the “inevitability” of the 1877 war is not as clear as retrospective accounts sometimes make it seem.

There were multiple moments at which different choices might have produced different outcomes.

White Bird, who had opposed war throughout, who had sent a peace party to meet the army at White Bird Canyon with a white flag and instructions not to fire first — White Bird did not want the war that came.

He made the best decisions he could within the war he got.

The Medicine Line: Its Meaning In 1877