I am a fifth-generation Army officer with over twenty-seven years of commissioned service. I graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1988, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in 2002, and the U.S. Army War College in 2012.

I have been researching the frontier Army for over twelve years and am interested in documenting the lives of the soldiers that participated in the battle of Wounded Knee using primarily official reports, diaries, letters, newspaper articles and other primary source documents.

My interest in Wounded Knee stems from my kinship to one of the principal participants. I am the great-great-grandson of Samuel M. Whitside, who was a major and battalion commander at the battle.

I welcome and encourage comments on posts and pages and am always interested in any new primary sources. If you have copies of letters, diaries, etc, from participants and are willing to share, please contact me.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are strictly my own, and should in no way be construed as official Army or U.S. Government positions.

Sam Russell is the founder of Russell Martial Research, dedicated to researching, documenting, and publishing historical works regarding the United States Army. His first publication is Sting of the Bee, available on Amazon.