Oliver Otis Howard

Oliver Otis Howard was a Union general in the American Civil War and later commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He lost his right arm in battle and commanded troops in major campaigns including Gettysburg and Sherman’s march through the South.

After the war, Howard oversaw efforts to assist formerly enslaved people with education, labour contracts and legal protection, though the bureau faced severe resistance and limitations. He later commanded United States forces during conflicts with Indigenous peoples in the West.

William T. Vollmann’s The Dying Grass places General Oliver Otis Howard at the conflicted centre of the 1877 Nez Perce War. Howard is presented simultaneously as a Union veteran, Christian reformer and former head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, yet he commands the campaign forcing non-treaty Nez Perce people from their homelands. By following his councils, pursuit and doubts alongside Nez Perce leaders such as Joseph and Looking Glass, the novel exposes the moral contradictions inside a policy Howard helps enforce.