We took a trip several years ago out west. The stop I was looking most forward to was the battlefield. It really changed my understanding of the battle. You could understand what went wrong and why. One camera drone would have made a huge difference.
The troops were largely green. We drove across South Dakota and it was very sparse. (I remember reading a local paper and the staff was very concerned about wise land use. LOL.) There was no shortage of land. Traveling by horse over those distances had to be exhausting. The Indians had very recently changed their tactics which Custer was not aware of because there was no intelligence.
The battle would not have been needed had there not been widespread corruption in DC. People DC hired repeatedly lied to and cheated the Indians. DC didn’t manage their programs, just their take (Nothing is new under the sun).
I really felt bad for the common soldiers buried there. It is really quite a desolate place and has to be very cold in the winter.
Somewhat recent books by Donovan, Robbins, and Fox are really good. I was lucky to have read them before I went. It made it much clearer and they were not cluttered up with the DC park service politically correct tripe which I am sure has gotten worse.
“Somewhat recent books by Donovan, Robbins, and Fox are really good.”
Titles?
“It made it much clearer and they were not cluttered up with the DC park service politically correct tripe which I am sure has gotten worse.”
I finally got there the summer before the scamdemic was launched. I must confess that seeing the site didn’t clear things up for me as much as I thought it would.
All the park rangers were Indians when I was there. I had a nice conversation with a lady ranger (which is easier to do at my age, because the ladies know I’m not hitting on them). Some of the things she said about the battle were different from what I had read before. I think she was more reliable, though, because she pointed to places where previously unknown artifacts were discovered after the fire.
I didn’t know about several sites where a small number of troopers were killed. I don’t think anybody knew about some of them before the fire.