A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West Summary and Reviews

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West
by James Donovan

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West
List Price: $16.99
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Author: James Donovan
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-14
ISBN: 0316067474
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:

Book Reviews of A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West

Book Review: Is it the wind or Garryowen whispering through the buffalo grass?
Summary: 5 Stars

"Come on. Big village. Be quick. Bring packs." - Custer's last communication before riding forth to a terrible glory.

Anyone of a certain age and cultural background, born and educated in the United States, is likely to know of George Armstrong Custer's last stand with his Seventh Cavalry against overwhelming numbers of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in June, 1876. Who among us hasn't seen at least one of the several fanciful paintings of the event by various artists?

The core of A TERRIBLE GLORY is James Donovan's masterful and absorbing account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The book also includes a summary of Custer's military career and personal life prior to 1876, the personalities of the principal Native American leaders (primarily Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse), the tense post-Civil War relationship of the federal government and the U.S. Army with the Sioux, and the battle's aftermath, including the Army's 1879 Court of Inquiry into the Seventh's conduct of the engagement and Major Marcus Reno's performance in particular, the ultimate fates of the main characters in the drama, and the Massacre at Wounded Knee, which can be argued was the Seventh Cavalry's revenge for the Little Bighorn debacle.

Those chapters of A TERRIBLE GLORY concerned with the 1876 encounter place it in the context of that summer's three-pronged Army advance (Gibbon, Terry, Crook) on the tribes that were roaming the Montana and Wyoming territories outside the reservations. Then, for June 25-26, the narration comprises the three phases of the Battle: Reno's ill-starred attack on the south end of the Indian village, the annihilation of Custer and five of the Seventh's twelve companies, and the siege of the Reno-Benteen force dug in on their hill. In the prefatory Author's Notes section, Donovan is careful to point out that his accounts of the first and third phases are based on primary sources. The second phase, once Custer and his 210 men rode off down Medicine Tail Coulee, is reconstructed mainly from reasonable supposition and battlefield archeology since the eyewitness testimonies of the victorious Sioux and Cheyenne warriors are "sketchy and often contradictory". That said, the narrative of the clash as a whole flows seamlessly. Indeed, it's riveting.

The volume includes several useful maps, fourteen pages of photographs, and lengthy Notes and Bibliography sections.

A couple of years back, I had the great good fortune to gaze out from the summit of Last Stand Hill over the marker stones of Custer and his troopers set amidst the rippling buffalo grass. Was that a faint echo of "Garryowen", the Seventh Cavalry's official marching air, that I heard on the wind? Well, perhaps not, but only sounds from a radio in a car passing behind me. But, as the author closes his wonderful narrative:

"After the tourists have gone, the ridges and ravines overlooking the river below are still and eerie. Today, if one stands there alone as the wind sighs through the buffalo grass, it is hard not to believe that the spirits of the men who died there ... perform their own ghost dance: clasping hands in a circle, moving ever to the right ..."

After nearly six decades of life, I feel I've finally arrived at a proper understanding of what transpired on those hills in southeast Montana just to the east of Interstate 90 on two hot summer days nearly 133 years ago. A TERRIBLE GLORY is a superb volume worth the attention of any casual or serious student of the Battle of the Little Bighorn wishing to know its place in the context of that period of American history.

History Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Little Big Horn Books
Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer ImageCusterology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer
by Michael A. Elliott
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2008-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.78
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Little Bighorn Campaign: March-september 1876 (Great Campaigns) ImageThe Little Bighorn Campaign: March-september 1876 (Great Campaigns)
by Wayne Michael Sarf
Da Capo Press; Published: 1999-12-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $79.79
Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined ImageArchaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined
by Richard A. Fox
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 1997-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.25
Price in other shops: $24.95
The Custer Reader ImageThe Custer Reader
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2004-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.95
Price in other shops: $26.95
The Reno Court of Inquiry: Abstract of the Official Record of Proceedings (The Custer Library) ImageThe Reno Court of Inquiry: Abstract of the Official Record of Proceedings (The Custer Library)
by William A. Graham, Brian C. Pohanka
Stackpole Books; Published: 1995-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $399.80
Custer's Last Campaign: Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn Reconstructed ImageCuster's Last Campaign: Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn Reconstructed
by John S. Gray
University of Nebraska Press; Published: 1993-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $27.95
Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (Oklahoma Western Biographies) ImageCavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (Oklahoma Western Biographies)
by Robert M. Utley
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2001-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.17
Price in other shops: $21.95
THE CUSTER MYTH: A SOURCE BOOK OF CUSTERIANA ImageTHE CUSTER MYTH: A SOURCE BOOK OF CUSTERIANA
by W.A Graham
NY Bonanza; Published: 1957-01-01; Hardcover; Book
Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn ImageSon of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn
by Evan S. Connell
North Point Press; Published: 1997-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.64
Price in other shops: $18.00
Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876 ImageCentennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876
by John Stephens Gray
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 1988-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.84
Price in other shops: $26.95
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse ImageGeneral Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse
by Joseph Glatthaar
Free Press; Published: 2009-03-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.70
Price in other shops: $18.95
Custer and the Little Bighorn ImageCuster and the Little Bighorn
by James Donovan
Voyageur Press; Published: 2002-11-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops: $19.95
Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined ImageArchaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined
by Richard A. Fox
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 1997-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops: $24.95
They Died With Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn ImageThey Died With Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn
by Douglas D. Scott, Melissa A. Connor
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops: $19.95
Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer ImageCusterology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer
by Michael A. Elliott
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2008-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.52
Price in other shops: $16.00
A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities in the West 1830-1885 ImageA Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities in the West 1830-1885
by Gregory Michno, Susan Michno
Caxton Press; Published: 2007-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.33
Price in other shops: $24.95
Stricken Field: The Little Bighorn Since 1876 ImageStricken Field: The Little Bighorn Since 1876
by Jerome A. Greene
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2008-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.00
Price in other shops: $34.95
Lakota Noon: The Indian Narrative of Custer's Defeat ImageLakota Noon: The Indian Narrative of Custer's Defeat
by Gregory F. Michno
Mountain Press Publishing Company; Published: 1997-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.21
Price in other shops: $18.00
Custer Vindicated ImageCuster Vindicated
by Jack L Pennington
iUniverse, Inc.; Published: 2007-09-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops: $18.95
Where Custer Fell: Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now ImageWhere Custer Fell: Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now
by James S. Brust, Brian C. Pohanka, Sandy Barnard
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2007-03-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.75
Price in other shops: $26.95