Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

A very good book and recommended. It does however fall short with its look at Lt. Henry Harrington, commander of Company C during the battle. The forensic reconstruction figure on page 172 is Lt. Harrington, one of the long missing officers whose remains were not found after the battle. The authors are not alone in missing the resemblance to the 1872 West Point graduate whose remains have lain in the Smithsonian Institution for more than a century.

This oversight by historians and anthropologists alike is corrected in the book "Custer's Lost Officer the Search for Lieutenant Henry Moore Harrington, 7th U.S. Cavalry by Walt Cross. I recommend that if you purchase this book you also purchase the Cross book ISBN: 0-9771926-1-X. In "Custer's Lost Officer" Harrington is identified as the soldier the Sioux called "The bravest man the Sioux ever fought."

Among all of the books I have on the archeaology of the Little Bighorn, my library would not be complete with out this one concerning the findings from those digs.

It is well written. It is very technical and not the kind of book a causual reader would enjoy. It is , however, the kind of book a very serious student of the subject will enjoy. Although I was not present for any of the digs as a volunteer, I have kept up with them by purchasing many other books related. I have visted the battlefield several times of the years and even met a few of the poeple mentioned in the book. This all of course, makes it of special interest to me. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone with a very serious interest in the anthropology concerning the members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry who participated in the battle in 1876. There are some very important comparisons with other remains that were studied from several other areas of the Western expansion to arrive at a picture of what these men were really like. As the book concludes, this was not a period that was quite so romantic as many people have imagined. It was a very tough life in a harsh environment. For the advanced "Custer Buff" or historian, this is a must have book.

This book should be a considered a companion book to the others written detailing the results of the numerous battlefield investigations following the 1984 brush fire, particularly "Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined."

While this book goes into detail about the individual soldiers and the remains found at numerous marker pairs across the field, the other title gives the new forensic based chronology of the battle. I was a park visitor in 1984, and two time subsequent to that date. It is amazing how the interpretation of the battle has changed since then. The new explanation answers many of the nagging questions that have fed the Custer Myth. Scott's book in particular explodes the myth of the noble fighting bunkmates or suicide pacts, that rose from the apparent grave stone pairs that dot the battlefield, and the apparent mis match between the number of markers and the number of soldiers that were killed. Exhumation of numerous such sites revealed in all cases only the partial remains of one individual. The fact that so many ramains were found at so many of the sites, and that markers intended for the Reno Field were placed on the Custer Field, calls into question the thoroughness of the reburial details subsequent to the battle. Remnants and nearly complete skeletal remains were found. Makes you wonder how many horse bones are under the marker on mis-named Last Stand Hill. Scott makes a valiant attempt to include attributed artifacts and remains previously found on the battlefield to expand his data population. A noble endeavor. Some of the biggest questions regarding the battle may never be known due to the construction of the park visitors center, parking lot and Veterans Cemetary. Scott's book adds new indespensible information to the updated unglorified story of the Little BigHorn. A must read for anyone interested in the Little Bighorn.

This is a very interesting and engrossing analysis of the skeletal remains from the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The authors have handled their material well, except for the repetitiveness. It's as if each wrote something for the book and everything was then used somewhere in it instead of being edited to produce a comprehensive whole book. The section on comparison of the skeletal remains from the Battle with skeletons from other contexts from the Old West was a bit of a drag and perhaps overanalyzed. I didn't see how it was terribly relevant to the who or the what of the Battle bones. But the authors are good writers and this was worth the read. I would have liked to know more about the Native casualties, but this receives short shrift in a couple of paragraphs. Also there was no discussion about the remains of G. A. Custer and the other officers or how their bodies was identified.

Very interesting book. Learned a lot. Some information was repeated (word for word) in different sections of the book. Seemed like it was added just to stretch the size of the book, or at least someone wasn't paying attention. What was new was interesting, what was repeated was boring. I would recommend this book, it is definitely worth reading.

Who knew that old bones could give us as such quantities of information?
This book is a captivating and absorbing account of many of the cavelrymen who rode against the Sioux at Little Bighorn.
I enjoyed the little snippets of their lives that were discovered by comparing historical documents with the anthopological evidence found on site. A good addition to my library.

This book is for the reader who wants to delve deeper into the Battle of Little Big Horn. For this reader, I would give the book four or five stars. However, for the casual reader of the battle, this is not the right book for you. For this reader, I would give the book two stars. I recommend Philbrick's or Donovan's book for the casual reader.

However, as I mentioned, for the reader who wants to dig a little deeper, this book has a lot of interesting facts to share like: (1) the average age of the 7th cavalry trooper was 27 years old and (2) the average years of experience was 1 to 5 years. These facts debunk the belief by some that the 7th cavalry was beaten because it was filled with young troopers of little experience. In fact, only 20% of the 7th cavalry troopers were less than 21 years old.

The main part of the book goes through an anthropological study of the bones of some of the 7th cavalry troopers coming up with an interesting conclusion that Custer may not be buried in West Point, but may still be buried in the Little Big Horn cemetary. Of course, that will never be confirmed (unless DNA testing can do this but I'm sure that won't be allowed).

There a lot of little known facts like this in the book, and for this reason it is a useful book for the individual who is studying the Little Big Horn battle.