author
John Gregory Bourke
1846–1896
A Civil War Medal of Honor recipient who became one of the most observant chroniclers of the American frontier, he left behind vivid accounts of army life, the Southwest, and Native cultures. His writing blends a soldier’s eye for detail with a scholar’s curiosity.
4 Audiobooks
On the Border with Crook
by John Gregory Bourke
Scatalogic Rites of All Nations A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe
by John Gregory Bourke
The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604))
by John Gregory Bourke
About the author
Born in Philadelphia in 1846 to Irish immigrant parents, John Gregory Bourke enlisted in the Union Army as a teenager during the Civil War. He later entered West Point and went on to serve as an officer in the U.S. Army, earning a reputation for bravery as well as for his sharp intelligence and remarkable memory.
Bourke is best remembered for the years he spent in the American West, especially as an aide to General George Crook. During campaigns in the Southwest, he kept detailed journals and notes that later became important firsthand records of frontier military life and of the peoples and traditions he encountered.
Alongside his army career, he wrote extensively as an author, observer, and early ethnologist. His books and papers show an unusually wide range of interests, from warfare and travel to folklore, ceremony, and everyday life, which is why his work still attracts historians and general readers today.