Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell
London: Picador, 1986 (first published 1984) ISBN 0330293400
I wish I had read this book twenty years ago. Twenty years ago (give or take a few years), I had the fortune to visit the valley of the Little Bighorn, and walk over the battleground where Custer and so many of the Seventh Cavalry lost their lives that fateful June day in 1876. Evan Connell has written the most wonderful account not only of that day, but of Custer, the West as it came to be up to the battle, the white American mindset, and of the Indians, what happened to them up to and after the battle, and what now remains - the legacy of violence, misunderstanding and dispossession that continue to this day.
Connell was better-known as a novelist before this book was published, and he has used a novelist's mind to create this book, with its tangents, loose ends, unknowns and climaxes. While it covers much familiar territory to those of us with an interest in the battle and the American West more generally, it does so in new and different ways. The book begins with a description of Reno's fight on the bluff from the viewpoint of the soldiers, before segueing into the history of Reno himself, and on to Benteen, before taking a step back in time to see how the fates led Custer and co. to their destiny on June 25.
Connell investigates the "facts" that surround Custer and so many of the men and women associated with this story: sometimes the stories that cloud around these people obscure whatever truth there may have been to find (names in particular, not only of the Indians, but so many of the white participants seem to have varied names, names that changed or have been half-remembered... a kaleidoscope of faces that can't be pinned to a particular). He is not afraid to vent his opinion about some of the histories that have been written of those times, and can be scathing of those whom he thought had exaggerated in search of fame or a dollar.
Some surprising facts pop up throughout the text. One that struck me particularly is that the last living witness to the battle died the same year my wife was born. What seems like ancient history is only just out of reach really. The fog of battle is often impossible to pierce, yet it seems fairly certain that Custer was shot from long range and died "with a smile on his face". While it is pure speculation on my part, Connell describes a character in Custer, that may have been smiling because he knew his name would go down in history. There is no doubt that he was incredibly vain, self-centred and reckless, and it seems he deliberately disobeyed the orders given to him by Terry to wait for the main force to join him before attacking the Indians, most probably so that he could take all the glory for himself.
His wife burnished his legend (she died only in 1933) so that he seemed - until revisionists such as Connell appeared on the scene - like a god, a genius at battle, a wonderful leader to his men, as well as kind to animals, and the greatest Indian fighter of the US Army. That he was none of those things Connell makes clear. He was personally brave, of that there is no doubt, and he was assiduous in trying to work his good fortune in battle into promotions and appointments (it seems plausible that he was thinking of running for President at the time of Little Bighorn).
To his men Custer was a hard-driving martinet, not afraid to use the lash, or to punish them for minor misdemeanours, all the while working hard to minimize his own transgressions, which were not infrequent or insignificant. His leadership against Indians in battle was at best one-dimensional, which is what got him into so much trouble in June 1876. He should have been more circumspect and waited for Terry (although Connell seems to think that even the addition of Terry's men wouldn't have led to a US victory).
Connell spends as much ink on the Indian side of the story as he does on Custer. The Indians had a well-deserved reputation for savagery, which was partly due to their warrior culture, but mostly a response to unrelenting harassment by the white invaders. That they were invaders is without doubt, as it was the US Government itself that gave the lands around the Black Hills to the Sioux "for ever" eight years before the battle. Connell writes that even then, just before Little Bighorn, Indians were willing to negotiate, but the Army did not allow time for that to happen. In so many ways, the disaster was of white man's making...
Son of the Morning Star is very well-written, taking the reader on a journey into the West, and giving as many sides of the story as is possible, even to the point of four or five differing versions of the same story - although unlike an academic tome Connell is quick to let the reader know which version he favours. The book deserves the accolades it received, it is a hinge between "old fashioned" Custer history and the newer more nuanced writing, and is just a wonderful read!
(This Picador edition suffers from the maps being almost illegible - the Bibliography is good, but the index is terrible.)
Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell
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