An American Heritage Q & A with Custer Historian James Donovan

Scores of films have been made about the Battle of the Little Bighorn—or Custer’s Last Stand, as it is popularly known. According to historians, the number of books written on the campaign and its major participants, especially Custer and Crazy Horse, long ago passed the 1,000 mark.

Writer James Donovan author of Custer and the Little Bighorn(Voyageur Press, 2002), has added the latest volume on the subject with A Terrible Glory—Custer and the Little Bighorn(Little Brown, 2008). He has used comprehensive documentation and the latest forensic accounts to reconstruct the campaign of America’s most famous military disasters. Donovan spoke with American Heritage from his home in Dallas.

AH: Curiously, very little has been written about the battle of the Little Bighorn itself. Stephen Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer devotes maybe three or four pages to the actual battle. 

JD: There are books on the battle, but most of them are aimed toward the Custer/Little Bighorn specialist or fanatic. 

There's not much literature intended for the general public that’s devoted to the actual battle. Evan Connell's fascinating Son of the Morning Star doesn't have a battle account. Maybe it's because the battle is one of the great mysteries of American history: what really happened to Custer's battalion of 211 men? The only witnesses were the Indians, and their accounts are somewhat contradictory. There has been significant new research and analysis in the last 25 years—archaeological findings that have been analyzed forensically, revealing vital new details. Many Indian accounts have been re-evaluated. I've synthesized those findings with every primary account of the battle to produce a realistic explanation of what happened that day.

AH: How recognizable was Custer in the United States before his death at the Little Bighorn?

JD: Custer was the most photographed man of his time—even more than Abraham Lincoln. By the end of the Civil War, there were only a few generals whose images were better known to the American public. In the decade following the war, he was constantly in the news as an Indian fighter and trailblazer, though some might say his reputation exceeded his actual accomplishments. Newspapers and photographers sold photos of Custer. Few if any other generals received the same treatment. He offered a romantic image; Americans responded positively. They liked his long blonde hair and gaudy uniforms of his own design. One newspaper dubbed him "The Boy General of the Golden Lock."

Of course, immortality came only with his death while leading a small band of men against thousands of Indians—Custer’s Last Stand. Without that, today he'd probably be about as famous as George Crook.

AH: Stephen Ambrose, among other historians, seemed to buy into the idea that Custer was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination at the time of the Little Bighorn campaign. What are your thoughts? 

JD: That’s a Custer myth, based on a highly dubious account obtained decades later from one of Custer's Arikara scouts, Red Star, who told an interviewer about a meeting he didn’t even attend. Through an interpreter, Custer supposedly told some other Arikara scouts that a victory, no matter how small, would make him the Great Father—President. He said Custer had told the scouts the same thing another time also. Beyond the questions of erroneous interpretation or understanding—Custer might possibly have been talking about another lofty position, such as director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, though even that’s unlikely. Custer was politically naïve, and his only close-up experience in that field—a publicity tour for President Andrew Johnson that he accompanied right after the Civil War (and left early after his participation was criticized by both the public and the press)—was a negative one. There was not one mention in any newspaper of the time, or at the Democratic National Convention, of a Custer candidacy.

Finally, and most telling, in the last letter Elizabeth Custer wrote to her husband three days before the battle, she discusses the Democratic presidential candidates and the upcoming election without mentioning her husband. Surely Custer would have discussed any plans for the presidency—a matter of some importance, one would think—with his wife.

All this has not prevented some writers from embellishing Red Star’s dubious remembrance to ridiculous lengths. Mari Sandoz, a good storyteller but not a very accurate historian, was the main culprit; in her popular The Battle of the Little Bighorn, she invented an elaborate fantasy of Custer attacking the Indian camp early so that news of his great victory could be carried by scouts to telegraph stations and then transmitted to the convention in time for his supporters to swing the nomination. It’s pure balderdash, but other writers took her story and incorporated it into their own books and articles. He probably hoped that a success would bring him his general’s stars. He was only a lieutenant colonel at the time.

AH: Custer’s few Indian campaigns overshadowed his far more substantial service in the Union Army. How would you rate his record in the Civil War?

JD: By the end of the war, only a few generals—Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan—were held in higher esteem by the American public. Custer distinguished himself in the last two years of the war as a cavalry commander. He was only a captain in the Regular Army when he was promoted to Brigadier General of volunteers a few days before Gettysburg; in that greatest of battles, he played a large part in holding the line east of town against an attack by J.E.B. Stuart on the Union rear, personally leading two major charges and delivering Stuart’s first major defeat at the hands of the Federal Cavalry.

He eventually earned brevet promotions to Major General in both the Regular Army and the Volunteer Army. He was admired by his men, despite high casualties, because he led from the front—which few generals did—and they trusted his instincts. He was valued by his superiors, especially Philip Sheridan, because he got results. (Some even called him Sheridan’s “attack dog.”) He was a brilliant tactical cavalry leader—an officer on a rival’s staff called him “the model of a light cavalry officer, quick in observation, clear in judgment, and resolute and determined in execution.” Against a Rebel army low on both spirit and supplies, but still dangerous while defending everything dear to them, he was constantly in the forefront of the Union advance, leading charge after successful charge.

AH: Considering his impressive military record, Custer’s court martial seems to have been one of the strangest incidents of his life.

JD: In July 1867, while chasing Indians in Kansas Territory, Custer, who had been away from his wife Libbie for a few months, left his command at Fort Wallace and galloped eastward with an escort of 76 troopers. Fifty-seven hours and 150 miles later, he reached Fort Riley for an ecstatic reunion with his wife. The official commanding officer of the 7th Cavalry brought several charges against him—"absent without leave from his command" and "conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline" among them—and another 7th officer filed more. Custer's defense was shaky—he claimed that he was worried about his wife's safety because of a cholera epidemic spreading through the area, and the threat of Indians. It appears that the real reason was simply a desire to see his wife.

A court-martial was convened a couple of months later. Custer pleaded not guilty to all charges. After a month of deliberations, he was found guilty on all but three charges. The court ruled that he should be suspended from rank and command for one year, without pay—a relatively mild sentence, since he could have been dishonorably discharged. Court-martials were much more common at the time, so this was not a career-ending humiliation. The Custers treated the sentence as a year-long vacation, wintering at their friend General Philip Sheridan's quarters at Fort Leavenworth and heading back east to their home in Monroe, Michigan in the spring. He seems to have learned his lesson, and his men—even those officers not friendly to him—found him to some degree a changed man. With two months left on his sentence, he was ordered back west to lead the 7th Cavalry on the campaign that ended in the Battle of the Washita.

AH: What about the charges by Custer’s critics, who claim that he was an inexperienced Indian fighter?

JD: Custer’s experience consisted of successfully routing a sleeping Cheyenne village of fifty lodges in 1868, and a couple of intense skirmishes against the Sioux on the Yellowstone in 1873. No one else had much experience either. There were other able Indian fighters, of course, but no one available at the time had more experience against the Sioux and Cheyenne. It was close to impossible to catch the so-called “hostile” Indians of the Northern Plains, primarily the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, and bring them to battle. That’s why Custer’s superiors wanted him to lead the Dakota column. The reason he didn’t lead it, of course, is that his testimony in Washington concerning the post tradership scandal—which mentioned President Grant’s Secretary of War and Grant’s brother Orville—got him crosswise with President Grant.

General George Crook gained his reputation, and his general’s star, with successes against the Paiutes of Oregon and the Apaches in Arizona. But he found no such triumphs on the Northern Plains; at the Battle of the Rosebud eight days before the Custer fight, he managed a draw at best and had to retreat. Lt. Col. Eugene Carr was also a good Indian fighter—he had won a great success against Tall Bull’s Cheyenne Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs in 1869—and Col. Nelson Miles proved himself as a dogged and smart campaigner against the Sioux in the years following the Little Bighorn battle. But the best Indian fighter might have been Col. Ranald Mackenzie, another Civil War “Boy General” who successfully fought the Southern Plains Indians and then won a key battle against Dull Knife on the Powder River.

AH: What were Custer’s orders in the Little Bighorn campaign? Was he reckless, as some have charged, in trying to take on the entire Indian force by himself? Or was he obeying orders as he understood them?

JD: This is one of the great controversies of the battle. I think it’s clear from the circumstances that his superior, Gen. Alfred Terry—who was a desk-jockey department commander with no experience in the field against Indians—was happy to let Custer loose to find the Indians and chastise them. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what he wrote to his boss, Gen. Philip Sheridan, on February 21: “I think my only plan will be to give Custer a secure base well up on the Yellowstone from which he can operate.” On June 21, the night before Custer led his regiment away from the Dakota column, Terry offered him a battalion of the 2nd Cavalry from the smaller Montana column and his Gatling gun battery, an offer which Custer refused. That would have left Terry with about 200 men, which makes it highly doubtful that he intended a combined attack. (Terry also gave Custer all six of the Montana column’s Crow scouts, another telling sign of his intention.)

Custer was clearly the strike force, with Terry and the Montana column marching south up the Bighorn river to act as the blocking force, intercepting any Indians trying to escape north (the camp was believed to be somewhere on the upper Little Bighorn). Besides, the village was constantly on the move, and the Army was working in virtual terra incognita, with close communications out of the question. Any possible meeting place could have only been a guess, so Terry’s orders to Custer were discretionary in nature, worded as suggestions, and granted Custer plenty of leeway: “It is of course impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement,” he wrote, “and were it not impossible to do so, the Department Commander [Terry] places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders, which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy.” There was no talk of a combined attack until after the battle. Custer was dead, and a convenient scapegoat. He made mistakes on the Little Bighorn, but not all those of which he is commonly accused.

I don’t think he was reckless in taking on the entire Indian village himself—there’s little doubt in my mind that a disciplined Army regiment of more than 700 men could have routed a force of Sioux and Cheyenne two or three times their size if properly deployed. Custer erred by dividing his force into four parts and throwing them into battle at different times with little coordination or communication between them. He was defeated in detail by a motivated enemy who had no time to scatter as they usually did and thus had no choice but to fight back—and did so gloriously.

AH: A couple dozen actors have played Custer in the movies, from Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan to Robert Shaw. Which depiction do you think is the most historically accurate, and who is your favorite?

JD: I’m a movie fanatic, from the silents to the current crop, and I’ve seen just about every decent western there is. But somehow I missed They Died With Their Boots On until a year ago. Flynn does have the necessary dash and confidence, and Olivia de Havilland is Libbie Custer to a T, but once the movie reaches Indian country it gets more and more inaccurate and unbelievable, and the final battle is a joke. Son of the Morning Star, the television film, isn’t much better in my view—bad casting and a low budget doomed that version. My favorite Custer is Robert Lansing in an episode of “Branded,” the television show from the 1960s in which Chuck Connors played a dishonored Army officer who roams the West trying to vindicate himself. It turns out he’s an old friend of Custer’s, and visits him at Ft. Lincoln at the behest of President Grant. Lansing is excellent as Custer—he projects the right mix of arrogance, confidence, intelligence, warmth, and even self-doubt. He’s totally believable.

AH: If Custer had somehow won the battle of the Little Bighorn, would he be as famous as he is today?

JD: Absolutely not. With a success at the Little Bighorn, he might have gone on to a stellar Army career such as Nelson Miles enjoyed, and achieved that level of fame. But that would have occurred only if he received a promotion to General; otherwise, he might have been as well-known as Col. Eugene A. Carr, who defeated the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs, Colorado, in 1869. I don't think either name is familiar to the general public.

If George Armstrong Custer had won the battle of the Little Bighorn, most people wouldn’t even know his name today.