Please forgive my continued postings on this subject but with this dialogue on the guidon, it has rekindled my interests. Besides the Fox (archealogical) book, one of the latest and one of the best books on this subject is by James Donovan "A Terrible Glory: Custer and The Little Big Horn, The Last Great Battle of the American West" It details the vise the Lakota and their allies, the Northern Cheyenne, Arapho, etc. are in and the pressure faced by the U.S. Government to open up the Black Hills, etc. The Army tried to police the free tribal areas but to no avail once gold was found. The Government comes up with a plan to force the free non-treaty bands to come in by a certain date or military action will be taken, knowing that they probabbly won't come in. This book sets the stage very well and builds to the final confrontation. The Lakota (Souix is not a term well liked) and Northern Cheyenne were not your average bears.

It is really interesting to see the films on this subject too, from "They Died With Their Boots On" (Errol Flynn) to "Little Bigmnan" (Dustin Hoffman) to "Son of The Morning Star' Gary ___? The last segment dealing with the actual campaign is pretty accurate and details the week and the actual movements of Custer's divided regiment on the actual day when he divides his force into 4 commands and begins his attack. I loved Little Bigman, but the movie made Custer out to be a buffoon (the context-hangover from the Vietnam War!) He was not but there has been more ink written pro and con on this battle, and time/motion studies (did Benteen purposely dally along-he hated Custer) to which officers (Custer, Reno or Benteen)were responsible for the defeat. Sorry, I get carried away!

Philip Duer