June 25, 1876, Custer, The SON OF THE MORNING STAR, Flames Out on Last Stand Hill

   "SON OF THE MORNING STAR" is a great book, a study of George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn by a tremendous writer, Evan Connell; who wrote the great American novels, MR. BRIDGE and MRS. BRIDGE.

George Armstrong Custer

 THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN( CUSTER'S LAST STAND), THE END OF THE SON OF THE MORNING STAR

SON OF THE MORNING STAR,  is magnificent in its writing, its fairness to Custer and its depiction of the battle of the Little Big Horn. The depiction is brutal, one of the fascinating tidbits presented to the reader is this, many of the men of the 7th, Custer's Regiment, surrounded by legions of Sioux and Cheyenne dog soldiers, KILLED THEMSELVES.

When the relief column finally came up to the Rosebud and upon the battle field; they found many of the men of the 7th had saved the last bullet for themselves and rather than be taken alive, had placed their guns in their mouths and pulled the triggers.

Such was frontier warfare.

There have been a ton of film interpretations of Custer, from Custer as a hero in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON, to Custer as a maniac in LITTLE BIG MAN. The best film interpretation of Custer, in my opinion, was Robert Shaw(JAWS) in CUSTER OF THE WEST. Shaw nailed him.The best understanding of who General Custer was, is John Ford's fictionalized interpretation of Custer's Last Stand; his film FORT APACHE, in which Henry Fonda gives a towering and insightful performance as COLONEL OWEN THURSDAY(aka Custer).

Custer only had one tactic, his inevitable charge...elan, elan, elan. He never cared about how many men he lost, as long as he could elan the battle.

For what it is worth, his brothers, and his wife adored him (even though there were, well known in his time, rumors that Custer had fathered an illegitimate half Cheyenne child while stationed on the Washita). He and his wife never had children.

Custer died with two brothers,a nephew, and a brother- in -law, all killed, at the LITTLE BIG HORN. Custer's body was stripped (as were all the bodies,) but it was not mutilated, the others were(maybe because he fathered that child on the Washita).

His brother "Thomas Ward Custer, the only two time Medal of Honor winner up to that time, lived and died, literally, in the shadow of his older brother. In contrast to the General, Tom Custer's body was castrated, brained, scalped several times. His heart had been cut out. Some say it had been eaten by one of the Indian warriors. His face had been so badly mutilated that the only way his body was identified was by the tattoo "T.C." on his arm. "

Tom Custer, wearing his TWO Medals of Honor.

" The scalp of Custer's 18 year old nephew, Harry Armstrong Reed, resides in a museum in Wichita, Kansas. He was killed along with his uncle at the battle of Little Big Horn. Harry's job was to hold the 7th Calvary flagpole, which he reportedly did until the end. His scalp was found six weeks later, attached to a pole, in the camp of Chief Crazy Horse, and then, through a series of private collectors, eventually ended up in Kansas."

 Henry Armstrong Reed

Custer's brother- in- law, JAMES CALHOUN was Custer's adjuntant. He wrote a published book, "WITH CUSTER IN '74" . "Calhoun wrote of the Indians in letters to his family as "heathens" and foresaw a day when white civilization would wipe them out."

Lt. Calhoun died at the Little Big Horn trying to wipe out the Native Americans.

Lt. James Calhoun

Custer's brother BOSTON CUSTER had been unable to officially join the Army due to poor health, but he tagged along with the 7th Cavalry on the baggage train. When his brother, George, asked for more ammunition, Boston Custer carried it to him,to die with him on LAST STAND HILL.Boston Custer

The vision which Sitting Bull had, which foretold the defeat of the white eyes, was extraordinarily specific. The white eyes would be defeated, that was a given. If the bodies of the white eyes were left intact, the Lakota would win many more great victories.

However, if the bodies of the white eyes were mutilated, the Lakota would lose everything.

Sitting Bull

The Lakota gave in to the blood lust and mutilated everyone but the SON OF THE MORNING STAR, Custer; the Lakota lost everything.

(Editor's note-visions seem to be very specific. The Mahdi had a vision that he would lead a great Islamic rebellion; so he would be allowed to kill Gordon Pasha of Khartoum, but Gordon's body was not to be defiled. The Mahdi's men disobeyed him, and decapitated Gordon's head, bringing it to the Mahdi on a pike. The Mahdi died three months later, without ever leading the great Islamic Rebellion.. Followers of  Visionaries, be forewarned-one must follow the vision's instructions specifically).

It is intriguing to postulate that the Dakotas would still be a Native American nation, an independent enclave, rather than a reservation, if the Lakota had not indulged in mutilations. 

 John Jordan Crittenden III (June 5, 1854 – June 25, 1876), the scion of the famous Crittendens, also was killed at the Little Big Horn.

"He was a son of American Civil War general Thomas Leonidas Crittenden; nephew of Confederate George Crittenden, grandson and namesake of former Kentucky U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden and the great-grandson of Virginia politician John Crittenden, Sr. 

Right before the Little Big Horn campaign  Crittenden was TEMPORARILY  assigned to Company L of the 7th Cavalry, serving under Captain James Calhoun. Shortly after his 22nd birthday, he was killed during the Battle of Little Big Horn. His body was identified by a prosthetic glass eye from an earlier injury....."

The whole battle lasted, to quote the Lakota: "less time that it takes for a hungry man to eat a meal."

The most interesting ideological dialog ever given to a fictional Custer was in the European exploration of the Custer legend, the film, CUSTER OF THE WEST, starring the great British playwright, Robert Shaw as Custer.

”I'll make it very simple for you. The fact that we seem to be pushing you clear off the earth is not my responsibility. The problem is precisely the same as when you Cheyenne decided to take another tribe's hunting ground. You didn't ask them about their rights. You didn't care if they had been there a thousand years. You just had more men and more horses. You destroyed them in battle. You took what you wanted, and right or wrong, for better or worse, that is the way things seem to get done. That's history. I'm talking about history. You are a militarily defeated people. You are paying the price for being backward. And whatever my personal feelings, and I don't say I have, there's nothing I can do to change all this. Do you understand?”…Robert Shaw as Custer in ….CUSTER OF THE WEST”

To this Blogger, the Shaw variant is a very British Imperialist apologia for Custer decimating natives. To this Blogger, Custer was  racist, a reckless General, and  a narcissistic showman. His appropriation of the Irish song, GARRY OWEN for his personal, and the 7th's Battle Hymn, was masterful showmanship.

Custer is one of the prime examples of one of the prime American dilemmas. He was a racist who was incredibly brave, just like the other brave Indian killing racists, Mad Anthony Wayne, Kit Carson, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, ETHAN EDWARDS, Nelson Miles, Phil Sheridan,  Al Sieber, Daniel Boone,Wild Bill Hickok.

As Americans, we are honor bound to honor their bravery; as modern Americans, we are appalled by their rampant racism; how to reconcile both? As a society, we have failed, up to this point, to do that. Must we take the racism with the bravery? Is the bravery a natural by product of the racism? (See Confederate soldiers).

This American society would have been so much better served if Custer had been a sniveling coward and had run from the Lakota at Last Stand Hill, or committed suicide on Last Stand Hill, but he did not. With his beloved racist family around him, he and they fought to the last bullet. Garry Owen In Glory-

   "Our hearts so stout have got us fame,
for soon 'tis known from whence we came,
where're we go they dread the name,
of Garry Owen in glory."

LAST STAND HILL