Review: Stiles, Custer's Trials

Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T.J. Stiles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a scrutiny more than a biography. Stiles really gets dug in, particularly in talking about Custer's Civil War experience, and he talks extensively about the politics of the post-Civil War era and just what a mess Custer made of his attempts to wield power. He also tackles Custer's racism head-on---and Custer was a diehard white supremacist. Stiles' thesis, I think, is that there was only one thing in his life that George Armstrong Custer was good at---leading men into battle---and the bitter irony is that it's the same thing that killed him. Stiles also assumes that the persona Libbie Bacon Custer assumes in her writings---timid, naive, and vulnerable---is just that: a persona; the real Libbie was a shrewd manipulator whose love for her husband was real, but badly battered by his infidelities and his gambling. This book is dense but excellently well-written.



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