Review: The Nonfiction Account, Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull…

Americans are a**holes. There, I said it. 

If there are any takeaways from Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, by Tom Clavin, it’s the above statement. The book chronicles the events preceding Little Bighorn and ends with the massacre of Wounded Knee. It also provides details of everyone involved in these events. 

George Custer, with his larger-than-life confidence and battlefield savvy, took many risks in his military career, most of which paid off. Graduating from West Point in 1861, his rise was steady but included ups and downs, especially since brevet U.S. Army officers at the time led commands but did not wield the title or the compensation. Always referred to as “General Custer,” his official rank during Little Bighorn was lieutenant colonel. The death and that of others in the Seventh Cavalry was not a result of his mistakes, but of his underestimation of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors, especially their numbers and tactics. 

The Native Americans fought quite differently during Little Bighorn. Usually, they attacked in smaller, separate, unorganized bands, which were easily fended off by the more regimented U.S. Army. This was the first time that all of the tribes involved were organized into one cohesive unit, led by Sitting Bull and his “field general” Crazy Horse. 

During the latter part of the entire U.S. and Native American conflict of the 19th Century (1830-1890), Sitting Bull mostly sued for peace. He was usually the last one to enter a conflict, enter a battle. Yet he was an integral leader and uniter of the different tribes who fought at Little Bighorn. After surrendering, he entered show business for a spell, following Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. Even during his “last stand” in 1890, when he was in a standoff against U.S. Indian Police officers in his retirement cabin, he defiantly fought authority, winding up being shot and later dying of his injuries.  

Crazy Horse, defiant from the get-go, led the warriors against the vastly outnumbered officers and enlisted men of the U.S. Army. The Oglala-Lakota warrior was integral in organizing all of the Native American tribes into one cohesive force and a key factor in their Little Bighorn victory. Knowing that his people were starving and that they were no match for the American military, he led over 900 of his followers to the Red Cloud Agency on May 6, 1877, where he surrendered. On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse realized that he was being lied to yet again by the United States government. In a guardhouse, he made his final stand and was bayoneted to death by a U.S. soldier. 

The people and events involved in this dark time of U.S. history remind us all of the fallacies and brutalities of Manifest Destiny. Yes, we became a coast-to-coast independent nation, and duly prospered as a result, but incidents like Wounded Knee and others were the price we paid. Are we so proud of our accomplishments? 

I recommend this book if you can stomach the historical hypocrisies and atrocities of our government. If you cannot, then choose another book. I hear that the story of Annie Oakley is quite rosy by comparison. I’ll soon know, since a biography of her is on my TBR List.