The Little Bighorn Campaign

Book Review

By the Old Duffer

Wayne Sarf for Combined Publishing

And that's what I like about the Sarf (as the song goes). Rather as the Zulu War or the First Afghanistan War attract the interest of otherwise non-imperial Americans so Custer's final campaign is of great interest to many across this side of the Pond. I have read a number of books on it, mostly ones that believe size is an adequate substitute for quality (a particularly waffly one by Connell springs to mind). Sarf is of the other school. This paperback covers the Rosebud Campaign (where Crook got a rebuff), the initial movements by Terry and Gibbon and then into Custer's operations. Sarf seems determined not to be judgmental though Reno comes out as cutting and running. What happened to Custer is not speculated at in great detail since the evidence is far from clear.

What the book does pretty well is take one through the style of those campaigns. One sees why winter campaigns were preferred (the Indians' mobility was shot). A very useful set of sidebars takes one into the background without disturbing the narrative. I was interested to read that the Indians did not maintain effective sentry lines, and that they were pretty much bound to break up in time, hence Custer's desire to get there fast. Indeed the more I read the more I saw how very clever Wayne Close had been with his Custer's Luck game for 3Ws. The randomness of the system that was criticised by some almost exactly models the real happenings in this campaign. One might of course guess that the Indians would go North or South for a particular reason but ultimately all you knew was they went in one direction or the other. The value of the infantry is strongly noted and "Bear Coat" Miles' comments about Custer would lead me to revise my views about the Long Hair. Read this in conjunction with something about the French in the Sahara and you will realise the universality of it all. Ultimately you defeat native forces by destroying their ecology be it shooting buffalo or drinking the water table. This is an excellent introduction to its topic (and one that will take me back to the Powder, the Tongue and the Bighorn). Though some better maps would have helped.

More Old Duffer's Book Corner (book reviews)

Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon's Rise to Power Book Review.

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