The Three Captives

The Three Captives: A Tale of the Taos Valley by Edward Willett concerns a military expedition in autumn, circa twenty years before publication. Major Benjamin Buttress, a sixty-year-old Virginia cavalry officer, leads a company of infantry and dragoons toward the Great Salt Lake to establish a frontier post. Young Lieutenant Bent questions his superior's conventional tactics against mounted Indian adversaries, arguing that dragoons trained in European-style formations cannot effectively combat warriors who fight from terrain and retreat swiftly. Bent proposes irregular mounted rangers trained as hunters and woodsmen to match Indian mobility. Buttress dismisses these arguments as presumptuous and insubordinate, insisting on established army discipline and regulation. The narrative captures their disagreement as the expedition travels through difficult terrain near Taos Valley toward the Sierra Madre.