A STYLIZED AND UNREALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF CUSTERS LAST STAND
George Armstrong Custer surveyed the low, rolling Montana countryside before him on that brutally hot Sunday afternoon of June 25, 1876 and must have felt a twinge of anticipation. He was a warrior. And prior to every battle he was ever involved in, from his glory days in the Civil War to this, the last battle of his life, Custer felt the tingling of impending combat. He considered himself invulnerable. His confidence – some would say arrogance – inspired both intense loyalty and profound disdain from the men and officers under his command. This, more than anything else, led to his destruction.
The Battle of Little Bighorn (the Lakota call it “The Battle of Greasy Grass Creek”) is the most written about battle in American history. Custer’s every known move has been examined, debated, dissected, re-examined and criticized by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and scientists. It’s also been one of the most popular subjects for artists as every generation since the battle has had both ridiculous and stylized portrayals as well as historically accurate reproductions. And thanks to Hollywood, just about everyone has heard of both the battle and its two major players – Custer and Tashunca-uitco AKA “Crazy Horse.”
The evolution of attitudes toward the battle is one of the most fascinating aspects of its history. Originally seen as a massacre of white soldiers by merciless Indians, the loss of of 267 American soldiers outraged and humiliated a country that was in the process of celebrating it’s Centennial. The resulting outcry sealed the doom of the Lakota, Cheyenne and other plains Indians tribes who had united for one last great war against white encroachment. Custer was portrayed as a great hero, thanks in no small part to his wife Libby’s hagiographic biography of their lives together called Boots and Saddles.
Then in the 1960’s, a welcome re-examination of America’s mythic heroes, including Custer, was initiated by historians eager to take advantage of the American people’s desire for the “truth” about our past. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction and Custer emerged as a vainglorious martinet of an officer, so eager for glory that he sacrificed his men on the altar of personal ambition.
By the late 1970’s, Custer’s image had been slightly rehabilitated thanks to a re-examination of his outstanding career as a Civil War cavalry leader. And along with authors like Jeffrey Wert and Evan McConnel, a new, more personal side of Custer emerged. The arrogant martinet became the loving and devoted husband whose letters to his young wife reveal a playful, likable man with a penchant for teasing.
But on that fateful Sunday, Custer allowed the darker side of his personality to take over. This was a Custer that was unconcerned with the lives of his men. This was the Custer who had been court martialed and suspended for a year for disobeying orders. And this was the Custer whose overweening confidence in his own abilities and suicidal disdain for the fighting skills of his adversary sealed his fate and the fate of so many in his command.
He was not technically in violation of his orders. General Terry who was making his way to the Little Big Horn with 2,500 infantry was due the next day but had not specifically ordered Custer to wait. So despite the warnings of his faithful Crow scouts (“Many Sioux” they had told him, a warning he didn’t heed because he thought the Indians couldn’t give an accurate count of warriors), Custer rode to his death.
His survey of the Indian encampment before him was superficial. All he could see from his vantage point was the north end of the village. This was due to a quirk in the topography of the battlefield. If you ever visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, you’ll be struck by the gently, rolling hills that give the impression of a single valley stretching out in the distance. What Custer couldn’t see were intervening copses and indentations that hid not the 5,000 or so Indians he believed he was facing, but fully 15,000 men, women and children in a gigantic encampment that stretched for more than 5 miles across the plain.
At the sight of Custer’s men, the Indian warriors rushed to their families and helped to get them out of harms way. Custer interpreted this as a sign that the Indians were preparing to flee and divided his command into 3 sections. He sent Major Reno around to where he thought the south end of the camp was, ordering him to ride through the village and sow confusion while he attacked from the north and the other column commanded by Major Benteen attacked from the east.
It was stupid, rash, and doomed to failure. Reno, an inexperienced (some would say cowardly) officer took one look at the immense village before him and retreated. Some historians believe that if Reno had attacked while the warriors were busy looking after the safety of their families he could have in fact caused the kind of confusion that Custer was looking for. What this would have meant to the outcome of the battle is uncertain. It may have given Custer time to find better defensive ground as his subordinate Major Benteen was able to do by linking up with the incompetent Reno who had taken up a position on a steep bluff overlooking the Little Big Horn river. Given Custer’s impetuous nature, this probably wasn’t in the cards.
Custer’s 267 men rode along a bluff that he thought hid him from sight of the village. He was tragically mistaken. The Indians, alerted to his presence by the incompetent Reno were now swarming between the copses and in the shallow depressions that marked the north end of the battlefield. Too late, Custer realized his predicament and ordered his men up to the top of a gently sloping hill northwest of the village. Known as “Last Stand Hill,” approximately 900 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors were able to surround Custer’s command and wipe them out to almost the last man. (One of Custer’s Crow scouts escaped by wrapping a Lakota blanket around himself and simply wandering away).
In the aftermath of the battle, General Terry arrived and after hastily burying the dead, started after Sitting Bull and his people. Evading capture for two years by going to Canada, the starving Lakotans finally surrendered on their own and were forced onto reservations.
The spectacular victory of the Indians over the United States army was the last major engagement of the Indian wars of the 19th century. There would be other skirmishes and campaigns – most notably against Goyathlay AKA “Geronimo, the great Chiricahua Apache warrior – but Little Big Horn would be the last time so many warriors on both sides were involved.
As for history’s judgment, Custer’s legacy will be a mixed one. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that Little Big Horn will overshadow his real accomplishments as a cavalry commander during the Civil War. He remains one of the most fascinating characters in American history, reason enough for the continued fascination with the battle that claimed his life.
11:03 am
This is an interesting article. Custer’s arrogance and overconfidence had been the very things that caused him to succeed so well in the War Between the States. Yet it was these very traits that led to his ultimate failure.
My comment is this: Are the traits that have led to G. Bush’s success “going on gut instinct and holding firm in the face of adversity” the very things that will lead to his own political destruction, specifically the ill-conceived adventure in Iraq which has blown a whole in the armed forces for years to come, and, no matter what the outcome (and I hope we win) financially weakened the country to such a point that we will never fully recover?
I think Custer is a cautionary tale that it would be wise to study.
12:51 am
Custer was not a hero and I disagree with having a state park named after him. He and his troops massacred innocent indigenous men, women, and children because their skin color was red.
The American Indian welcomed the white man with warm hospitality and showed them how to grow crops. The Pilgrims and the whites who came later would never have survived without the help of all indigenous people.
These are the words of Crazy Horse, “A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky. I was hostile to the white man. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times, we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape, but we were so hemmed in we had to fight.”
6:09 pm
The most interesting debate I have found concerning the Battle of Greasey Grass Creek is from some various Indian accounts. Oral history accounts sometimes embellish various parts of the ‘story’, however in this case there is some strong evidence. Many Indian accounts state quite eloquently that as the battle intensified, the Great Spirit caused a hude invisible war shield to decend around the soldiers on the hill. As the soldiers fired their weapons, the bullits hit the shield and bounced back to hit the soldiers. Since suicide was a little known or rare occurance among the Native Americans, this is how they explained what was happening. Many of the soldiers had not fought against the Indians before. They had been told that their adversaries were disorganized and poor fighters. The soldiers thought they were out for a walk in the part. Custer even left his gattling guns behind—because he wanted to travel fast, get it over, and return the hero. Also, many soldiers had been told, to “save the last round for yourself” in case of capture because the ‘savages’ were experts at all sorts of barbaric torture. The combination of underestimating an enemy, inexperience in Indian fighting, and poor tactics based on arrogance caused the disaster for the 7th cavalry on that hot summer day in 1876.
3:50 pm
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4:03 am
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11:35 pm
i think custer was a coward he called anything a victory if he caught a camp of women and children and murdered all of them he called it a victory in my opinion he is a coward and a liar
2:44 am
It’s a shame that custer is so portrayed as such the villian. he is caught, being in the middle of political decisions well beyond his control. soldiers do not make policy, civilian leaders do, and as a soldier you carry out the orders of your superiors to the best of your ability. sometimes the decisions that are made in the field are hasty or incorrect due to limited intellegence that is available or to limited communications. it’s easy to secound guess a persons action after the fact. custers’ actions may not have been popular or even humane by todays standards but at that time in history, it was considered war. like it or not custer died for your sins. hopefully we learn from his mistakes, I doubt it.
5:59 pm
I think custed was a villan but he was honourable
10:58 pm
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11:53 pm
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8:09 am
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6:22 pm
You have most of it right. However, Reno was neither incompetent nor a coward.
He had seen much action in the Civil War and was known to be brave and steady. But fighting the plains indian was a different type of warfare altogether. Fighting organized warfare against an enemy who follows the conventions of war as compared to a largely guerilla force who will slowly torture you to death if captured are two entirely different situations. Furthermore having Bloody Knife’s (Crow Scout) brains spattered across his face didn’t help matters.
Reno’s charge was doomed to failure from the beginning. Even if he had not stalled his charge, there was a steep gully that he would have rode into and it would have made things even more disastrous then they were already. In addition Custer was not the only defeated in this campaign. George Crook was turned back by Crazy Horse days earlier and I don’t think anyone would question his courage. It’s a nice article but it is far too short to cover the complex issues involved. As a result you give people only half the story and they will always come to a half baked wrong conclusion.
5:17 pm
My Really big question is how can the Union Army consider George Custer a Civil War Hero.Im told it was for his heroic charges during the Civil War.I read that on one occasion George Custer charged.General Stewarts forces seven times before he was abale to break the Confederate lines.And General Stewarts forces were half the size . Sounds like he was better at sacrificing men to gain his objective.Also it is said George Custer made a captured Cheynne Girl from the battle of Wasita.And she had a son this is the only direct decendent of George Custer.Thanks
2:53 pm
This article lies.
Custer’s orders to Reno were suicide. Reno would have had his own “Last Stand” if he had tried to obey them. Reno was the true hero of The Greasy Grass. He fought bravely to save the situation from Custer’s criminal incompetance. Custer’s troops and officers, to the last man, despised him. Custer was highly skilled at making war with women and babies. Custer was getting ready to run for president. He disobeyed orders and got his troops killed in an attempt to have one last glorious victory against the Indians. The Indians fought for their country. After the campaign, Custer’s military career would have been over. His superiors despised him, just as his troops did. President Grant despised Custer.
He murdered his own troops for his political ambitions.
11:36 am
Both the personalities and the politics involved are far too complex for an article of this length and even well informed people will come to differing conclusions (certainly “Custer’s Last Stand” makes for an interesting cultural Rohrschach’s test – it is notable, for instance, that the “anti-Custer” revisionists gained credence during the Viet Nam War, which was not dissimilar in many ways to the Indian Wars, while Custer’s redemption began after that nightmare was put to rest). The only thing in the article I find patently objectionable, however, is the calumny of Reno. Custer, either out of ignorance of the size and disposition of the foe or out of sheer hubris, sent Reno to do, with a hundred men, what Custer quickly found out he could not do with almost 300, namely to charge straight through the encampment. Reno did not panic and retreat to a defensive position out of cowardice, quite the contrary, he was halted by Indian firepower blocking his attack and he retired when it became clear that he was in danger of being outflanked, while pinned down from the front (exactly what the Indians then did to Custer, who might have benefited had he minded the same tactical considerations). Reno’s only failure was in being commanded by an officer who should have known the necessity of scouting his enemy before committing his forces (esp. committing them piecemeal, in a manner in which they could not act to withdraw and mutually reinforce each other – Bentinck was only able to link up with Reno, and to save the remnants of the Regiment, through sheer luck). One wonders, too, if Custer, had he not been so recently maltreated by the Grant Administration and had that not left him so desperate for “glorious redemption”, might have played it differently. As it was, he felt he had to “do or die” and bad tactics and over-zealousness dictated that it would be the latter.
2:55 am
This is great for history assignments, however Reno was not incompetent and he certainly wasn’t a cowward.
6:41 pm
Let’s not forget the atrocities visited on the dead by the peaceful loving Indians. Except for Custer, all of the other dead were mutilated by the woman of the tribes. They were especially adept at removing the genitals.
The Eastern Indian tribes were even more savage.
I am weary of listening to the apologists who denounce the white man for ridding the continent of indolent, misogynistic savages while creating the great nation that we are today.
9:58 pm
“Tashunca-uitco AKA “Crazy Horse.â€
THis proved to me that you didn’t bother to read the article – you only dropped by to leave a bunch of whiney, blithering stupidities.
If you are going to comment on my site, you must first read the article. And before you accuse anyone of racism, I would strongly suggest you have pretty goddamn good proof. Funny how those who seem to drop that word so casually are themselves the most guilty of it.
11:36 pm
I read the article. I found that you did do your research and it sounds pretty acurate to me. It’s not taking one side over the other but it brings out the truths of what really happened. What I noticed is that people are making recist comments on here such as savages and so forth. I am Native American and my tribe was one of them that fought in the battle fo Greasy Grass. Crazy Horse (Tasunka Witko as the Oglala called him) was a brave man as you made note of. I appreciate that you brought out his name in our language. It does bother me that a man said that women of the tribes took off the genitals of the men but the women were not allowed in battle. I agree taht we are a great nation today but why lie, cheat, and decieve people to get what you want? I’m sure we’d be an even greater nation if the white man negotiated with our ancestors. All it took was cooperation and communication. Thank you again for the article.
2:00 pm
Notation to the all news prints:
The Native American’s at that time betwwen 1870 – 1890 was trying just to make an estancance of their way of life. All blue coats (American Calvery’s horsemen was trying to do away with the Native American’s as trying to get rid of such people.
F. H. R. comits and reply’s
7:33 am
I wonder if it was called the Greasy Grass before or after the battle?