Editorial Content for The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer: The True Story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“Custer’s military career from Bull Run to the Little Bighorn was by any measurement one of the finest in American history…yet his image has been sullied…especially in classrooms and textbooks where social and political agendas have supplanted truth.” This is the persistent theme of historical writer Thom Hatch’s new examination of the losing commander at one of America's most storied battles, against the warring Sioux at Little Bighorn. 

In the buildup to his lengthy description of the battle itself, Hatch shows Custer, a blacksmith’s son, to have been a boisterous prankster at West Point, finishing near the bottom of his class and accruing many demerits for lateness, mischief and general inattentiveness to protocol. Yet, with what he himself called “Custer’s Luck,” he slipped into the military after graduation during the outbreak of the Civil War, was immediately dispatched to Bull Run and cited for bravery. Within two years, he was a brigadier general with golden hair that flowed to his shoulders, and a loving and supportive spouse, Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon. Custer’s luck continued after the war, when he was sent to oversee troops guarding the building of western railway lines. He dealt with hostile Indians in Montana and later secured a place in the Little Bighorn campaign.

"Hatch, who has trawled through available historical materials and included many fascinating sidebars to his larger story, concludes that the military action at Little Bighorn and the eventual conquest of the Indians there were warranted by the times."

The Black Hills region was sacred to the Sioux and ceded to them by treaty. General Custer, by now legendary as an Indian fighter, went on an expedition through the area and sent word that gold had been discovered there “in paying quantities.” As Hatch records, “the find would forever change history in the Black Hills region.”

After numerous forays and much strategic thinking on Custer’s part based on his previous encounters with the indigenous hostiles, he devised a plan for attacking and defeating a large enclave of Sioux: frontal assault on his part, aided by flanking attacks by his subordinates. Hatch concurs with the historical record that condemns Major Marcus Reno as insubordinate, his scattering in the face of a larger than expected Sioux village at the foot of the hill resulting in the total defeat of those led by Custer, left to defend the top. There were other factors: green troops, unusual and unpredicted actions by the Sioux, and a decision by Custer to award Reno the glory of the valley charge rather than entrusting it to Captain Frederick Benteen, who Custer personally disliked but who, in Hatch’s estimation, “would have slammed into that village as ordered.”

Hatch, who has trawled through available historical materials and included many fascinating sidebars to his larger story, concludes that the military action at Little Bighorn and the eventual conquest of the Indians there were warranted by the times. It was no longer tenable to allow “a group advocating violence” to shut off the progress and prosperity of the larger population. As for Custer, Hatch believes that far from being viewed as “the poster boy for the destruction of Indian cultures,” he should be regarded as “a man who rose from meager beginnings to achieve greatness by his own abilities and talents,” and, like all American soldiers who engage hostile forces, should be honored and appreciated.