The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick
Few men have captured the imagination of the nation like George Armstrong Custer. A headstrong, endlessly energetic, and impulsive man, he was also an expert horseman who had an uncanny intuition in the field of battle. Philbrick describes his talents further:
His extraordinary peripheral vision enabled him to capitalize almost instantly on any emerging weaknesses in the enemy line, and since he was always at the head of a charge, he was always there, ready to lead his men to where they were needed most. Like many great prodigies, he seemed to spring almost fully formed from an unlikely, even unpromising youth. But if one looked closely enough, the signs of his future success had been there all along.
Though he famously graduated last in his West Point class, Custer rose meteorically through the ranks of the U.S. Army, starting the Civil War as a second lieutenant and serving as a 23-year old brigadier general on the climactic day of the battle of Gettysburg just three years later.
Custer’s popularity among history buffs is no doubt aided by his larger-than-life personality as well. A lifelong practical joker, Custer not only seemed to suck the marrow out of life, but he also wrote about it too, penning multiple books during his relatively short life, including My Life on the Plains and Wild Life on the Plains and Horrors of Indian Warfare.
But the other writing talent in the family was his fascinating wife, Libby Bacon Custer, who not only wrote three books defending her husband’s legacy (though not at the expense of overall factual accuracy), she also spent the rest of her life after the death of her husband touring the world giving lectures and readings, doing very well for herself in the process.
If you’ve read my other book reviews on this website, you know I’ve really enjoyed Philbrick’s contributions to the project thus far. His books, In the Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory, are two of my favorites. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy The Last Stand quite as much as his other efforts.
Much of this has to do with the nature of the book itself. I find strict military histories a little hard to love. The incessant, though necessary, description of tactical movements, geography, regimental minutiae, and other martial details make for reading that is hard for me to really engage with. Philbrick at least does better than most in the maps department though - he supplies an abundance of them in just the right places.
My favorite parts of the book were the chapters detailing Custer’s personal life, his childhood, as well as the passages detailing the dealings of Sitting Bull and the other Lakota and Cheyenne warriors like Crazy Horse and Gall who met Custer on the field of battle (though Crazy Horse gets precious little mention in these pages).
As for the story of the Battle of Little Bighorn itself, you’ll learn much of what you need to know about it within. Here’s the short version.
In 1876 gold was discovered in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota. The Black Hills were sacred to the Indian tribes of the Great Plains. They utilized its resources as a source of wild game and tepee poles and stood in awe of its immense spiritual power.
But the greed of gold-rush-era miners was insatiable. As much as the Grant administration tried half-heartedly to stem the tide, as it was in violation of recent treaties, there wasn’t much they could realistically do. So they tried to buy the land instead. The Sioux and Cheyenne refused.
This breakdown in negotiations resulted in the Great Sioux War of 1876 in which the Battle of Little Bighorn would be its most famous showdown, itself a smashing victory for the Indian tribes. By 1877 though, the larger war was lost as Crazy Horse and the last of the Plains Indians were forced onto reservations or killed.
Custer’s defeat that day came down to many factors, most of which were his own fault. Had he accepted the offer of additional troops, resisted the urge to split his forces, rested his men after days of long marches, and generally been a more cautious leader (he never properly scouted his enemy’s position), the day might have unfolded differently.
In the end though, Custer and 268 of his famed 7th Cavalry were massacred. Custer himself was found stripped naked with bullet holes in his chest and head as well as an arrow shaft apparently shoved up his penis.
It was a macabre finale for a man who lived for the thrill of the hunt, the love of his wife whom he adored, and the glory he forever chased. The pace at which he drove his men in those final days is often thought to have been with the desire to win the battle in time for the news to reach the upcoming Democratic presidential convention, thus possibly winning him the nomination. In the end, it only contributed to his undoing.
Philbrick describes Custer’s enduring appeal and his inevitable fate in this memorable passage:
Despite his inconsistencies and flaws, there was something about Custer that distinguished him from most other human beings. He possessed an energy, an ambition, and a charisma that few others could match. He could inspire devotion and great love along with more than his share of hatred and disdain, and more than anything else, he wanted to be remembered. Some are remembered because they transcended the failings of their age. Custer is remembered because he so perfectly embodied those failings. As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, “All mortal greatness is but disease.”