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Post by Jimmy Joe Meeker on Nov 14, 2005 12:34:40 GMT -6
Here are my Custer-related books and those that pertain the Sioux War 1876-77. I've omitted the more Indian-specific titles on Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Sitting Bull in Canada, Red Cloud and tribal histories in which these events feature but aren't central. I think I've got them all, but I may have missed some. I've also skipped the more general Indian Wars books like Utley's Bluecoats and Redskins and those on the pre-Great Sioux fights unless they directly relate to Custer.
Ambrose – Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of two American Warriors Bourke – On The Border with Crook Brill – Custer, Black Kettle and the Fight on the Washita Connell – Son of the Morning Star Custer – My Life on the Plains Dippie – Custer’s Last Stand : The Anatomy of an American Myth Finerty – Warpath and Bivouac Fox – Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle Galvin (ed) – Such Signal Success? Confrontation Along the Washita Graham (ed) – The Custer Myth Gray – Custer’s Last Campaign Greene – Slim Buttes, 1876: An Episode of the Great Sioux War Greene – Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyennes, 1876 Greene – Yellowstone Command: Colonel Nelson A. Miles and the Great Sioux War 1876-1877 Greene (ed) – Lakota and Cheyenne: Indian Views of the Great Sioux War, 1876-77 Greene (ed) Battles and Skirmishes of the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877: The Military View Hardorff – Hokahey! A Good Day to Die: The Indian Casualties of the Custer Fight Hardorff (ed) – Cheyenne Memories of the Custer Fight Hardorff (ed) – Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight Hardorff (ed) – Indian Views of the Custer Fight Harrison – The Eyes of the Sleepers: Cheyenne Accounts of the Washita Attack Hedren (ed) – The Great Sioux war 1876-1877 Hook – Warriors at the Little Bighorn 1876 Hughes (ed) – Custer at the Washita and Little Bighorn (Journal of the Indian Wars Vol 1, No 1) Hutton – The Custer Reader Jackson – Custer’s Gold Johnson – A Captain of “Chivalric Courage”: Thomas H. French, 7th Cavalry Libby – The Arikara narrative of Custer’s Campaign Paul – The Nebraska Indian Wars Reader, 1865-1877 Rankin – Legacy: New Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn Stewart – Custer’s Luck Taunton – Sufficient Reason Taunton – The Mystery of Miss Adams Taunton – Custer’s Field: “A Scene of Sickening Ghastly Horror” Taunton (ed) – No Pride in the Little Bighorn Taunton and Johnson (eds) More Sidelights of the Sioux Wars Utley – Custer and the Great Controversy: The Origin and Development of a Legend Utley – Little Bighorn Battlefield Vaughn – With Crook at the Rosebud Welch – Killing Custer
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Post by guest on Nov 17, 2005 5:58:31 GMT -6
Jimmy Joe Meeker - Is Galvin (ed) – Such Signal Success? Confrontation Along the Washita worth getting?
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Post by JJM on Nov 17, 2005 12:24:21 GMT -6
Yeah, but you may have some of the stuff already. Gibson of the 7th by Barry Johnson An Account of the Washita Battle by Francis Gibson The Battle of the Washita or Custer's Maasacre by Elmo Scott Watson and Don Russell Intro by Sandy Barnard
Fair illustrations and a map which could've been reproduced better
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Post by markland on Nov 17, 2005 15:58:57 GMT -6
Coincidentally, I just reopened my "Legacy" Tuesday for the first time in years to reread Dan Flores's article about the bison population on the Plains. Still a good article and Dan's presentation back in '94 at he LBH Symposium was one of the highlights of the entire deal-excluding the trip to the battlefield where I was in the group led by Rich Fox with Joe Marshall assisting him. Hey, if anyone else was there, who was the Northern Cheyenne guy there with Joe? He was one heck of a nice guy.
Billy
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Post by Diane Merkel on Nov 17, 2005 20:26:10 GMT -6
Billy,
Chuck was on that trip and remembers Joe (bought his video), but he can't remember the other guy. You might check the CBHMA newsletter from that time period to see if he's mentioned.
Diane
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Post by fred on Dec 6, 2005 23:17:20 GMT -6
You people are all lunatics!!!
I thought I might be the only fruitcake in town, but by heaven you guys have me beat 50 ways to Sunday!!! For one of the few times in my life I am ALMOST speechless.
The problem w/ all the books out there-- to MY way of thinking-- is that a lot of them are not nearly as authoritative as they should be. I have about 40 books dealing w/ the battle, plus several editions of the LBHA & CBHMA publications. I tend to concentrate on details, such as names, specific battle movements... things like that, & I move from the LBH battle to WWII & back again. I wander through bookshelves & bookstores, skim through tables of contents & indices & disregard the chaff. For instance, if I see an interesting looking book about Vietnam & its index doesn't include the name "Wm. DePuy," I put it right back. This is the problem w/ the Custer stuff. I actually started reading about this thing when I was a child, but lost sight of it for years. I picked it up again starting w/ Fox' book, "Archeology, History, & Custer's" etc., then followed it up w/ Gray. I judge everything else by those 2, so I've become very picky.
As for note taking, I highly recommend it. I keep everything on Word & Excel & I have it broken down by date &/ or by time. My campaign notes start on 14Mar76 & include every detail I've been able to drum up on the Gibbon & the Terry/ Custer columns. On the day of the battle, I have run spread sheets by author/ time/ individual. In other words, any name that appears significant, e.g., Curley, Kanipe, Martin, Yates, Keogh, GAC, Reno, Benteen, McDougall, Sharrow, Voss, et al, gets a column & times & actions entered by author. I also keep distances & speeds & compare all these to one another. In addition to this, I keep rosters & bios of everyone involved-- Indians as well-- & all of this stuff is cross-referenced, some even duplicated. For example... I've summarized ALL of Michno's Indian narratives, then I try to work them in w/ what other authors say happened. Routes are also important to me because they change timing sequences. Etc., etc., etc. And if this thread continues-- I notice it's been a while-- I DO highly recommend note-taking. It's terribly time-consuming (especially the way I do it!), but it's very, VERY satisfying... ESPECIALLY TO A BUNCH OF NUTS!!!!!!
God love you all, for I certainly do!
A brother in arms, Fred.
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Post by fred on Dec 7, 2005 6:05:57 GMT -6
Incidentally, one of those things that I will make sure remains in my collection of stuff on the LBH is the article in the LBHA "Newsletter," by Elisabeth. It's EXCELLENT & when I want information on Miles Keogh, that's where I will go to look for it. My only question is, Why is the man buried in Auburn, NY? What the Sam Hill was he doing in AUBURN, NEW YORK? I'm from NY & Auburn's between Nowhere & Nohow, NY (at least in 1876)!!! And then his family was still in Ireland? I have no record of him being married....
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Post by elisabeth on Dec 8, 2005 4:31:01 GMT -6
Well, thank you, Fred -- most honoured!
Auburn: yes, it's a surprise, isn't it. Here's why: his great friend General Alexander married Evy Martin, one of the daughters of the celebrated Throop Martin family of Auburn. Through them, Keogh got to know the rest of the family, and was a frequent visitor to their extremely nice home, Willowbrook. (Ties were further strengthened when another of his friends, General Emory Upton, married another Martin sister, Emmy.) There are rumours of a romantic involvement between Keogh and a third sister, Nelly, but historians dispute that ... Be that as it may, when Keogh had the premonition that he was going to be killed on the LBH expedition, he wrote to Nelly the day before the expedition set off saying that he'd arranged to be "packed up and shipped" to Auburn for burial. After the battle, this came as a surprise even to his closest friend in the regiment, Henry Nowlan -- who took it for granted he'd be buried in the Catholic cemetery in Louisville. Interesting, eh? An Episcopalian funeral in a Protestant cemetery instead ...
What's even odder is that he had a sister living in Tarrytown! And a cousin in Chicago. So you'd think either of those would have had prior claim. Most of his family were still in Ireland, though.
Intriguingly, it seems as if he must have named the Martins as next of kin, as it was to them that the official War Department notification-of-death telegram was sent.
Nelly did him proud, by the way -- bullying Sherman relentlessly over the return of the body. Sherman seems to have been quietly terrified of her. And so he might be. She was a formidable lady. When the Martin family later fell on hard times, she started up a canning and preserving business that ended up employing 50 people and supplying many of the grandest hotels. Oh, and her baby brother Edward Sanford Martin grew up to be a noted writer and humorist, and was a co-founder of the Harvard Lampoon. Great family. You can see why Keogh fitted in so well there.
Incidentally, one of their neighbours in Auburn was Secretary of State William Seward, who was constantly strolling in ... He had died some years before LBH, but his son was one of Keogh's pallbearers. (Diane's posted the Army & Navy Journal account of the funeral on the website, if you'd like to read it; go to Seventh Cavalry Members, click on Keogh, and you'll get through to it.)
Bet you wish you'd never asked ...!
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Post by elisabeth on Dec 8, 2005 4:53:45 GMT -6
Fred, are you going to publish your campaign notes some day? Sounds as if you've got an immensely valuable body of work there.
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Post by fred on Dec 8, 2005 6:28:21 GMT -6
Elisabeth-- I knew you would have the answer... & I have to admit, the business about Auburn, NY, perplexed me for some time. I just couldn't figure that one out. To be honest, even though I've been reading stuff on the LBH-- on & off-- for the last 10-12 years, I'm still something of a neophyte & don't have access to a lot of info. The libraries where I've been living are steeped in local stuff, but not much about the LBH. Besides, while I love bookstores, I'm not much of a library-going person.
Much of the Custer business is particularly interesting to me-- not only because it's an utterly fascinating story-- but because so much of it is so close to me. I've lived in a little village in NY called Pleasantville, for most of the last 15 years (until moving to Hurricane Central in Jan05). Pleasantville is 10 minutes from Tarrytown, NY, an hour from Hudson, NY, & even less from any number of other villages w/ historical ties to so many of the men who fought at the LBH. I did a demographic study of the white participants & 68 of them (11.8%) were from NY. A few more wound up settling there & you would be amazed at the number buried within easy driving distance of Pleasantville.
In addition, I graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, & Dr. Porter did as well, plus Wm VanWyke Reily had attended the school. Tom McDougall's funeral mass was held in our school chapel a couple years after the building was completed, & I can't even begin to tell you how many times I attended mass in that place, never knowing what it once beheld. My wife & I visited the school recently & the chapel took on a whole new meaning for me. After a while, much of the campaign becomes a bit personal, especially as one ages & you look at the pictures of men who participated. I look at myself in uniform when I was 26 or 27, I look at them. There, but for the Grace of God....
As for my notes... who knows? I concentrate on 2 phases of the campaign. Crook doesn't interest me. That's why these pages mean a lot to me. Despite some touchy personalities, there are some magnificent fillers in here. "West," for example, is as thin-skinned as the mucous membrane of a hummingbird & he's also a little too-- shall we say-- inflexible? But, boy, is the guy brilliant! If I knew 1/2 as much of my own history as this fellow... wow! You're in the same category, so I have a long way to go. Right now, I concentrate on 2 major things & I go back & forth. For some odd reason, I am utterly fascinated by the German military of WWII & I chronicle the lives & careers of flag-rank officers, plus the strategic & tactical movements of the military's units, division-size & up. Right now, I have some 946 separate profiles, plus virtually all the unit histories. Of course, there's the LBH & that's my current focus-- until I burn out, then it gets shunted aside for a few months.
The notes themselves are difficult because of all the cross-referencing necessary to keep them accurate & ... there's a word I'm searching for here! Anyway... the spread sheets, in many cases, are still in their infancy, & I have a number of books to go through before I can REALLY start applying the timing, distance, & speed techniques I want to. In the meantime, I have done a little something... typical gruff, wise-ass "fred" stuff... & I guess it's in the approval stage right now. We'll see.
I'm looking forward to a little more from our gal, Elisabeth. I know good stuff when I see it... it's one of my strengths... & your work on Keogh is exceptional. Here's one you may want to tackle & I'm sure you're already aware of it. E Company had a young 27-year old name John Stuart Stuart [that IS correct] Forbes, aka, John S. Hiley, his U.S. enlistment name. His brother was a baronet & was listed in Foster's "Perrage & Baronetage" of 1883. There's a plaque in St. John's Episcopal Church, West End, Edinburgh, Scotland, in his memory. His father was Charles Hay Forbes & his mother was Jemina Rebecca MacDonnell Forbes. She was the 3rd daughter of Alexander Ranaldson MacDonnell of Glengary. They resided in Canaan Park, Edinburgh. Wouldn't that be a hoot to research?!
See ya soon, kiddo. Best wishes, Fred.
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bhist
Full Member
Posts: 221
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Post by bhist on Dec 8, 2005 10:18:45 GMT -6
Hi Fred: Since you're interested in Forbes, you might want to visit his section of the Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield website. -- www.friendslittlebighorn.com/john_stuart_forbes_memorial.htm -- There are some great photos of the church in Edinburgh where his memorial plaque resides as well as photos of the plaque itself.
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Post by fred on Dec 8, 2005 10:25:34 GMT -6
Bob--
I shall do that. Thanks.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fred on Dec 8, 2005 10:30:29 GMT -6
Bob--
You were absolutely correct; they are nice, & as usual on this Website, I'm a day late & a dollar short. You guys keep me humble.
Fred.
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Post by elisabeth on Dec 9, 2005 7:54:56 GMT -6
You're right, Fred, the Forbes story would be terrific to do. And who knows, there could be a lot more stories of a similar nature -- "gentleman rankers" in the 7th -- to be uncovered. We already have poor Frederick Wyllyams, the chap in the famous 1867 corpse photograph, who was an Old Etonian on the run from an "unfortunate entanglement" back home ... Might be highly entertaining to do some digging on that.
But I'd like to do more on Keogh first, to be honest.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Dec 9, 2005 10:05:08 GMT -6
Elisabeth,
Earlier this week, a friend of ours who teaches history at West Point asked Chuck for the Wyllyams photo. Here is part of his reply after receiving it: "I was able to get it into class today and cadets were definitely impressed with the level of brutality that the picture portrays. The Wyllyams piece is simply unbelievable." Do you know what the "unfortunate entanglement" was?
Your Auburn info is fascinating. I hope you will consider a follow up to your November article. I agree with Fred that more about Forbes would be interesting, too.
We can keep you busy writing for many moons! ;D
Diane
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