Son of the Morning Star Quotes

“Just across from Bismarck stood Fort Lincoln where friends and relatives of Custer’s dead cavalrymen still lived, and these emigrating Sioux could perceive such bitterness in the air that one Indian on the leading boat displayed a white flag. Yet, in accordance with the laws of human behavior, the farther downstream they traveled the less hostility they encountered, and when the tiny armada reached Standing Rock near the present border of South Dakota these Indians were welcomed as celebrities. Men, women and children crowded aboard the General Sherman to shake hands with Sitting Bull. Judson Elliot Walker, who was just then finishing a book on Custer’s campaigns, had to stand on a chair to catch a glimpse of the medicine man and reports that he was wearing “green wire goggles.” No details are provided, so green wire goggles must have been a familiar sight in those days. Sitting Bull mobbed by fans while wearing green wire goggles. It sounds like Hollywood.”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“Captain Jack, that volatile Modoc, seems to have been handled still more causally. After being hanged and buried, Jack was exhumed, embalmed, and exhibited at carnivals: admission ten cents. How many instances of such sensibility one chooses to catalogue may be limited by the amount of time spent turning over musty pages. During the seventeenth century, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, came upon a wood plank near the ruins of Ft. Crèvecoeur deep in the wilderness of the New World, upon which a French deserter had printed: NOUS SOMMES TOUS SAUVAGES”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“According to the Trib, DeRudio finally escaped because some beavers dove into the Little Bighorn. “DeRudio followed them, got out of sight, and after hiding twelve hours or more … .” Beavers? Why would he follow beavers? The Trib does not elaborate.”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn

“Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds … Custer,”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn

“The West was not dull, it was stupendously dull, and when not dull it was murderous. A man could get killed without realizing it. There were unbelievable flash floods, weird snakes, and God Himself did not know what else, along with Indians descending as swiftly as the funnel of a tornado. On”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn