Custer
Pulitzer Prize winner McMurtry continues to be an outstanding chronicler of western legend and lore. He has retained a long fascination with the myths surrounding General Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn. This book is neither a comprehensive nor a conventional biography of Custer. Instead, McMurtry offers a series of vignettes and musings about various aspects of Custer’s career, his personality, and the cultural milieu that led to his iconic status. Despite his interest in his subject, McMurtry often paints an unflattering and probably unfair portrait of Custer. He claims all of his officers despised him, which ignores his small but loyal core of supporters within the Seventh Cavalry. He suggests Custer lacked conscience, forgetting his principled but damaging (for him) testimony before Congress about corruption on Indian reservations. Still, newcomers to Custermania will find many of the tidbits very interesting, and that should encourage them to read more comprehensive biographies. --Jay Freeman