Beadle's Dime Novels No. 119: Blackeyes

Black Eyes; or, The Three Captives: A Tale of the Taos Valley

By Edward Willett. Published by Beadle and Company, New York, 1867.

This dime novel unfolds as a frontier military narrative set twenty years prior, in the Taos Valley region. The story centers on Major Benjamin Buttress, a rigid Virginia veteran officer, and Lieutenant Bent, a younger, reform-minded officer under his command. Their conflict emerges during an expedition moving supply wagons toward the Great Salt Lake to establish a military post.

The narrative opens with a heated debate between the two men over Indian warfare tactics. While Major Buttress insists that disciplined U.S. Army regulars must prevail through traditional methods, Lieutenant Bent argues that mounted irregular troops—rangers and hunters versed in woodcraft—would better counter Native American tactics. Buttress dismisses these views as presumptuous, reprimanding Bent for encouraging unorthodox practices among the men and adopting informal frontier dress against regulations.

The story establishes a tension between military formalism and frontier pragmatism that drives the plot forward.