num_pages: 441
description: On a scorching June Sunday in 1876, thousands of Indian warriors - Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho - converged on a grassy ridge above the valley of Montana's Little Bighorn River. On the ridge five companies of United States cavalry - 262 soldiers, comprising officers and troopers - fought desperately but hopelessly. When the guns fell silent, no soldier - including their commanding officer, Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer - had survived. Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as 'one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers', wrote what continues to be the most reliable - and compulsively readable - account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his research and novelist's eye for story and detail to re-create the heroism, foolishness and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.
language: English
title: Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
titlecomplete: Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
genres: Historical, History, American History, War, Biography, Military History, Westerns, American, Nonfiction, Military Fiction
ratings_count: 2979
places: Montana
awards: awardedAt: 473414400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: History, awardedAt: 441792000000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: Pimlico