The subtitle of this book by Stephen E. Ambrose is “The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors,” and it provides a wealth of information about the two main characters and details their similarities and differences. Crazy Horse lived a simple life and strived to do what was best for his people. Custer behaved outlandishly to attract attention and surrounded himself with an entourage that catered to him while his troopers lived a hard life with poor food. Custer’s actions were always designed to improve his reputation and status. Custer’s only military strategy was to attack regardless of the risk to the men under his command. His eventual defeat resulted from the fact Crazy Horse was a better strategist and had vastly superior forces that were well organized for one of the few times in the decades the Native Americans warred against the whites. (Note that Ambrose called them “Indians,” and I have a problem with that name because it derived from Columbus seeing natives in what he thought was Indies and that name has survived since that error was made. However, I will use the term the author uses in the remainder of this review.)

I began reading this book on the recommendation of a friend and with a warning from the librarian who declared the book was said by her husband, an Ambrose fan, to be his worst. More important to me is a negative review on Amazon by a Sioux that “What Mr. Ambrose states in his book is mostly fabrication about the Sioux Nation.” I found the descriptions of the Indians and Crazy Horse to be fascinating. It actually makes me sad that a member of the Sioux Nation was moved to give the book a one star ranking, because I had increased my admiration of that tribe from the reading of this book. The most remarkable observation Ambrose makes is that whites were amazed that the Indians could consume as much as ten pounds of meat in one meal.

Crazy Horse began life as “Curly” and Custer began as “Autie.” Crazy Horse was raised in the tradition that led him to want to be a Sioux warrior, and Custer became known as “a born soldier” as a little boy. Crazy Horse and his people had no use for the concept of private property while the whites believed that the concept of private property was the key to economic freedom. Autie learned early that currying favor with the politically powerful gained advantage, and that is how he made it into West Point. Crazy Horse learned that bravery of actions and outcome was all that was important to a warrior.

Custer finished last in his West Point class, and seemed to be able to curtail his lack of discipline in both actions and dress just in time to prevent expulsion. He loved attention and was an expert at getting it. He went from long flowing hair to shaving his head and wearing a toupee. As his hair grew back he acquired the nickname of “Curly,” which was the name first given to Crazy Horse.

Custer attracted attention of superiors in the Civil War because he was the opposite of cautious. Custer ordered and led charges while others held back. He often lost large numbers of soldiers killed, but seemed impervious to injury himself. He led a headlong charge into Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry at Gettysburg and might have changed history. Stuart was to hit the Union lines from the rear to coincide with Picket’s charge from the front. Custer’s undermanned charge sent horses and men crashing into the Confederate calvary, and disrupted what probably would have been devastating to the Union soldiers lined up to repel Picket to the front. Custer lost 481 men killed, wounded, or captured of his 1,700 man force, but he was promoted to Major General and Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded. Custer lost more than a third of his men at the Wilderness. His aggressive “tactics” stopped Lee’s flight and was a key in forcing the Confederate surrender at Appomattox despite the loss of 377 men. His successes in battle were always brutal and bloody. Custer’s younger brother Tom was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the battles that led to Appomattox. His brother would follow him and die with all the other selected staff members at the hands of the Sioux.

On a personal family note, one of Custer’s competitors for senior military attention was Judson Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick, or “Little Kil,” was the commanding general of the “mounted calvary” unit in Sherman’s army that included Elijah Tilton, my Great Uncle by marriage to my Great Aunt Rachael Brooke, and two of their sons. The two sons survived, but Elijah did not.

Custer led the Grand Review in Washington to celebrate the defeat of the Confederacy. The end of the Civil War left only the Indian wars for Custer to gain the military recognition he craved, and there was little positive recognition due for the U.S. army and calvary in those wars. The book observes that, “…no campaign the Army ever undertook matched the Hancock campaign of 1867 for sheer stupidity.” The soldiers spent years chasing the Indians, and many of them never saw a hostile Indian in the field except in the rare instances that the Indians believed they had a strategic advantage. Custer and his troops unsuccessfully pursued Indians in the central U.S. while the Indians “…had a fine time…” striking mail stations, wagon trains, and railroad workers. The whites defeated Indians not by direct conflict but by killing the buffalo herds that provided the Indians food.

There is detailed information about Libbie (Elizabeth) Custer and her relationship with Custer. Custer did everything to be in her company, and once was even court martialed for abandoning his post to reach her. Libbie was completely loyal to him, and used her beauty and charming personality to advance his career. She accepted the fact that Custer ordered that she be killed if threatened to become an Indian hostage. She dedicated her life to advocating that he was a hero who died in the service of the country.

There is an interesting comment by Sitting Bull who became part of the Wild Bill Cody show and was later shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman that “…the white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.” Annie Oakley observed that the money Sitting Bull made “…went into the pocket of small, ragged boys.” Sitting Bull was eventually shot in the back and killed by an Indian policeman.

There are details about Custer positioning himself in politics. There are implications that he pushed his soldiers and their mounts to exhaustion and ordered the fatal attack on a Crazy Horse’s massively superior force because he hoped to have a major combat victory would earn himself a nomination in the Democratic convention. He was said to have laughed just before his death, and one has to wonder whether his brother, the hand-picked staff, and the others in his command thought it was all that funny.

Crazy Horse eventually agreed to come in to a reservation, but tried to resist when he realized he was going to be locked in a small cage with no toilet. He was stabbed with bayonets, and died within a few days. Not a great story in our historical legacy, but a worthwhile book to consider.