Gray Head & Long Hair-Benteen-Custer Relationship

[jc]

There was an excellent study published in 1983, by Karol Asay, titled, Gray Head and Long Hair -- The Benteen-Custer Relationship. The author's research was meticulously thorough, extensive and remarkably unbiased. The work is a 55 page view into the particular details of the relationship between Benteen and Custer, the numerous causes and effects.

Elisabeth wrote:

jc, thanks for the tip. I've just found an affordable copy on Alibris and have snapped it up. (Sorry, folks.) Looks most promising. Lovely writing.

Elisabeth,

I expect that you've received your purchase by now and was wondering what your thoughts are concerning the book? Did it provide any additional insight for you into the relationship and, if so, would you mind sharing it with us?

I have a high regard for your views and opinions.

jc

[elisabeth]

jc,

So sorry -- I should have mentioned that it had arrived. Some time ago, in fact. It's an excellent piece of work. Particularly impressive in that she's using, mostly, the same sources that are available to the rest of us ... but applying so much more insight and understanding to the evidence they provide. I especially like her observation that Benteen's attitude towards Custer and gang in the Goldin letters should not be taken as an indication of his feelings in earlier years, and that his legendary "hatred" was a late-flowering thing.

She does, I think, somewhat overstate what she calls his "deterioration". Yes, the Goldin letters are fizzing with fury, but they're full of gleeful humour too ... The impression I get from them (and of course I could be wrong) is of a man suddenly, in retirement, released from the necessity of holding his tongue as An Officer And A Gentleman must; and just as suddenly, fortuitously finding himself with the perfect audience in Goldin, a man who (he has been led to believe) knows just enough about the participants and events to grasp the enormity of what he's being told. You sense an urgency in them, too: Benteen realising he hasn't got much longer to live, and desperate, desperate to get these things on record before the canonisation of Custer has gone too far to be reversed. He knows his surviving fellow officers -- such as Godfrey et al -- have their own way to make in the world, and aren't going to risk rocking the boat; he can't expect anything from them. So who better to unburden himself to than a former enlisted man, with no apparent axe to grind? And it's fun for him. He's having a great time. So I don't entirely buy her conclusion about him "chewing on his own vitals"; there's too much joie de vivre in the letters for that -- in my view. But the rest of her analysis I like very much. A great insight, for instance, that Benteen may actually have enjoyed and relished having Custer to cross swords with, and in a way missed him once he'd gone ...

Excellent book, and thank you again for the recommendation.