Skip to main content

Battle of Little Bighorn

Fate brought Custer and Sitting Bull together one bloody June evening at the Little Bighorn—and marked the end of the Wild West

Thomas Berger, the author of a classic novel of the American West, speaks about its long-awaited sequel—and about what is to be learned in the challenging territory that lies between history and fiction

In 1992 American Heritage asked various historians, artists, and writers to name their candidate for best historical novel.

Our greatest Western novelist deciphers Crazy Horse, Custer, and the hard year of the Little Bighorn

Starting with a single, haunting battlefield image, an amateur photo detective managed to reconstruct a forgotten photographer’s life and uncover a treasure of Indian portraits.

I had waited six months to see it. A long-time collector, I loved to roam the monthly swap meet in Long Beach, California near my home.
In the fall of 1960 a novelty-song about Custer’s Last Stand climbed its way inexplicably onto the Billboard charts.

No battle in American history has won more attention than the relatively insignificant defeat at the Little Bighorn River in 1876.

A Cheyenne historian whose grandfather was in the battle sheds new light on the slaughter of Custer and his troopers

So spoke Sitting Bull, greatest of Sioux chiefs, as he bitterly watched his people bargain away their Dakota homeland

To Stanley Vestal, the old Sioux warrior White Bull describes the day when he counted his greatest coup

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate