Custer's Fall by David Humphreys Miller

This book was a timely read and a gift from members of a group I guided to the Little Bighorn Battlefield.  First published in 1992 this book is based on the recollections of Indians who had been at the battle.  Fortunately, Miller was able to interview these men before they died - a long and productive process made more effective by the author's ability to speak in the Indian dialects.  The material was gathered from 1935 to 1957 and put in to a very effective narrative.

Rather than just giving us quotes the author tells the story of the day when General Custer began his ride to the encampment on the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn) sending Reno and Benteen with portions of his army in different directions - thereby reducing his own strength.  He ignored his scouts, he ignored his own orders, and in getting all his men killed he proceeded to endanger and ruin the career of Major Reno and to affect a slaughter that would remove the plain's Indians from their homeland and prominence.

It is a fascinating book because it is from the side of the attacked - keep in mind, this was not a massacre. Custer was not unarmed, he was not surprised - he attacked the camp just as he has on the Washita earlier in his career.  He was  killer of men, women, and children, and his hubris knew no bounds.  With an embedded newspaper man to record his great victory and a costume that separated him from his men so that he would strike a heroic figure, he committed  his troops to mass suicide.

We learn in these narratives about the boys who find a tin of biscuits early in the movement, about Custer disregarding his men and scouts, about women in mourning for relatives who died in the battle of Rosebud that just preceded this engagement.

There are conflicts and jealousies between the bands that gathered just as there would be in any large community of diverse backgrounds.  The encampment was miles long and made up of neighborhoods of different tribes and different bands.  It was not a homogeneous gathering, but it was a gathering for discussion and not war.

As the battle proceeds there are old wounds that fester in the minds of the combatants, injustices that demand satisfaction, and a conflicting morality as Sitting Bull urges the warriors to not take from the dead soldiers and to let Reno's beleaguered troops escape the field of death.

This battle was not just the end of Custer, it was the end of a way of life and yet the day that it happened is but a mere few hours of conflict.

Thanks to the author, the interviews are blended in to a single narrative that provides a strong sense of what happened on that fateful day.