Time for 'Vengeance'

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull is being published this week by St. Martin’s Press. In several of the interviews that I have already done, I’ve been asked: Why another book on the Battle of the Little Bighorn? After all, a whole stable of distinguished writers – including, in more recent years, James Donovan, Mark Lee Gardner, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Robert Utley – has tackled one of the most famous topics in American history.

That very fame is a reason. The battle on June 25 – 27, 1876 is like our version of a Greek myth. It is a story of warriors clashing in the most dramatic way, and it ends in tragedy. With every re-telling we re-experience that epic event and we learn new things – or change our opinions – about the battle and its participants.

It makes sense, too, that there is a new book to coincide with the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It reminds us of reports reaching major cities throughout the United States in July 1876 of the defeat of not only of an entire Army regiment but the demise of George Armstrong Custer, the most charismatic cavalry commander in the country. The anniversary of such a catastrophe – for white America – is reason enough.

“In truth, it was also the last stand of the Sioux and Cheyenne as well, because their victory over Custer led to their own destruction,” writes Herman J. Viola in Little Bighorn Remembered. “Imagine the shock and embarrassment to citizens of the United States enjoying the centennial year of their independence. The U.S. Army went after Sitting Bull and his allies with a vengeance.”

Indeed, because the battle is often referred to as “Custer’s Last Stand,” where he met his glorious end – as it would be portrayed in scores of illustrations and paintings – such a Custer-centric view obscures that the event hastened the end of independence for the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. By the finish of the following year, many of their leaders were dead, in exile, or confined to reservations, sometimes starving thanks to the malfeasance of Indian agents. The experiences and fates of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, and others are crucial to the full story.

Then there is that word again: Vengeance. That theme is woven throughout the story. In addition to gaining prestige and counting coup, warriors in the Great Plains tribes were always seeking to avenge some previous transgression. When the white settlers and soldiers arrived, the hunger for vengeance intensified – Cheyene must avenge the Sand Creek Massacre, the Army must avenge the Fetterman Fight, etc. The ultimate vengeance came at Wounded Knee in December 1890 – the same month that saw the murder of Sitting Bull. It was the final “battle” of the war against the Plains tribes.

One more reason: I wanted to tell this legendary tale through my own lens. Having written a number of books about well-known characters and events in the 19^th-century American West, the thought occurred: Why haven’t I written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn? And I wanted to write the story in as straightforward a way as I could, without over-analyzing and taking detours. If readers keep turning pages, I have achieved that goal.

This story is one that does not get old – it gets retold and retold, as befits an event featuring characters who hold a prominent place is American mythology.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. The latest one is Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, being published this week by St. Martin’s Press. To purchase a copy, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.