The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 93, July 1989 - April, 1990 Page: 184

Cover: A Cavalryman's Breakfast on the Plazns by Frederic Remington, c. 189o.
Oil on canvas, 22 x 32 '/ inches. Courtesy Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
If the struggle between whites and Indians in the American West is one
of the epics of our history, the artist who documented-indeed, per-
sonified-that clash is Frederic Remington. "In the early morning, as
the night grows pale with coming light," he wrote several years before
painting this superb canvas, "the horse herd comes up from its night
on the range at a good round trot, unconsciously keeping in the form
of a column .... the simple calls of the sergeant summon the men.
'Catch your horses,' comes the command amid the hurrying of many
feet as the herd rounds up. The horses are caught and picketed, the
breakfast eaten, the saddlebags rationed .. ." The men would soon be
on their way across the plains, in pursuit of the always elusive Indians.
"Before the command 'Halt' is given," Remington concluded, "sleep
will be more necessary than eating."*
*Quoted from Frederic Remington, "Soldiering in the Southwest," in Harold
McCracken (ed.), Frederic Remzngton's Own West (New York: Dial, 196o), 20o.