the man who killed custer in a longer than usual post with his description of the day;

Few episodes in American history have held more fascination for writers—or the public—than George Armstrong Custer’s Last Stand. More has been written on this relatively unimportant incident in American history than on the Battle of Gettysburg—and probably no two accounts agree in all details.

Much of the new material on Custer’s Last Stand comes to the attention of the editors of AMERICAN HERITAGE and from what we have seen none holds quite the fascination of this entertaining article by Stanley Vestal, author of many books on the Old West. The story he tells is adapted for AMERICAN HERITAGE from his forthcoming book, Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux, to be published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

The almost legendary action took place in the early summer of 1876, when the Sioux and their allies, the Northern Cheyenne, had very real and altogether legitimate grievances against the United States government. In the treaty signed at Fort Laramie in 1868, the government promised that the Black Hills, the traditionally sacred preserve of the Indians, would be forever free from white settlers. But when gold was discovered there in 1874, sooners began swarming over the whole area.

From this time on, it was the old story of great wrongs compounded by greater ones: once the Treaty of 1868 had been violated, the Army and the Indian Bureau decided to consolidate white occupation of the Black Hills by breaking Sioux power once and for all. They began by restricting the Indians’ movements to the boundaries of the reservations during the terrible winter of 1875-70 when game was so scarce on the reservations that the Indians faced starvation. Then the government announced that all Sioux and Northern Cheyenne found off their reservations after January 31, 1876, were to be regarded as hostile. Famine was already widespread, and the Indians had no choice but to defend themselves when Custer moved against them in punitive expedition.

From the Army standpoint, Custer’s campaign went wrong from the beginning. Scheduled to start in early spring, the two-mile column of cavalry, infantry, scouts, and wagons did not leave Fort Abraham Lincoln until May 17. By then the Indians had gathered in large numbers and were prepared to fight. Moreover, the complicated plan of attack worked out by General Alfred H. Terry, Custer’s commander, called for three columns converging on the Yellowstone region from different directions—all very well on paper, but in fact a fearsome trip across deep streams, badlands, and mountains.........read more....