Remember Little Bighorn (Direct Mail Edition): Indians, Soldiers, and Scouts Tell Their Stories

by Paul Robert Walker

Remember Little Bighorn, maintains the momentum of this award-winning National Geographic series, which continues to set new standards in nonfiction history books for middle-grade students. Author Paul Robert Walker draws on scores of eyewitness accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn from Indians, soldiers, and scouts, measuring their testimony against the archaeological evidence to separate fact from fiction. From this wide kaleidoscope of testimony, the author focuses his narrative into an objective and balanced account of one of the most contentious chapters of American history. Covering the core curriculum topics of Westward Expansion and the Indian Wars, Walker's text is a vivid and timely historical narrative to mark the 130th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 2006. Readers first learn about events preceding the fighting, including the discovery of gold on Indian land in the Black Hills, the refusal by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other Indian leaders to obey a government order to live on the Great Sioux Reservation, and the subsequent battle in Rosebud Valley. The narrative evolves to the three major clashes known collectively as the Battle of the Little the attack by Major Reno on Sitting Bull's village, the "Custer Massacre" in which Crazy Horse and more than a thousand warriors wipe out George Armstrong Custer and his immediate command, and the final battle on Reno Hill, which culminates in the victorious Sioux and Cheyenne setting fire to the grass and moving up the river. The afterword explains how the greatest Indian victory only hastened their final defeat, as news of Custer's fate enflamed public opinion and led Congress to give control of all Sioux agencies to the Army. Readers learn how Sioux rations were cut off until native claims to the Black Hills and Montana hunting grounds were renounced. In the finest National Geographic tradition, the book illuminates this controversial period in American history with extensive use of primary sources. Some 50 archival images are included, several by Native Americans, plus a map showing troop and Indian movement. Remember Little Bighorn also features a comprehensive time line of Indian Wars, web sites, student-friendly resources, and a quick-reference index that make it an ideal source for writing reports.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Genres: Indian Literature

64 pages, Hardcover

First published June 13, 2006

About the author

I was born in Oak Park, Illinois—just like Ernest Hemingway, only later.

I’ve been saying this in biographies for a long time, and it sounds pretty good. Ernest Hemingway is big stuff, and how many authors are born in Oak Park, Illinois?

Yet recently I was taken to task during a visit to the Fresno area, where two—count them two—separate individuals pinned me down with grueling interrogations involving specific details, places, and people in Oak Park, Illinois. I admitted to them as I admit to you on the World Wide Web: I know absolutely nothing about Oak Park, Illinois.

I was born in Oak Park Hospital, but we lived in a neighboring town called River Grove. And we moved from there when I was a year and a half. I take my literary connections where I find them.

We moved a lot in my early years, four times before I turned eleven, for a total of five places, all in the Chicago area. My Dad died in place number four, which was a townhouse in south Chicago, across the street from the Chicago Skyway, now Interstate 90. I counted trucks on the Skyway when we first moved in, but I stopped counting trucks when my father died.

I was nine, and it was November 1962, a year before the JFK assassination changed America forever. I still associate my father’s death with the death of JFK, and throw the Cuban missile crisis into the mix. It was a pivotal time for me, for my generation, and for our nation—an end to innocence and the beginning of an exciting yet challenging era of social turmoil.

My mother moved us to Evanston, a tree-shaded suburb just north of Chicago, where she got a job as a 3rd grade teacher. She later found a new career as an adjustment teacher (similar to a school counselor) in the Chicago schools. I grew up surrounded by teachers, who discussed education until they were blue in the face—which didn't turn me blue personally, but did make me believe that education was pretty important.

Evanston was a cultured place, home of Northwestern University, and I got my first taste of theater as an 8th grade extra in a Northwestern production of Don Quixote starring Peter Strauss, who later went on to mini-series stardom in Rich Man, Poor Man. On the closing night, Peter was so sick he couldn’t perform, so his understudy stepped into the starring role, with the understudy’s understudy stepping in for him and on down the line until I rose from the ranks of faceless extras and took the demanding role of Second Mule Skinner—which meant I got to mumble something like, “Move on, there!” I was hooked.

I continued acting, started singing, and had my first short story published at Evanston Township High School, which at that time was rated the number one public high school in America (by whomever rates these things.) I studied acting for a year at Boston University School of Fine Arts, and when I decided that I wanted a broader education, I transferred to Occidental College in Los Angeles, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in Anglo-American literature. Just before graduation, I won third place in a short story contest and received a check for the whopping amount of $20. It was the first time I was ever paid for my writing and it felt good.

After college, I taught English for six years at a Chassidic Yeshiva in West Hollywood, while playing in a rock band and writing for an alternative weekly newspaper. I started writing for the newspaper after I won a story contest with a tall tale about a guy who loses his triplex on the beach during a game of darts with the devil. It was called "Darts with Mr. D," and the paper presented me with a princely check for $100—a 500% increase over my college contest award. Not only that, they asked me to keep writing for them, only—get this—they wanted actual journalism! I did what I could and had lots of fun doing it.

I got my big break when I answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times that said, “Writers Wanted.” I thought it was some weird scam but decided t

Reviews

[Feiraco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic short book on this notorious battle, and not just for 10-year-old kids…. Historical authors who have written big volumes on the topic sometimes get lost completely in all kind of details, and forget to maintain a narrative line in their story. And that’s exactly what is the strength of this book. It tells the story straightforward in less than 50 pages in a big font, avoiding too many sidesteps. The chapters are well-chosen, and the book is beautifully illustrated (as can be expected from National Geographic). The full page photo of Custer’s 1874 expedition is great, there are some other beautiful pictures which I hadn’t seen before (like the ones of Mort Künstler and Martin Pate), and the battle map is one of the clearest I have ever seen. I highly recommend this book for any level of interest in the topic.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently saw an episode of the Twilight Zone tv show related to the Battle at Little Bighorn. Not knowing much about the circumstances of the battle, I decided on borrowing this children’s non-fiction book from my local library.

It was very informative and a quick read. Some illustrations are hand drawn by natives who were there, photographs, paintings and other renditions are helpful to tell this story.

[Carolynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This absorbing history of the Battle of Little Bighorn includes details of the background and circumstances of the battle as well as the aftermath. Accounts by many survivors on both sides help Walker to present a balanced account. He makes plain, though he does not emphasize, that the real driving force behind the fight for the Black Hills was “the news that set America on fire” (p. 11) -- white miners’ excitement over and greed for gold, only nominally--and momentarily--tempered by the U.S. government. The firsthand accounts are vivid and moving and give a real sense of the violence of the battle and the agony of both the soldiers, under George Custer and Marcus Reno, and the Indians, under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. There is a foreword by John Doerner, Chief Historian for Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Contemporary drawings by Indian survivors and by George Catlin give a sense of action and immediacy that contrasts with the rather stiff photographs of the period. There is also an extremely helpful topographical map that gives the probable movements of both Army and Indian groups. Indexed. Selected sources include, among others:
Fox, Richard Allan. Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
Greene, Jerome A., ed. Lakota and Cheyenne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
Hardoff, Richard G., comp. and ed. Indian Views of the Custer Fight. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

The Lexile number is 1170, so this book, although in picture book format, is best for middle and even high school. As a high school junior, my son wrote a report on Crazy Horse, and had difficulty finding sources in his school library or the small town public library where I was director at the time. Too bad this superb book was not available to him—it’s only 27 years too late!