A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West |...

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West | James Donovan | Good reading

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A Terrible Glory: ...

	A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West James Donovan Little, Brown and Company, 2008 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Custer's Last Glory

This book is excellent, thoroughly detailed with information I never knew existed before. I strongly urge anyone interested in western history, or Custer history to read this book. And, while they are reading it, they should also read Archaelogical Perspectives on The Battle Of The Little Bighorn by Douglas D. Scott, Richard A. Fox, Jr., Melissa A. Connor, and Dick Harmon, Archeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle by Richard Allan Fox, Jr., and In Custer's Shadow: Major Marcus Reno by Brian Pohanka. All three books greatly enhance A Terrible Glory, and it gives the reader a broader view of not only the history of Custer's Last Stand, but it also provides an in-depth accounting of where his men were during the battle through archeological investigations, and it also provides an understanding of who Major Marcus Reno was. I strongly urge anyone to read all these books. A Terrible Glory has kept me spellbound during my reading, and it is a must on anyone interested in western history.

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Good reading

Well written book on Custer and the events leading up to and after the Little Bighorn.

About as good as we can get thus far...

Great read, and portrays the best and most visual description of the battle and what happened... well recommended...

Custer's Luck: Waiting 127 years for the answer

It is interesting that the most celebrated events in U.S. military history are its defeats - Pearl Harbor, Bataan, The Bulge, Fredericksburg. Perhaps no military engagement has been researched and analyzed and commented upon, often erroneously, as much as the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 when Sioux and Cheyenne warriors killed George Armstrong Custer and several hundred troopers of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry. Beginning immediately after the discovery of the tragedy by the U.S. Army, players and observers began to spin events to their advantage creating an amazing cacophony of contradictory accounts, speculation, blaming, and name calling that continued for more than a century. The event gave rise to a sub species of historian, the Custer Buff, people who read everything they can about the battle, its run up, and its aftermath.

Soon after the nation was stunned by the defeat, large, full-color paintings decorated barrooms showing the Civil War hero and widely-heralded Indian fighter firing his revolver as swarms of warriors overran his position on a dry hilltop in Montana. The paintings read "Custer's Last Stand."

In A Terrible Glory Donovan goes back to square one in his research relying on primary sources - the statements and recollections of the participants and eyewitnesses supported by archaeological evidence. With such a famous event there were naturally inconsistent, conflicting, and even fraudulent accounts of what happened when Custer, some say against orders, split his regiment to attack a Sioux village. Even Custer's commander said he violated orders. Donovan shows this as a classic case of CYA and blame the dead man. Others who had something to hide joined in manipulating facts.

This is a carefully researched and very readable account of Custer's life, U.S. Indian policy, and the campaign that shattered one of the Army's most esteemed regiments. Donovan also follows the convoluted courses of events afterwards and the personalities who shaped and reshaped popular understanding of the battle. Where the accounts differ Donovan included in the endnotes discussions of contradictory evidence. In some cases makes his own judgment as to the likely course of events. I used two bookmarks, one for where I stopped reading the text and one for the endnotes.

One participant held up for the most scorn was Major Marcus Reno, leader of the battalion assigned to attack the huge Indian village. The attack failed and Reno and his fellow fugitives fled into woods, across a river, and into a defensive position on some bluffs. The heavy-drinking Reno was, by most accounts, drunk and incapable of command, but when the Army held a court of inquiry, his fellow officers minimized his (and their own) failings. Drunk or sober, it doesn't sound as if Reno could have helped Custer much.

The reader is provided with a balanced, well organized, and credible account of a very popular historical event. Some 400,000 people a year visit the battlefield where most of the dead soldiers were buried where they died.

For any Custer Buff, anyone interested in the history of the Old West, and any student of the historical process, A Terrible Glory is a good read.

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Custer, the rest of the story

I am a direct decendent of Sitting Bull (as I have been told) and am delighted to read an account of this happening other than showing Custer as a hero. The army was made up of a bunch of men who could not make a living with any skills at all, so they chose to ride into the West and take lives and a way to keep alive away from the people who already lived there. Greed and glory should have been the alternate name of this book. I am about 3/4 of the way through it so far...

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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