"How the Battle of Little Bighorn Was Won" Topic

Quite interesting Reading….

"The Battle of the Little Bighorn is one of the most studied actions in U.S. military history, and the immense literature on the subject is devoted primarily to answering questions about Custer's generalship during the fighting. But neither he nor the 209 men in his immediate command survived the day, and an Indian counterattack would pin down seven companies of their fellow 7th Cavalrymen on a hilltop over four miles away. (Of about 400 soldiers on the hilltop, 53 were killed and 60 were wounded before the Indians ended their siege the next day.) The experience of Custer and his men can be reconstructed only by inference.

This is not true of the Indian version of the battle. Long-neglected accounts given by more than 50 Indian participants or witnesses provide a means of tracking the fight from the first warning to the killing of the last of Custer's troopers—a period of about two hours and 15 minutes. In his new book, The Killing of Crazy Horse, veteran reporter Thomas Powers draws on these accounts to present a comprehensive narrative account of the battle as the Indians experienced it. Crazy Horse's stunning victory over Custer, which both angered and frightened the Army, led to the killing of the chief a year later. "My purpose in telling the story as I did," Powers says, "was to let the Indians describe what happened, and to identify the moment when Custer's men disintegrated as a fighting unit and their defeat became inevitable."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well, Crazy Horse definitely had to go. You couldn't have a symbol of US military failure walking around and inspiring more Little Bighorns.

Reminds me a bit of that scene in The Ten Commandments (1956):

Moses: What I have done… I was compelled to do.
Seti: So be it. What I do now, I am compelled to do.

Dan
PS. So, let me get this straight, this guy wants to rewrite the account based on the winner's version and not the loser's? But isn't that what scholars always complain about, because the victors typically tend to inflate the magnitude of their feats?

It is a general good that historians should seek to explore both sides of an event to get at what really happened. That the US side of the event has dominated until recently is sue, IMO, to the written documentation that we have (US Army strength returns, reports written before and during the battle, etc.). The native American story has likewise been hampered by the lack of traditional documentation. I just wish writers would stay away from the sensationalism---maybe that is laid on by the publisher?

The Indian narrative has been documented by a few historians.The problem is that accounts were often poorly translated, given years after the battle or tailored to the speaker's audience. The Indian sense of time was also very different than the American population. There has been some very good info provided by their accounts. Just not sure a definitive narrative is possible.

Thanks.

Greg Michno did this very effectively 20 years ago in Lakota Noon. YMMV.

I didn't see anything in the article that changes what we know of the battle. Uncoordinated attacks beaten back with the main force over ran by superior numbers after unorganized attacks and general break down of leadership on the field.

Accounts of the battle that postdate the reaerch of the 1980s have the advantage of factual evidence to boloster their narratives. However, be careful that the author doesn't conveniently omit facts in favor of their pet theory. Good luck.