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Post by Diane Merkel on Nov 29, 2005 22:56:20 GMT -5
I have been asked which of the following three books I would recommend someone purchase based solely on merit. All three authors are friends and LBHA members so I'm not going to say which I recommended, but I would be interested in others' opinions.
CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT: THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN by David C. Evans
VANISHING VICTORY: CUSTER'S FINAL MARCH by Bruce Liddic
ABCs OF CUSTER'S LAST STAND: ARROGANCE, BETRAYAL AND COWARDICE by Arthur C. Unger
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Post by alfuso on Nov 30, 2005 3:00:05 GMT -5
i would recommend the Evans book first. I think the others require a neo to know too many details first in order to go on.
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Post by fred on Dec 6, 2005 23:17:10 GMT -5
I just finished the Liddic book, but unfortunately, I never even heard of the other two (I guess that shows how deep my head is in the sand!). Alfuso is certainly correct, however, about "too many details" when it comes to Liddic. It seems to me that nowadays a writer has to come up w/ some sort of new twist, & Liddic's is Custer's route. Pennington pulled a similar stunt. Liddic also has some inconsistencies & some of his scenarios are really far-fetched, but it's pretty good reading nonetheless, & his anecdotes are superb. His logic also seems to get in the way of reality from time to time, but a lot of authors do the same thing. I've even found Michno does that once in a while, & I think Michno's work is the best thought-out & best researched since Gray. Liddic also gives some of the best topography descriptions of the battlefield that I've read, & his post-6pm, 25Jun76, work is excellent. Overall, it's a good book, but you've got to know your stuff & have a good opinion of various events to appreciate what he is driving at.
Best wishes,
Fred.
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Post by bubbabod on Feb 12, 2006 14:13:00 GMT -5
I bought Liddic's book from him in Rapid City last year and have glanced through it. One glaring error I found--and this is really not that big a thing except to me maybe--is he mentions the "Bird in Hand" family, descendants of White Swan who own the land where Reno Crossing is located. I might be wrong, but the family is "Bird in Ground," not "Bird in Hand." Again, nothing that glaring a mistake, but .....
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 14:31:17 GMT -5
Ashamed to say I haven't read any of them (the Liddic is just too expensive for now, alas) but on the basis of Evans's "Sherman's Horsemen", I'd say I support alfuso -- go with him. In the Sherman book, his depth of research and his clarity of expression are just unmatched. I'm sure he's done the same with LBH.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Feb 12, 2006 15:34:26 GMT -5
Elisabeth,
I'm afraid the Sherman book was written by a different David Evans, but "our" David Evans (LBHA Director) is excellent as well.
Diane
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 12, 2006 16:04:11 GMT -5
Ooops.
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 13, 2006 12:03:42 GMT -5
I have not read any of the books (I know the "ABCs" is written by a pro-Custer author, who runs a site on CUSTER, so it may be one-sided) Any book on an historical event needs to be objective, fair, and the author MUST NOT HAVE AN AGENDA!
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Post by stevewilk on Feb 14, 2006 0:35:39 GMT -5
crzhrs: All three are put out by Upton and Sons...the Evans book is vol. 1 of the Battle of LBH series. Upton usually puts out good books. I like the Evans book; six hundred oversized pages with lots of photos, charts, rosters, maps, quotes, and eighteen appendices. It will keep you busy for a while.
I enjoyed the Liddic book as well.
As for the Unger book, it was horribly edited as there are twice as many commas as needed. It, made for, rather annoying, reading, to say, the least.
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Post by Tricia on Feb 14, 2006 2:27:06 GMT -5
I have not read any of the books (I know the "ABCs" is written by a pro-Custer author, who runs a site on CUSTER, so it may be one-sided) Any book on an historical event needs to be objective, fair, and the author MUST NOT HAVE AN AGENDA! Crzhrs-- Going into a research project with an pre-conceived agenda is problematic--I learned the hard way in grad school--as one has the tendency to only "listen" to sources that back up the specific claim. In regards to the ABCs, I don't pretend to know where Art started, Custer-wise, but he does make some fascinating observations--especially when it comes to the actions of GAC's battalion (re: the interpretation of his Maguire map). Like Stevewilk, I thought there could have been better editing or self-editing (whichever the case might have been), but I also felt the story could have been improved with a less melodramatic narrative. I mean where's the objectivity with a subtitle of Arrogance, Betrayal, and Cowardice? Regards, Leyton McLean |
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 14, 2006 9:29:08 GMT -5
I have not read the ABCs so I cannot judge the accuracy of the book . . . but from many discussions with Art on other boards . . . I know what his intentions were. Not to say he isn't knowledgable . . . but when you have strong opinions on the actions of those who fought and blame for the disaster, you sometimes cannot see the trees for the forest.
As for, editing . . . yes, a poorly edited book, can make it, or, break it.
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Post by noggy on Dec 30, 2019 16:37:07 GMT -5
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Post by fred on Dec 30, 2019 17:31:29 GMT -5
I have not read the book, but I know what his conclusions were. They are the same as mine: Kanipe was not sent back as a messenger.
Best wishes,
Fred.
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Post by noggy on Dec 30, 2019 17:40:20 GMT -5
I have not read the book, but I know what his conclusions were. They are the same as mine: Kanipe was not sent back as a messenger. Best wishes, Fred. Hi Fred Interesting. I can`t recite your "Participants" as I`m visiting family for the holidays, did you cone to that conclusion in your book too? (The limited online version blocked the pages about Kanipe) All the best, Geir |
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Post by fred on Dec 31, 2019 6:34:30 GMT -5
Geir,
When thinking about the veracity of Kanipe's claim to have been a messenger, answer these questions:
1. There was no specific reason for anyone to order the packs to hurry. Custer had not fired a single shot; he had not yet seen Reno in the valley; and nothing had changed from the moment he crossed the divide to this point.
2. The five-company command was short of NCOs. C Company had only four of its five authorized line-sergeants and three of its four corporals, and one of the sergeants—Hanley—was back with the packs, leaving only three, plus the first sergeant. Why send an NCO to do the problematic task of “speeding up” the pack train, especially when less important personnel were readily available?
3. Each of the three legitimate messengers we know were sent back—Voss, Sharrow, and Martini—all had instructions to return to the main column. Why didn’t Kanipe at least make the effort? When Kanipe left the column there was no specific activity going on, i.e., Custer had not viewed the valley, there was no known Indian presence on the east side of the river, etc.
4. Kanipe was not an orderly or on SD. Custer had Hughes, Martini, and Dose for those jobs. Since Martini would have been the least valuable—because of the language problem—why not send him on the mundane task? Why yank someone arbitrarily out of a line company? That was not Custer’s M. O.
5. Custer knew the route the packs were taking. He knew the difficulty in “speeding” them along. He knew they would have to travel all the way into the flats of Reno Creek before they could cut cross-country, the white bluffs along the route preventing any early change of direction. Why send a messenger to iterate the obvious?
6. Why not send Voss? He had done so before and he had plenty of trumpeters with him already… and he knew Voss would be reliable….
7. Kanipe professed to have a message for the packs. If that were the case, why didn’t he deliver it? Both McDougall and Mathey said no one ever came back with any message from any of the Custers. And the recommendation letter McDougall wrote for Kanipe in the mid-1890s is not a valid argument. Twenty years had passed and McDougall may have been simply doing a favor for an old regimental comrade.
8. Where did Kanipe go after the message was supposedly delivered? One of the civilian packers saw him; heard him, in fact, say to move along smartly—or some such commentary—but then what? We hear nothing—from Kanipe or anyone else—of his “exploits” after that, other than policing-up duty and body identifying after the fighting was over.
9. His dropping out could have been easily explained to either George or Tom Custer: his horse gave out—fifteen others did, as well—and as a good NCO he took it upon himself to do something useful and hurry the packs along knowing they would be needed.
10. Kanipe never told anyone who sent him back until after it was known the Custer boys were wiped out, and then suddenly it was Tom who told him to go back to the packs.
11. This was contained in the Windolph book, I Fought with Custer, 82. In a 1903 article published in the magazine of the Historical Society of Montana, written by Kanipe, he claimed by the time the Custer command had reached the top of the bluffs, they were charging at full speed. At the sight of the village men began to cheer and some horses became so excited the men couldn’t hold them in ranks. Custer said, “Hold your horses in, boys, there are plenty of them down there for us all.” Kanipe said Tom Custer gave him the order for the packs. He also told Kanipe if he saw Benteen to tell him to hurry. In interviews with Walter Mason Camp on June 16 – 17, 1908, Kanipe said Custer’s men went at a trot and a gallop all the way up the bluffs and when they saw Reno’s command charging, Custer’s men began yelling, urging their horses on at a breakneck speed, in a wild run. Many men actually got ahead of Custer and this was when he said, “Hold your horses, boys; there are Indians enough down there for all of us.” Then, Kanipe wrote a letter to Camp, dated July 20, 1908, at Marion, NC, that Custer turned a sharp right after seeing 50 to 100 Indians on the bluff. He claimed Custer never left the command, but rode right in front the whole distance until Kanipe was ordered back. “[W]hen the command got up on the bluff where the Indians were supposed to have been seen we could see across the valley, see Reno, and his three companies, about 35 Indian scouts, going right to the Indian camps. We could see the Indian camp, plainly” (Hammer, Custer in ’76, 92 and 94). Based on Kanipe’s own words and Martini’s testimony at the RCOI, all this would have happened in the vicinity of 3,411, and within a 16-minute time-span. It would have been a couple minutes later when Kanipe was supposedly sent back, making the time differential between the two messages only about 13 minutes. What happened in that short span that would have precipitated a double message?
12. The most damning evidence lies in a careful timing analysis, using other related and near-by events to corroborate the data. These data show us Kanipe moved at a speed of only 3 MPH, and even Martini—with a wounded horse—moved faster than that. Where was the so-called urgency?
13. When Kanipe supposedly received these orders to hurry the packs, the column was just approaching the beginning of Cedar Coulee. Tom Custer, as the titular A-d-C, rode point with his brother, George. Kanipe, in C Company, was the last company in the column. Why would Tom Custer ride all the way back to the end of the column to pick out a sergeant from C?
Best wishes and Happy New Year,
Fred.
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