author
Joseph Mills Hanson
b. 1876
A South Dakota-born writer, soldier, and historian, he is best remembered for lively books on the American frontier and military history. His work ranged from the Missouri River and the Sioux campaigns to Civil War battlefields and World War I.
2 Audiobooks
With Sully into the Sioux Land
by Joseph Mills Hanson
Frontier Ballads
by Joseph Mills Hanson
About the author
Born in Yankton, Dakota Territory, on July 20, 1876, Joseph Mills Hanson grew up in a family with deep local roots and was educated both in South Dakota and in eastern military schools. Archival and historical sources describe him as an author and military historian, and they also show how early his interest in history and writing took shape.
Hanson is best known for The Conquest of the Missouri (1909), a book centered on river pilot Grant Marsh and the northern plains frontier. Later accounts of his career note that he went on to write widely about western history, Civil War subjects, and World War I, and that he later worked as a Civil War historian and as an assistant historian for the National Park Service.
He died in 1960, leaving behind a body of work that connects South Dakota history with the wider story of the American West and U.S. military history. For listeners who enjoy vivid nonfiction rooted in real places and campaigns, his books offer an older but still engaging voice from the early twentieth century.