It wasn't exactly The Wizard of Oz. When Sitting Bull was murdered by an Army sergeant, L. Frank Baum wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, "what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them." Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, should totally annihilate the few remaining Indians. Many fled the reservations, believing that the cavalry was intent on genocide. Fifteen days later, the Army surrounded 450 of them encamped at Wounded Knee, and butchered 180 of them, leaving their bodied to freeze in a blizzard, finally throwing them into a mass grave. It was the last major armed encounter between Indians and the whites in North America.

But 22 years later, the Army fought Indians again - at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle Indian School was founded in 1879 by Henry Pratt, a civil war cavalryman who wanted to "kill the Indian and save the man" by turning Indians into white men. The students wore white clothes, got a white education, spoke the white language, and played the white games of basketball, baseball, and football.

The Carlisle football team was good. It was coached by "Pop" Warner, and the team included Jim Thorpe. Warner had applied to be a West Point graduate, himself, but was turned down.

Many Indians didn't want to send their kids to Carlisle and similar schools, fearing they would lose their identity as Indians. Hiram Thorpe was the grandson of Black Hawk, the legendary chief of the Sac and Fox, and the Office of Indian Affairs considered the Sac and Fox to be among the most resistant to assimilation, but Hiram Thorpe was half Irish, and insisted that his children - he had at least nineteen of them, by five wives - get a white education. When Jim kept running away from local schools, Hiram sent him to Carlisle.

Dwight David Eisenhower, our 34th President, was in his second year at West Point in 1912. He had come from Abilene, the town of Wild Bill Hickock, and Ike Eisenhower was born only 19 years after Hickock was relieved of his duties.

Ike was a promising back on the West Point team, but his body was 5'10" tall, and he weighed but 180 pounds. Jim Thorpe was small and speedy - and only a few months earlier, he'd proven himself an Olympic athlete in Stockholm.

Before the game, Pop Warner reminded his team that they were playing the Army, who had killed their fathers and grandfathers, and raped their mothers and grandmothers. Remember this on every play, he advised them.

A Cadet would become famous, the Army players believed, if he knocked Thorpe cold, out of the game - and Eisenhower fully expected to be the one to do it.

Thorpe scored a 92-yard touchdown, but it was nullified by a penalty called on a teammate. No matter; he scored a 97-yard touchdown on the very next play. Eisenhower suffered an injury to his knee when he tried to stop Thorpe, an injury that ended his football career when he continued to play on it. Carlisle finished the season 12-1-1, outscoring their opponents 504-114.

In the end, though, Carlisle lost; the school was closed in 1918. In a further insult, it has been the home of the US Army War College since 1951. Today, the Carlisle Indians have the best winning percentage (.647) of any defunct college football team.

And Eisenhower won. When he returned to Abilene a few months later, people said he was different. He had an air about him; he was on the path to greatness.

Is it any wonder that Lars Anderson calls this football's greatest battle? In addition to writing this book, he's a writer for Sports Illustrated.

This book is not really about a football game. It's about a world we left behind, not so very many years ago, about racial identity, and people whose names are familiar to all, but whose lives are largely masked. If you don't care about Jim Thorpe, and Ike Eisenhower, and Pop Warner, read it to learn about your grandparents and your great-grandparents.