Utley's "Frontiersmen in Blue" is a fairly complete, and very intertaining, look at the Army in the west after the Mexican War, and throug the end of the Civil War. This period of time has been somewhat overlooked in the popular imagination, which has focused on the post CW era. Utley's book brings it to life, detailing the various campaigns that occured in this time period, the various regions the Army operated in, and the vexing problems the small frontier Army faced. As this book makes clear, an understanding of the post Civil War era really cannot be had with examining this period first.
Utley does a very good job showing how the Army was unprepared in every sense to take on a huge new mission at the conclusion of the Mexican War, but it gamely tried none the less. The massive problems the new missions created are detailed, as are the various strategies the Army attempted to address them. The accounts of the campaigns that occured are fascinating. Utley also discusses the day to day life of the soldier, although not in the detail presented in Rickey's famous "Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay".
A reader on a budget could probably get by, in studying the frontier Army, on this book, the companion book "Frontier Regulars", and Rickey's "Forty Miles A Day". Very good reading.
Pat
Pat