The Frontier Chronicles

Narrative-driven American frontier history—built from primary sources and the lived experience of the people who were there.

• Firsthand accounts, letters, diaries, and newspapers
• Who, what, and why it mattered—without academic fog
• Start anywhere: each volume stands alone, but together they build a bigger story.

The Books

• The Ghost Dance War
• Women on the Prairie
• Bleeding Kansas (Coming Soon)

The Ghost Dance War

A narrative account of the Ghost Dance movement and the escalating tension that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee. Ward McLendon blends eyewitness accounts, historical records, and cultural context to reveal the human stories behind one of the most tragic chapters in American history.

A peaceful ceremony. A nation in fear. A tragedy born from misunderstanding.

In the winter of 1890, the Ghost Dance swept across the Plains. For the Lakota, it was a sacred prayer for renewal after decades of starvation, broken treaties, and the suppression of traditional life. To the United States government, it looked like the spark of an uprising.

The Ghost Dance War reveals how a spiritual movement rooted in hope was transformed into a national crisis—driven by fear, political pressure, and profound cultural ignorance.

Women on the Prairie

The American frontier was built on courage, sacrifice, and unbelievable resilience—and women were at the center of it all.

Women on the Prairie uncovers the powerful, often overlooked stories of the women who crossed plains, survived captivity, forged alliances, buried children, tended soldiers, negotiated with Native nations, and endured hardships that reshaped the American West. Their lives reveal a frontier far more complex—and far more human—than the one found in traditional histories.

From pioneer diarists to Native interpreters, from survivors of tragedy to quiet builders of community, these twelve women show the true breadth of frontier womanhood.