The US completed conquest of the West during a period of rapid industrial and population growth. William Henry Seward launched many peaceful failed expansionist efforts but secured “Seward’s Folly” – Alaska . During Grant’s administration, maintenance of tariffs became an underpinning of the Republican Party. The US fought numerous wars to secure Indian lands and forced them to government reservations. The Red Cloud War was one the US lost. The Indians were better individual soldiers but lacked numbers, organization, logistical support, and secure bases. The US fought Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Cochise, Chief Joseph, and others. And lost the Battle of Little Bighorn during the Great Sioux War, where George Armstrong Custer was killed. The US fought the Nez Perce, Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Apache, Mescalero, Navajo, Bannocks, Shoshone, Northern Paiutes, Arapaho, Crow, Modoc, Klamath, Utes, and others. By 1890, the conquest of the West was complete, and America dominated the continent. Meanwhile, the administrations of Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison oversaw America’s rise to economic preeminence, the Gilded Age, construction of a modern navy, and increased American involvement abroad, particularly in Latin America. Alfred Thayer Mahan authored The Influence of Sea Power upon History.