On the Oregon Trail and other trails, pioneers circled their wagons to protect the party against weather and theft! Circling the wagons was an invention of Hollywood filmmakers who liked the way it looked on film.

At night, wagon trains were often formed into a circle or square for shelter from wind or weather, and to corral the emigrants' animals in the center to prevent them from running away or being stolen by Native Americans. While Indians might attempt to raid horses under cover of darkness, they rarely attacked a train. Contrary to popular belief, wagons were seldom circled defensively

Veteran Western historians the Michnos, are out to set the record straight on the "did they or didn't they?" question regarding Indian attacks on pioneer wagon trains. The prevailing conventional wisdom is that, despite the ubiquity of wagon train attacks in popular culture such as Hollywood film portrayals, these attacks were rare.

As the Michnos prove in Circle the Wagons! Attacks on Wagon Trains in History and Hollywood, conventional wisdom is not only wrong, it's "plainly, simply, irrevocably wrong." They decry as "whitewashing" frontier history the recent disturbing trend of western historians to focus almost exclusively on white atrocities while simultaneously ignoring Indian depredations - presenting Indians merely as hapless "victims" of white aggression.

The Michnos also link the real-life wagon train attacks in each chapter to Hollywood films that portray either the actual historical event or an attack that exhibits similar aspects to those depicted in the film.