They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn [Hardcover]

Douglas D. Scott (Author), P. Willey (Author), Melissa A. Connor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

Dead men tell no tales, and the soldiers who rode and died with George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been silent statistics for more than a hundred years. By blending historical sources, archaeological evidence, and painstaking analysis of the skeletal remains, Douglas D. Scott, P. Willey, and Melissa A. Connor reconstruct biographies of many of the individual soldiers, identifying age, height, possible race, state of health, and the specific way each died. They also link reactions to the battle over the years to shifts in American views regarding the appropriate treatment of the dead.

 

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Douglas D. Scott is Chief of the Rocky Mountain Research Division, Midwest Archeological Center, National Park Service. He holds B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado and is widely known as an author, lecturer, and expert on military archaeology. Other books by Douglas D. Scott include Archaeological Insights Into the Custer Battle and They Died With Custer.

Melissa A. Connor, also an Archeologist with the Midwest Archeological Center, specializes in the reconstruction of diet through the use of isotopes and trace elements in bone. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 389 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press; 1st edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806130954
• ISBN-13: 978-0806130958
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #987,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars They died with Custer., April 4, 2000

By 

Atheen M. Wilson "Atheen" (Mpls, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Hardcover)

This was a superbly written volume outlining the archaeological reclaimation of the battlefield site of the Little Big Horn. A military archeologist (Scott), a forensic archeologist (Conner), and a forensics anthropologist (Willey) combined talents to preserve and identify the material evidence of the events that took place there after a wildfire stripped the scene of vegitation and exposed the site to erosive processes and human curiosity. The book details: 1) the history of the 7th Cavalry, including among other things, the age of the soldiers, their origin, and length of service, 2) the efforts to identify individual soldiers and the location of their fall in battle, 3) the effect of the rigorous life on the frontier on the health of the soldiers, 4) etc. I found particularly interesting the efforts to reconstruct the facial features of some of the skulls in an effort to identify the remains with specific people. This is a good text of archaeology at work.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its about the men this time...., March 7, 2004

By 

lordhoot "lordhoot" (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Hardcover)

I thought this was a well written, easy to read and utterly interesting book on the archeological research done around the Custer Battlefield (Little Big Horn Battlefield for the politically correct). The book centered around the common soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry instead of its more infamous commander. The study of human remains helped give a "slice of life" look at the regular cavalrymen of the Seventh Cavalry and how the battle went according to archeological finds of bullets, casing and where the men of Seventh fell during the battle. It was also interesting to read about how they tried to identified some of the remains they found. The book should be consider as a mandatory reading material for anyone interested in the battle of Little Bighorn.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Digging into Little Bighorn Battlefield, August 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Hardcover)

A well-written summary of more than a decade's analysis of battlefield archeology. Fascinating identification of several bodies from a few bones, especially those well-know persons who were found in sites other than where eyewittnesses placed them in written history. The book suffers, however, by a brief and weak synopsis that fails in its attempt to draw too-broad conclussions about the entire frontier population from a few soldiers' bones.