Little Bighorn Campaign

General Custer and 261 Massacred!… No Survivors to Tell the Story! So read newspaper headlines after Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s command of the 7th Cavalry was annihilated by a host of Indians at the Little Bighorn River on 25 June 1876. Since then, Custer and his tragic fate have become a legend enshrouded in myth, controversy, and the celluloid fantasies of Hollywood. Over the years, historians have focused primarily on the Last Stand, Custer and his troops making a desperate effort to save themselves from inevitable disaster. Too often this approach has ignored the great panorama surrounding the event. In The Little Bighorn Campaign, Custer authority Wayne Michael Sarf investigates the 1876 campaign against the Plains Indians, a play in which Custer acted a part along with many others. Sarf describes the personalities and events that led to the disaster at Little Bighorn from a failed attempt to subdue the Indians at the Powder River to Brigadier General George Crook’s defeat at the Rosebud to Buffalo Bill’s first scalp for Custer. Sarf also investigates and describes the nature of Plains warfare, the weapons that were used, the forces involved, and the strategies and tactics employed by Army troops and the Indians. Special sidebars include such topics as the personalities involved, Indian allies of the Army, and a history of the 7th Cavalry. Answers are given to some of the most nagging questions of Little Bighorn: was Custer betrayed? could gatling guns have spared him from his awful fate? and what actually happened there? The Custer buff will enjoy the orders of battle for both the Indians and Army, while the interested novice will find useful the suggestedbooks and movies to read, see, or avoid.