Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1993
Abstract
During the past six years, scholars have produced a wealth of research and analysis concerning the Sioux Campaign of 1876 and its centerpiece, George Armstrong Custer. Among its flowerings are Cavalier in Buckskin, indisputably the best biography ever written on the junior commander of the Seventh Cavalry, and Custer's Last Campaign, probably the best synthesis of the voluminous testimony concerning what happened on the way to Last Stand. In addition, we now have available a selection of articles on the Sioux War of 1876-1877 published in Montana Magazine over the years, with an introductory essay by Paul Hedren that places the material in perspective and summarizes recent scholarship. The anthology does a service in making available some of the classics of the genre, including Harry Anderson's rebuttal of Mark Brown's thesis that the Black Hills had nothing to do with the 1876 campaign, Robert Athearn's discussion of the impact of the transcontinental railroad on military operations and policy, Paul Hutton's insights into the fashioning of Phillip Sheridan's Indian strategy, and Brian Dippie's analysis of the first use of the Custer Disaster to further political agendas. Cavalier in Buckskin is the first in a new biographical series aimed at the general reader, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. Utley sees the story as three dimensional. We have Custer the Civil War leader, who from Gettysburg to Appomattox compiled a virtually flawless succession of battlefield triumphs; Custer the Indian fighter, who finally won notoriety and a new identity after victory in the Battle of the Washita in November, 1868; and Custer the malleable myth, first as the embodiment of forlorn hope and eventually as the focus of misdeeds against Native Americans. Utley comes down fairly hard on Custer the person, presenting evidence that suggests a man suspect in business dealing and, if not hypocritical in other relationships, certainly unpredictable and contradictory. Utley's chapter on Custer's involvement in politics as a conservative Democrat opposed to Grant's Radical Republican views is an important contribution. Unfortunately, in keeping with series guidelines, the book is not footnoted and includes only a suggestive bibliography.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 13:1 (Winter 1993). Copyright © 1993 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.