With Custer on the Little Big Horn

by William O. Taylor, Greg Martin (Introduction)

A newly discovered account of an infamous battle by a nineteenth-century corporal from the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on burial duty at Custer's last stand reconstructs troop movements and comments on the commanders, their men, the campaign, and their enemies. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

206 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

Reviews

[Peregrine 12 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the first books I read that made me sit up and say "Holy crap! THIS is history?!" I read the whole thing first in 2000, cover to cover, in one sitting. I visited the Little Big Horn Battlefield a few years later and read the book again.

I was amazed by how much I didn't know about Custer's Last Stand, about the men and women who were involved, and the ugly, non-Hollywood reality of battle and slaughter as described by W. O. Taylor, allegedly one of the survivors of the failed campaign.

The book is presented as Taylor's first-hand journal account of the campaign. It also includes photos and scraps of papers and articles he collected in his life that related to this event. Perhaps he is ahead of his time (or perhaps not) when he ends one chapter with the following:

"In times past I have wondered how a man felt, when he believed that almost inevitable, sudden death was upon him. I knew it now, for our escape was little less than miraculous when one considers the overwhelming number of Indians... (who pursued us), a howling mass of red warriors, naked to the waist, who, maddened and desperate by the terrified cries of their wives and children whose lives were put in jeopardy for the third time within a few weeks, rushed from their camps and, caring nothing for their own lives, were determined to save their families, or die.

They seemed to us, in all their hideousness of paint and feathers, and wild fierce cries, like fiends incarnate, but were they?"

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best and most factual book published on the battle.

Written and compiled by a survivor of the battle and never published before he died. This memoir with all its notes were packed away by family and found its way to a small museum and forgotten. In 1984 the museum was purchased by a Greg Martin who came across the memoir and published it.

This is one of the best nonfiction western reads I have found to date.

[JW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great that we have an actual eyewitness account from this defining moment in American history. I think we all know by know that it was no epic battle with gallantry and hard resolve to the bitter end but rather an HALF AN HOUR of slaughter, for encroaching on land that they were not supposed to be on, with men running away and crawling on all fours like dogs as they were hacked to bits.

[Bookluvr7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very insightful into the mind of someone who was under General George Custer. I would have like to hear more of the battle itself and the discovery of Custers men. But it was a good book. 3/5 stars.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has a '90s feel to the writing. 1990s not 1890s. Native Americans were apparently all Mensa candidates and The US Calvary were a little more inept than the Keystone Cops.

[PottWab Regional Library]

SM

[Anthony Frasier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book kept my attention from the time I picked it up. I enjoyed the first hand accounts and respect to all participants by the author.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have the hardcover of the same book regardless of which one you own or buy it's the same sad outcome, well-writren,graphic violent end of a great man's goof or stubnorness and the warriors who fought with him and against him. Recently rediscovered in the 1990s when book was done, it has some black and white archival pictures.

[Steve J · Rating 3 out of 5]

January 1, 1996