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The sesquicentennial of George Armstrong Custer’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for President in the 1876 election is upon us. It ended as successfully as Joe Biden’s 2024 run, with Custer and his command dead at Little Bighorn.
Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, by Tom Clavin, reappraises the battle. It examines Little Bighorn in its totality, including its impact on all participants, white and Indian.
Fought June 25–27, 1876, the battle (also called Custer's Last Stand) pitted the combined Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes against the United States Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment. It was the worst defeat the US Army suffered during its Indian Wars.
The battle has been written about, examined, reexamined, analyzed and over-analyzed ever since. Could anything new or worthwhile be written about it 150 years later?
Surprisingly, yes. Tom Clavin offers a fresh look at the battle, reexamining Custer and the actions of the 7th Cavalry’s commander and those under his command. Clavin combines this with a reassessment of the battle’s impact on its victors. He examines the Indian point of view and shows why Little Big Horn proved a defeat for the Indians as for the 7th Cavalry.
He does this without romanticizing either Custer, the 7th Cavalry or the Indians. He shows Custer’s faults while presenting his strengths. Similarly, he shows what the Indian’s weaknesses were in fighting incursions on their land and how they overcame those weaknesses for the first time to create an overwhelming victory at Little Bighorn.
Clavin puts everything in context, providing extensive background on all the participants in the battle, the US and Indian nations. He shows the careers of men like George Custer, George Crook, Nelson Miles, Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull up to the Sioux War of 1876 and follows what happened afterwards to the survivors.
He also examines the dynamics within the 7th Cavalry, exploring how the relations between Custer and his subordinate officers, particularly Reno and Benteen, affected the outcome of the battle.
About everyone in the book comes off badly: Custer, the 7th Cavalry, the US Army and the Indians. Yet no one is a villain. Instead, readers are shown a series of poor decisions and bad judgment that led to bad endings for almost everyone involved. Vengeance is worth reading as a cautionary tale of the consequences of not thinking things through.
“Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull,” by Tom Clavin, St. Martin's Press, May 2026, 352 pages, $32.00 (Hardcover), $16.99 (E-book), $20.00 (Audiobook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Discussion (9)
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This topic has remained of interest even though it was a single battle fought 150 years ago.
It holds so much interest that even today new books arrive with new information as well as old information viewed from a different perspective.
There also has been a slew of videos that offer up stories of the oral tradition as observed by descendants of those Indians who fought against Custer.
Sadly The Woke Left also has brought about a "new perspective." When my son was a sophomore in HS, he came home buzzing away about the exciting presentation his history teacher had made about the battle.
"And best of all, Mom, the Native Americans killed each cavalry soldier they did in using a totally humane manner."
After dinner that night, I had him sit down with some of my books on American Indians. I pointed out the various photos of tomahawks and other weapons. There was no possible way to use them humanely. And photos are always worth one thousand words.
This 25 second video shows how deadly the tomahawk was. Had advances in gun design not arrived by the 1840's, the Native Americans might not have suffered anywhere near the losses in population that they faced from that point on:
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It’s great to hear about a new Clavin book. Thanks for the heads up!
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Makes me want to read the book. I know very little about that battle, so even if it was old information I'd get something out of it.
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Your review makes me want to get this book. I am a fan of American Indian histories that don't romanticize Native Americans nor settlers. Tell it as straight as you can. Saints and sinners abound in both camps. Custer was a heckuva innovative cavalry officer. Sometimes it worked out for him, one time it ended in complete disaster.
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Did it include the role of the Crow Indians, who I understand were allies with the US forces against the Sioux?
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