Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer [Paperback]

Louise Barnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1997

A vivid cultural history of America's revered and despised frontier legend, this book is "a major addition to the history of American culture" (Kirkus Reviews). Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee says "Custer aficionados who mistakenly believe that there is nothing more to know about Libbie and Autie had better have a look at Touched by Fire." Photo insert.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The source of our endless fascination with the legend of General Custer--the flamboyant general and brilliant tactician who led his troops into a bloody massacre--is perhaps as interesting as the story of the man himself. Why, more than 100 years later, are we still drawn to the story of Little Bighorn? In Touched By Fire, Louise Barnett reexamines the Custer story and finds that the answer may lie in racism and national pride. Her belief is that we still can't accept the fact that a band of Indians could bring down the white troops of a powerful nation. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

When historic personages pass into legend, they lend themselves to reinterpretation by each subsequent generation. So it is with George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), who here comes into the rigorous purview of Rutgers English professor Barnett (The Ignoble Savage) as she applies the structures of class, race and gender to depict an erratic, complex man who never adjusted to the end of his triumphs in leading patriotic volunteers in the Civil War. Barnett finds that Custer despised the men of his Seventh Cavalry, who fell with him at Little Bighorn, as mercenaries and societal dregs; that he embraced his country's racist policies toward the Plains Indians; that he owed any emotional stability he possessed to a co-dependent relationship with his wife, Libbie. But Barnett is no mere debunker. Her analysis of the Custers' marriage and the workings of the frontier army is solid. Her common-sense approach to the Little Bighorn cuts like Occam's razor through pages of elaborate reconstructions. She wisely attributes Custer's defeat not to esoterica such as disloyal officers and jammed carbines but to poor planning and reconnaissance in the face of the largest gathering ever of Plains Indians. While Robert Utley's Cavalier in Buckskin remains the richest Custer biography, Barnett makes a solid contribution to our understanding of the man and the myth. Photos not seen by PW. Rights, except first serial, electronic, audio: Gerard McCauley.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (June 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080505359X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805053593
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,235,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts the *person* back into Custer's personality, March 15, 1999

By 

Linda D. Terrell "Nomad & Standby" (Dunedin, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (Paperback)

Sometimes overlooked in this book are Louise Barnett's fascinating sidebars on women on the frontier. She could make another book out of her research in this area.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Custer-the-human, March 17, 2008

By 

Matthew Hinson "Matthew H." (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (Hardcover)

I just re-read this biography, after several years, and I was reminded again what a great book it is. Barnett's Custer is not Custer-the-awful or Custer-the-hero -- but Custer-the-human. She is solid on her sources, and tells a story about Custer that develops his relationship with his wife in ways that I find fascinating. You get a sense from this about a person who was three-dimensional. Her description of the battles are solid, though if you want more detail, you will need to find that in other books. If you want to learn about the person behind the fighting, though, this is the book for you.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Of The Better Custer Bios, July 28, 2001

By 

Leonard R. Cleavelin "Random Techie and Polymath" (Memphis, TN, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (Paperback)

I agree with Bob Reece on that score. At the time _Touched By Fire_ was published, we also saw publication of another Custer biography by Jeffery Wert. Barnett's bio was by far and away the better of the two. Custer comes to life for modern readers in a way few authors have made him come alive. My personal favorite Custer "bio" is still Evan Connell's _Son of the Morning Star_, but Barnett's work is also one that I refer to regularly.

Bob Reece spends a lot of his review addressing the issues raised by "a reader from San Francisco" covering the "experiment" that was illustrated in the A&E (and possibly the History Channel as well) documentary in "The New Explorers" series. The New Explorers documentary was seriously marred, I think, in swallowing hook, line, and sinker author Robert Nightengale's almost paranoiac ravings against Benteen and Reno. Any reader interested can refer to Nightengale's _Little Big Horn_ for details there. What I want to note about the "experiment" mentioned is an interesting fact, namely that it appears that those in the Reno-Benteen contingent who claimed to hear firing in the distance were also those who were younger officers who were not Civil War veterans. It is very probable that Reno and Benteen simply did not hear any firing in the distance owing to partial hearing loss induced by their Civil War service.

But that's irrelevant to Barnett's biography. Don't ignore Connell's _Son of the Morning Star_ in your Custer researches, but for an excellent introduction to the life of one of the most colorful Army officers in U.S. History, you can't beat _Touched by Fire_.