True West Magazine
In 1965, historian Robert M. Utley was in his second year as the National Park Service’s Chief Historian in Washington, D.C. Two years later he would publish Frontiersmen in Blue; the United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865 (Macmillan) the follow-up to his first book, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (Yale University, 1963).
I first met Robert M. Utley in May 1977. He came to Bloomington to receive a Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Indiana University. I was a graduate student in history at IU at that time, and as soon as I learned that Utley was coming to campus, I sought out my mentor, Martin Ridge, to beg for the opportunity to pick up our guest at the Indianapolis airport and deliver him back. I assured Ridge that I would positively die for the opportunity to meet Utley. He thought this but a slight ambition (and never tired of reminding me of it in later years), but agreed to allow me to play chauffer. This eventful meeting was as Bogart s