Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull by Tom Clavin
A corrupt government is populated with friends and relations
of the president who seem to plunder and take advantage of lax oversight in the
bureaucracy. The government displays animosity and weaponizes the military towards
a disempowered minority, attempting to silence critics and minority factions
that resist attempts at command and control. American society has been torn
apart by serious issues of race, identity, and the economy, while politicians
and people grapple with the future direction of the country.
Although these events seem like they may be ripped from
today’s salacious headlines, it’s really a summary of some of the events that
gripped America nearly 150 years ago 1876, as America grappled with westward
expansion and removing the indigenous plains Indians from their roaming ways and
proposing a more farmer like existence for these nomadic people. Tom Clavin’s
excellent new book, Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, captures much of the turmoil and resentment that festered between
the government and the Plains Indians, resulting in one of the most stunning
military defeats in American history.
I’m generally fascinated by this time period, and have read
some other books about Indigenous People, but Clavin’s book was one of the more
compelling and engaging books I’ve read about the frontier expansion. Maybe because
he focuses on three of the primary characters in the Battle of Little Bighorn, Clavin
is able to create a story where three distinct individuals collide in a violent
fashion in this epic battle of the plains when America was still expanding its
western territory, frequently making and breaking treaties. Clavin acknowledges
that he’s not the first to write about this battle, and some of the other
authors who he references throughout the book have wrote distinct and
significant books outlining and analyzing the factors leading up to the battle
and its aftermath. However, Clavin likens the story to a myth, where we recount
the deeds of epic heroes, seeming to result in tragedy, whether through hubris
or ignorance, and learn something new every time we recount the story. Thus,
his contributions to this epic battle frame the battle by following the paths
of Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and how they all ended up converging
in June 1876 on this field in the territory that would become Montana.
I loved how Clavin organizes the chapters to focus on each
individual, and he keeps them brief, which kept me reading. The book is
organized into 6 parts- The Invaders, The Defenders, The Expeditions, The Searchers,
The Avengers, and the Last Stands. Each section focuses on events leading up to
the battle, and Clavin’s keen eye for details limits overwhelming readers with
too much information about how the Indian Plains Wars against the Sioux
especially started. Nevertheless, he provides a fair amount of information to
let us know about how Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse eventually came to power, as
well as how Custer, a lackluster West Point graduate, leveraged some heroics
and bravado during the Civil War to eventually become a general. Through Clavin’s
recounting and analysis of the events, it seems like some of Custer’s meteoric
rise and bravado created a kind of arrogance that brought about his violent
end. Interestingly, I learned that Crazy Horse, while exalted as a great Lakota
warrior, also experienced his own downfall in claiming the wife of another man
before they were officially divorced. It’s these kinds of little details that
provide a broader idea of the decisions and strategies that Custer, Sitting
Bull, and Crazy Horse may have implemented during other events, giving us a
sense of the kind of flawed heroes that our textbooks or high school history
don’t always present to us for various reasons.
Clavin not only isolates these individuals but provides some
important background in the policies of the US around the time of the Civil
War, and how the focus was off westward expansion, during this time. When the
war ended, it seemed like there was a large army in need of work and vast lands
where gold and other resources were with people looking to move out of
overcrowded cities for new opportunities and adventure. This led to threats and
attacks on settlers, necessitating the building of forts and protection of the
US Army on certain routes, like the Oregon Trail. It was fascinating to learn
more about how these events and policies boiled tensions between different
plains Indian tribes and the federal government. Along with broken treaties,
reduced rations, and disease and illness, readers can also learn how the plains
Indians were reduced in numbers and spirit, and yet leaders and warriors like
Sitting Bull and Red Cloud arose to challenge the authority of the US government
and the great father in DC.
Clavin’s recap of the battle alternates between the US
forces, and the divisions of Custer’s men, who split up into separate groups,
which ultimately led to their demise, and the warriors who followed Sitting
Bull and Crazy Horse. Clavin’s even-handed research presents much of the
arrogance and mismanagement, including the drinking from Major Reno, and the friction
with Captain Benteen, which also seemed to factor into the poor decisions and
fractured strategy in this campaign. Although there were no survivors in Custer’s
actual group, Clavin referenced other books and the Sioux and Cheyenne survivors
who participated and provided accounts of what exactly happened. It presents an
important recounting that challenges many of the myths and heroic portraits of
Custer that were pumped out as propaganda after the battle. As Clavin notes,
Custer was considered a potential presidential candidate and was set to speak
in Philadelphia for the Centennial celebration about a week later. However, due
to the vast distance and limited reporting at the time, people were unsure of
where he was or what happened in the battle. This kind of limited access to
information allowed the military and Custer’s widow, Libbie, to reshape the
narrative, which ultimately painted Custer as a hero and victim, a view that
persisted for many years.
The last section of the book went by quickly, and it moves
from the summer of 1876 to the aftermath in the next few years, and how this
led to the last stands of Crazy Horse shortly after and Sitting Bull more than a
decade later. Clavin also frames this idea of the government and military
continuing to seek and harass these tribes for the defeat at Little Bighorn. Sadly,
it ends with the slaughter at Wounded Knee, where nearly 300 Lakota people,
mostly women and children, were murdered by the military. Clavin notes like
Little Bighorn, the limited information available at the time worked to the
military’s advantage, allowing them to frame this as another battle like Little
Bighorn, but that was ultimately prevented from major military casualties. In
fact, there were several commendations and awards given. Tying these events to
the present, Clavin notes that there have been recent attempts to rescind these
awards and commendations, although the current administration has fought that,
despite legislation that has authorized taking these awards away from the
unjust murder of hundreds of Lakota women and children.
Clavin has written a compelling and important story
detailing the history and facts of a inflection point in American history, one
which has been mythologized and used to create a kind of narrative about
American exceptionalism while denigrating the role of Indigenous people in
American history, and has helped to educate and reframe the narrative. I learned
a lot from this book. Furthermore, Clavin’s clear and engaging prose and his
focus on the main protagonists in this tragedy, Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy
Horse, creates a compelling story of three flawed men who converge on a hot
battlefield in June of 1876. The story still resonates today, and it serves an
even more important lesson in understanding the truth in history, and how
events can be twisted and propagandized to either avoid accountability or to
create American heroes. This is a really important and engaging read. Highly
recommended! Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing an
advanced copy of Tom Clavin’s latest historical book Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull.
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