J. W. Vaughn, 1903-1968, graduated from the University of Missouri in 1925 and later received a law degree from the University of Denver. He practiced law in Windsor, Colorado, for thirty-nine years. Vaughn's first visit to the Little Big Horn and Rosebud battlefields in 1952 sparked his interest in Crook's standoff and inspired him to collect primary data and walk the battlefield with a metal detector, searching for bullets and shell casings. After publishing With Crook at the Rosebud, Vaughn wrote three other books on the Indian Wars. Brian C. Pohanka, one of the nation's leading authorities on the life of the common soldier of the Civil War, is a frequent consultant of film and the television producers on Civil War reenacting and living history. Formerly an assistant editor and researcher for the Time-Life Books Civil War series, he is the author of Distant Thunder: A Photographic Essay on the American Civil War and Civil War: An Aerial Portrait. Pohanka is also active in Custer and Little Bighorn studies, including archaeological work on the Little Bighorn Battlefield. He works as a freelance writer and consultant from his home in Alexandria, Virginia.
