The Battle of Little Bighorn
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The purpose of this research is to examine The Battle of the Little Bighorn by Mari Sandoz, with a view toward exploring a twentieth-century interpretation of the pattern of misjudgment and what might generously be called hubris that informed the command structure of the United States Army division that encountered a massive Native American division at the Little Bighorn River in 1876. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the book examines the details of the battle, and then to discuss the political social, cultural, and historiographical background and environment in which the modern understanding of the battle may be most profitably explored. Throughout, as appropriate, reference will be made to the point of view that Sandoz brings to judging events and circumstances of the incident itself and its myriad implications. Sandoz takes the view that the massacre of George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry was the result of his overweening concern with reputation and fulfillment of ambition. Essentially, Sandoz's thesis is that Custer wanted to be drafted as the Democratic presidential candidate for the election of 1876, and that he hoped to use a well-timed Indian-war victory as the principal vehicle to achieve that purpose. Sandoz' s method of structuring this argument is to begin her narrative the day before the battle and to identify the principal actors in the command structure of Custer's 7th Cavalry. This is an important technique for th
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is career with the competent execution of a possibly difficult command. Sandoz supports this idea with reference to Custer's specific case, by citing similar cases in which military men who had overstepped their areas of expertise, either by corruption or naive appreciation of the real inns of power. Custer had given public testimony that had accused the Grant administration and high military officials of graft, to his career cost.
More infuriating however, to the President than Custer's charges of graft and rake-offs against the already disgraced and departed Belknap were the accusations, also hearsay, against half a dozen prominent army men and Grant's own brother, in addition to other charges against Lewis Merrill, major of the regiment, and even Sturgis, colonel of the 7th Cavalry. The President was certainly aware that Custer was involved in the New York Herald articles denouncing Belknap and the whole Administration, some perhaps actually written by the ambitious Custer during this presidential election year, when it seemed that practically any Democrat might be elected. Besides, Grant must have known that Custer himself stood accused, by hearsay, of graft and attempts at graft through post traders all the way from Tex
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Approximate Word count = 2313
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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