Please Mr. Custer, I don't want to go. A history of the Little Bighorn.

Strike up the “Garry Owen” one more time, and head back to the Little Bighorn for another retelling of George Armstrong Custer’s fateful encounter with Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the assembled warriors of the Lakota and Cheyenne nations on June 25th, 1876, a rightfully legendary event in American history, that has spawned so many books, it is virtually its own publishing genre. Nathaniel Philbrick’s THE LAST STAND: CUSTER, SITTING BULL, AND THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN is the latest book on this subject that I have read following Evan Connell’s SON OF THE MORNING STAR, and James Donovan’s A TERRIBLE GLORY, both excellent books on the battle. Like many, I have always been drawn to this story, and fascinated by the mystery at the heart of it: what really happened on that hillside in Montana on that June day that no White man lived to tell about. For that reason I was eager to read Philbrick’s book, and journey back to the Black Hills and the plains of Montana in the year of the American Centennial.

Though my paperback copy of THE LAST STAND runs to more than 450 pages, the account of the battle and the participants comes to just over 300 pages, as the rest is taken up by notes, an appendix, and other citations which attest to the tremendous amount of research Philbrick did for this book. And it shows in the concise and very informative narrative he lays out. The author’s focus is on the campaign of the summer of 1876, pausing to give brief biographical portraits of the pertinent individuals involved, but trusting that the reader is already familiar with the history of The Civil War, the western expansion that followed, and the resistance of the various Indian tribes in its way. We get a good sense of just how new and bracing the American West and the Great Plains were to those who experienced it upfront, for it was not yet the “Old West,” and many of those flocking there were not exactly the hardy pioneers and rugged cowboys of movies and TV; nearly 40% of the men making up the 7th Cavalry were foreign born, and nearly all of them were from east of the Mississippi. The Indian tribes who opposed them lived in a constant state of flux, traveling from one fertile area to the next, and not always living in harmony with each other, and far more savvy about the ways of the White world than history would have us believe. Sitting Bull was far from the bloodthirsty savage he would often be portrayed as, but a canny leader of his people who knew they were at a distinct disadvantage despite their numbers. He did not want war, but when war came to him in the form of Custer and his 7th Cavalry, his people took full advantage of the enemy’s missteps and achieved the greatest victory his people were ever to win over a foe bent on exterminating them. Perhaps it was a backhanded compliment and an acknowledgement of a worthy opponent, but after the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull achieved genuine celebrity status in the eyes of White Americans, touring with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

But for me, the most striking part of the book is the portrait it paints of Custer and his 7th Cavalry and the dysfunctional chain of command that contributed to the disaster at the Little Bighorn. Custer was the youngest Union general of the Civil War, leading a cavalry charge on the 3rd day at Gettysburg that helped achieve victory for the Northern side. That he had a huge ego and a high opinion of himself there is no doubt, but he was also incredibly brave under fire and as fine a leader of men as the army ever produced, winning the confidence of the soldiers who served under him, and who followed him loyally into battle. He took risks to the point of being reckless, and reckless with the lives of others, and was a true self-promoter, not shy about criticizing his superiors and fellow officers, and in this he won some prominent enemies, including President Ulysses S. Grant. Among those who were less than enamored with Custer were his two chief subordinates, Major Marcus Reno and Lieutenant Frederick Benteen, both of whom assumed separate commands on the day of the battle when Custer divided his force as they approached the Indian village on the Little Bighorn. It was a fatal error on Custer’s part, as the plan was to attack what they thought was a much smaller encampment of the Lakota and Cheyenne from different sides. Reno pulled his men back after initiating what was shaping up to be a successful attack, and barely escaped being overrun himself only by the arrival of Benteen’s men, the latter taking charge on the field and organizing the defense against a much larger attacking force of Indians than anticipated. By many accounts, Reno was drunk in the saddle that day, and unable to exert his authority properly, and while Benteen is credited with saving what was left of the 7th, he was still overcome by exhaustion and sleep deprivation, and stretched out on the ground and fell asleep while the fighting raged. What neither Reno nor Benteen did was attempt to go to Custer’s aid, ignoring orders from their superior to come at once, though whether such an action would have saved the day at that point, or only added to the massacre is open to debate.

Philbrick gives a good blow by blow account of the desperate fight by Reno and Benteen’s commands that goes into detail just how brutal and gory fighting Indians on the Great Plains could be, and why desperate and wounded soldiers would save their last bullet for themselves rather than fall into the hands of their enemies. If Reno was a less than exemplary officer, Benteen comes across as prickly but capable, the kind of ornery character John Wayne played later in his career. But of course, the high point of the book is Custer’s final fight when his command was killed to the last man. Philbrick saves this for the next to last chapter, and he does as good a job as any reconstructing the battle using accounts given by Indian participants, most of which were recorded long afterward, army reports of those who had the unfortunate job of burying the dead, and archeological and forensic expeditions conducted over the years that accumulated a lot of evidence as to what happened and when.

What I really liked about THE LAST STAND was that it is not an overtly political book, as Philbrick wisely lets the facts speak for themselves. That Custer brought his fate upon himself there is little doubt, but as Philbrick notes, he came far closer to achieving a victory on the Little Bighorn than is commonly believed, if only his timing had been better, and he’d gotten the support he needed from Reno and Benteen. George Armstrong Custer was a true warrior of the 19th Century, happiest when leading his men in battle on horseback against an equally armed foe. It was a type of warfare soon to be rendered obsolete by the industrial age and the coming of automatic weapons of mass destruction. For that reason, he would look ridiculous to later generations, a fool who got what he deserved, but this book reminds us that he was more than the caricature pop culture would make him out to be. Who knows, but if he’d won the victory he’d expected to win on the Little Bighorn, he might have won the Democratic nomination for President and gone to the White House, no doubt confounding his many detractors. And Sitting Bull won something more than just a temporary victory over the White man; though his ultimate fate would be a sad one, his people would survive those who followed Custer and their determination to take the land and wipe the American Indian from the earth. Sitting Bull gave his people a legacy to hold on to, and that is no small triumph, and one all Americans should take pride in. Read Nathaniel Philbrick’s THE LAST STAND, and understand why.


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