By Al LaFleche
Custer. The name resonates with contradictions. Boy general, hero of the Civil War, cruel and villainous Indian fighter of the plains, brave tactician, foolish strategist. James Donovan’s well-documented, deeply researched and heavily annotated biography (footnotes and bibliography comprise some 110 pages of a 530-page trade paperback) of Lt. Col. (breveted Brig. Gen.) George Armstrong Custer fleshes out details of his life. He emerges neither angel nor demon.
As a soldier, he is depicted as doing his job well, though in hindsight, that was a nasty job indeed. We also see him as a cadet at West Point, accumulating as many demerits as possible short of expulsion and doing only as much studying as required to pass. He is notorious for having finished last in his class.
Upon graduation, we learn of his ambition. He had no qualms about - and quite a talent for - becoming the darling of his military superiors and the well-heeled in society. It seems clear that had his life not ended on a hill in Montana, he would have been aiming for higher office, probably the presidency. His popularity at the time would likely have gained him the Oval Office.
Donovan, as the title suggests, spends much of the book on the June 1776 campaign that resulted in Custer’s death. There is some examination of the events from the perspective of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho participants, but this is not the main focus of the book.
The author details very carefully how the 7th Cavalry left Fort Lincoln in search of a large band of Sioux and their allies who had left the reservations. He also details how little the soldiers knew of their immediate adversaries, as well as the inherent lack of communication among the several columns searching for the Sioux. For example, a column was approaching the Little Big Horn Valley from Wyoming a day after the fateful encounter, expecting to reach the rendezvous point in time.
Custer’s Last Stand, as it became commonly know, has been portrayed in popular entertainment almost from the day it became known to the public. Most of the time, it was presented as a heroic stand of brave soldiers against an evil, overwhelming force of savage Indians bent on their destruction. These earlier portrayals ranged from sublime to ridiculous in their avoidance of fact and terrain.
As is pretty well known, Custer divided his command, which he had only regained as a result of his politicking, into three columns headed by Major Reno, Captain Benteen and himself. Reno’s first attack on the big village is a near disaster in itself, poorly planned and executed. His command barely disengaged, leaving some wounded to be dispatched by the Sioux, but also further alerting them to imminent attack.
This command retreats and regroups with Benteen’s command, and they are within earshot of Custer’s fight. Reno is portrayed here as nothing less than a drunken coward. Benteen fares a little better, but both men were disdainful, and it remains a bit unclear how much that played into their failure to support Custer’s companies. Donovan doesn’t speculate if that would have made a difference in the end.
Donovan uses recent forensic evidence discovered as a result of a fire on Last Stand Hill in the 90s, which allowed archaeological excavation of the area. This showed there was little real organized defense.
The cavalrymen attempted to retreat to the high ground, but they had minimal combat experience, and less time on the target range to develop marksmanship. The site of the battle gave them no cover, while the attackers were able to use the terrain for cover and concealment, and rain arrows upon the defenders.
According to the evidence, Custer may have been among the last to fall, with one wound to the chest and another to the head. Donovan also describes in detail some of the mutilations inflicted on the soldiers by the non-combatants. Those are extreme, but done to make the transition to the spirit world difficult for the cavalrymen.
The aftermath of the battle is explored and the fates of the major participants - Reno, Benteen, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull - are covered as well. The book concludes with the massacre at Wounded Knee, inflicted on the Sioux in part by veterans of the 7th Cavalry.
While we all know the outcome of the story, the author tells it well. At times, it felt like I was enmeshed in a well-turned novel, not a history.
