Robert M. Utley is a retired Chief Historian of the National Park Service and has written over fifteen books on a variety of aspects of history of the American West. His writings have received numerous prizes, including the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center's Wrangler Award, the Western Writers of American Spur Award, the Caughey Prize from the Western History Association, and the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History. He resides in Georgetown, Texas.