Customer Reviews

Where Custer Fell: Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now

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The project that sent three historians trudging across every acre of Custer Battlefield and beyond is finally complete - for now. "Where Custer Fell" is a testament to the teamwork, fellow admiration, and knowledge of Dr. James Brust, the late Brian Pohanka, and Sandy Barnard.

The concept behind "Where Custer Fell" is something I've wanted to see ever since I found the book "Yellow Ore, Yellow Hair, Yellow Pine: A Photographic Study of a Century of Forest Ecology" during my first trip to the Black Hills in 1978. The spiral book by Donald R. Progulske and Richard H. Sowell is a study of the 1874 Black Hills expedition led by George A. Custer told in before and after photographs. Photographer Sowell researched historic photos of Custer's camps including the long lines of wagons, livestock, and soldiers beside mountains, forest, and streams. Sowell then hiked throughout the Black Hills to locate the exact spot from which the historic photos were shot - there he set up the camera and snapped a contemporary photo. The before and after photos included in "Yellow Ore" give the reader an opportunity to look at and wonder how much the landscape has changed due to man and nature.

Brust had similar ideas, however his subject would be the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The task he found himself under far outweighed the requirements Sowell encountered - Sowell was looking at one set of historic photos. Brust's monumental mission involved one of the most photographed battlefields of the Indian Wars -- photographers have been active there since 1877!

Brust soon realized that he couldn't do it alone. Coming on board next to help with the project was Brian Pohanka followed not long afterwards by Barnard. Together they would spend many seasons walking over the battlefield - over a decade. Imagine how long it would've taken Brust to do it alone.

"Where Custer Fell" is richly researched and elegantly written. The three authors have provided us an invaluable resource regarding the changing faces of Custer Battlefield - it's quite surprising to discover just how little the face has changed.

The story of Custer's Last Stand has been told in countless books, so why another - what can this book offer that others do not? I have to admit that I don't read every single book regarding this subject because many are just not worth the cost or time required, especially when they are fraught with redundancy or biased viewpoints. We are fortunate that Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard have provided a book that is indeed very much worth its inexpensive price and our time spent studying it.

"Where Custer Fell" is not a rehash of the same old stuff, albeit some of it may be well known to the average Custer buff. However, I dare any buff, after completely reading the book, to walk away without an extensive body of new and refreshing historical material.

We are not forced to waddle through the causes and aftermath of the Sioux War - instead, the authors start their story as Custer divides his forces the afternoon of June 25, 1876. The narrative is the most all-embracing and satisfying telling of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in decades - even for the expert. Sharing in this adventure are the wonderful historic and comparison photos. As I turned each page the excitement of what the next photo might reveal was masterful.

The authors provide many interpretations from different historians, however they set their own course; analyze the facts, and draw their own unique conclusions. The narrative does not burden us with finger pointing or blaming of individual battle participants. The story is told, as all books on this subject should be, in a completely objective manner. And, in doing so, the narrative does not fall into a common trap when telling this story - the authors do not speculate or pretend to know what a battle participant may have been thinking just to fill any unknowns or gaps. "Where Custer Fell" is history written at its best.

What are some questions the authors help answer?

·Identification of Reno's first crossing of the Little Bighorn.
·Location of the morass.
·Exceptional analysis of the Valley Fight including the skirmish line, and the location of the timber that Reno's forces moved into from the skirmish line.
·Fascinating events surrounding the Charlie Reynolds and Donald McIntosh markers.
·Whether the Reno-Benteen Monument was moved from a different location.
·New revelations for the true locations of the Butler and Bobo markers.
.How far north of Last Stand Hill did Custer's battalion do battle.
·How much, if at all, Last Stand Hill has changed since 1876.

That just touches the surface of what is covered in this book - there is so much more.

The authors save their most extensive coverage for Last Stand Hill. A worthwhile map is included which locates each marker, within the fence, and its respective number along with identification of each officer's marker. Included is an impressive full-page photo - the first taken of Last Stand Hill in 1877 by John Fouch. And, as the books' title promises, the authors put to rest the debate as to where Custer actually fell with clear and persuasive evidence.

Predominantly, the complete photographic study delivers a most gratifying finish -- assurance that efforts by the NPS and countless individuals have achieved a remarkable accomplishment with maintaining the battlefield and surrounding environs in pristine condition. When we visit the Custer Battlefield we see pretty much what Custer, Reno, Benteen, and hundreds of the soldiers and Indians saw on June 25-26, 1876.

I cannot speak lightly regarding the significance of "Where Custer Fell." Its legacy will live on for decades much like Edgar Stewart's "Custer's Luck" and John Gray's "Custer's Last Battle."

Note: Each chapter includes a topographical map pinpointing the location of each photo presented - a simple but valuable tool that makes following the storyline easy.

You can learn more about this book by reading interviews with the authors Dr. James Brust and Sandy Barnard at the Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield website -- friendslittlebighorn.com

Where Custer Fell: Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now will be a classic before you know it. It will no doubt become a must addition to the earlier Little Big Horn chroniclers such as Kuhlman, Graham, and Luce.

Wonderfully organized, Where Custer Fell matches many early and in some cases very rare photographs of the Custer and Reno battlefield with modern pictures taken from the same vantage point. Perhaps equally important is the fact the the photos are offered in roughly the same chronology as the battle itself. For example, Chapter four provides photos of the Crows Nest then and now as well as the famous morass. Then Chapter five deals with the Valley Fight and provides the appropriate photos. This is so far superior to the usual cluster of pictures that are lumped together in isolation of the text that deals with them and makes constant referral to them easy.

But Where Custer Fell is much more. The authors manage to provide an informed analysis of the battle and the aftermath. Through sound research and enormous quantities of patience, Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard manage to do what so many amateurs, myself included, have not been able to do and that is visit sites recorded in early photographs and then record how those sites look today.

Having visited the the Little Big Horn battle field as a young child, I have never been able to shake the memory of standing on last stand hill and gazing at the marble markers both near and far.

If you're a serious student of Custer and the Little Big Horn Battle, Where Custer Fell will be an important addition to your library.

I highly recommend it.

I read all the glowing reviews here of this book. I decided to buy it. That was a mistake. If I could have looked inside this book beforehand, I could have saved myself the money.

Let's get one thing straight. This book is NOT a photographic tour of the LBH battlefield. It is basically a history of the battleFIELD in photographs. It takes an old photograph taken some 80-120 years ago and matches it to a modern day photo taken from the same angle.

It's two basic themes are:
A. "Gee, look how little things have changed in the last 100 years" and B. "Look! they don't have a grave marker where it should be."

ALL the photographs, even the current day ones, are in black-and-white. I found this disappointing. The photos are small, average size about 5.5" x 3.75". If you expect to see much detail in a B&W photo this small of a vast battlefield landscape, you'd better get out your magnifying glass.

Let's go over a few things this book does NOT show:

1. Contrary to what another reviewer said, there is NO picture of the Crow's Nest. There is one picture of 4 guys standing NEAR the Crow's Nest, and the camera taking the picture is pointing to the northEAST. So not only do you NOT see the Crow's Nest itself, you CANNOT see the view of the Little Big Horn valley from it.

2. There is no photo of the Lone Tepee site.

3. Incredibly there is NOT a single photo of the location of Reno's skirmish line. This alone is a fatal omission.

4. There is NO photo of the timber where Reno made his brief stand (and started his "charge" to the rear). The closest you'll get in this regard is a photo of Charlie Reynold's grave marker.

5. There is no view from Sharpshooter Ridge to the Reno hilltop position.

6. There is no view from Henryville toward Finley Ridge or Calhoun Hill.

7. There is one extra small (4.5" x 3.25") photo of Medicine Tail Coulee ford, and the camera is on the east bank pointed toward the southeast, a rather bizarre angle.

8. No photo of the depression northeast of Custer Ridge where Crazy Horse, White Bull, Lone Bear, and Rain-in-the-Face and others gathered to cut through C and L Companies assembled on Custer Ridge.

9. There is no photo of the big Indian village site west of the LBH river.

I could go on (and on and on) but that's enough. You get the idea. If there is not a ~100 year old photo of a particular part of the battlefield, you will not find a present day photo of it in this book. Tourists of ~100 years ago apparently did not take pictures of these more obscure, but still VERY IMPORTANT sites, but they took plenty pictures of Custer Hill.

Let's go over what this book has in spades:

1. No less than 54 photos of Custer Hill taken from nearly every point of the compass. If you're really fascinated by where each marker should be, this should interest you.

2. Ten photos of the Cemetery by the Visitor's Center. This has nothing to do with the actual battle at all. Like I said, this book is a photo history of the battleFIELD.

Some reviewers have remarked on the text in this book, but the text is not the raison d'etre for this book. This book is all about its photographs. Nobody is going to buy this book for its text.

I wish someone would publish a big high-quality color photo book that shows how the battlefield scene unfolded in Reno eyes, Benteen's eyes, Sioux-Cheyenne eyes, and probable Custer's eyes. "Where Custer Fell" doesn't do this. Don't expect it to.

While visiting the Little Big Horn a few years ago, I was surprised to learn that although Custer's marker is 15 yards below the peak of Custer Hill, the actually location of his body was on the very top of the hill. This is one of the many fascinating aspects of this book. The current marker indicates where Custer was burried, but through early historical photos, the authors do in fact locate Custer's death site on the very top of the hill a few feet south of the present day monument. Through a series of original early photographs from various periods of time, many relatively rare or recently discovered, much is revealed about the Custer battlefield adding to the history, sometimes correcting markers, which enabled historians and superintendents over the years to relocate some of those controversial markers to their correct location (Sgt. Butler's). Sandy Barnard, who is the editor of `Greasy Grass' magazine, and the late Brian Pohanka, a great western and Civil War historian and preservationist, team with James Brust, a historical photographic expert to produce a book that provides a fascinating catalogue of photographs showing the battlefield in its early stages, and progressively through time through later photos and recent modern pictures. The narrative of the book looks at the Little Big Horn fight using contemporray accounts combined with witness testimonies in a straight forward up to date history and theories, while matching the various locations with these revealing photographs providing fascinating insight to this mysterious puzzle of a battle. This book compares well with Frassanito's great book on Gettysburg that also combined historical photographs with present day photos often adding new light to the exact location of where the historical shots were taken. The Custer book studies the battle virtually as it was fought with photos staggered to show the ford at Reno Creek to the valley floor to progressively covering the entire battlefield back to Reno-Benteen Hill, Weir Point, Medicine Trail Coulee, Finkle-Finley Knoll, Calhoun Hill, the Keogh sector, Deep ravine, the Cemetery knoll and Custer Hill of course. Fascinating revelations from photos combined with relatively recent archeological data (Fox and Scott) with findings including the location of where scout Lonesome Charlie fell, the location of the morass, lone tepee, the question of where Sergeant Butler fell and identity, determining the various roles of Company C, the skirmish line on Calhoun Hill, the collapse of company I, the flight to Custer Hill, the relation of Company E in Deep Ravine, the south skirmish line, company F on Custer Hill and so on.
The pictures zeroing in on the markers with testimonials of the Benteen-Reno Hill survivors demonstrate the role that each company made in the stand and where and also demonstrates where there was collapse and possible rout like retreats toward Calhoun Hill and Custer Hill. The photographs and contemporary history also place the theory that E troop fought as a company in and around Deep Ravine with survivors from Custer Hill making their ill fated attempt to join them certianly seem very possible as their markers appear to be a flight line, not a skirmish line. The historical testimonies also indicate that certian markers were located out of respect for survivors back home like the Sturgis family whose son's body was never found or indentified. Very unfortunate that Cemetery Hill was not preserved initially as other archeological findings might have identified that ridge as a holding pattern as Luce did on the ridge named after him. Through photographs, even the best-read LBH historian will enjoy this book and the pictures add so much to the history. As noted previously, the actual location of where Custer fell shown by a large stake that was clearly pictured a year after the battle in a relatively unknown 1877-8 photograph is a major find. In addition, the skeletons of several horses around Custer's death site indicate that there was a possible defense line. Combined with the modern picture, we all now know approximately where Custer's body was found. Although this may look like a coffe table book, it is large because the photographs are large and well defined combined with a detailed historical narrative that is enough to stand on its own, bringing testimonies with photographs to a very satisfying informative level. This book is one of the most satisfying, unique studies on the LBH.

In this very interesting large-format paperback, photos of the Little Big Horn battlefield taken (in some cases) within a year or so of the battle are compared to photos taken as nearly as possible from the same spot and with the same field of view, over the past 20 years. It is amazing how little this landscape has changed, the main differences being due to erosion, changes in the course of the river, and the springing-up of large numbers of trees in what was originally a treeless, barren waste.

My main reservation about the book is that clearly, it lives and dies by the quality of the photo reproduction, and this quality is not high. "Serviceable" is the best I can say about it. Another problem is the huge, often nearly maddening, amount of sheer repetition in the text discussions. This is clearly done to make the commentary on each pair of photos as self-contained as possible, but nearly exactly the same comments, in almost exactly the same words, appear over and over.

This book makes a good companion to the recent Little Bighorn account, A TERRIBLE GLORY. It provides, based on Indian accounts and archaeological excavations, a fairly detailed discussion of the various stages of the battle involving the three companies (or whatever they were called) of cavalry who went along with Custer... details that are not present in A TERRIBLE GLORY.

The authors make a number of very interesting points, concerning for example the later confusion between the spot where Custer's body was found (at the top of the hill) and the spot where he was buried (about 100 feet down the hillside). It's clear from the photos that Custer's body was found at a spot which today is immediately in front of the later monument. Wherever Custer was buried, he might be still there, because when the graves of the officers of the 7th Cavalry were excavated so that the bodies could be reburied as the families directed (Custer was supposed to wind up at West Point), only a few scattered skeletal fragments turned up in the grave marked as his.

Unlike many university press books I have examined in the past few decades, this one has been professionally set in type, and the text looks great.

The heart of this large-format volume is the collection of old photographs (on dating back to within a year of the famous battle of the Little Bighorn battlefield, amny of them paired with modern photographs taken from the same spot, to show changes between then and now -- and to answer questions about where the original photographs were taken. It is a technique very much in the tradition of William Frassanito with his work in American Civil War photography, and in some cases the photographic detective work provides new evidence towards solving old mysteries.

Besides the photographs, the book offers solid, insightful text, discussing both the photographs and the battle itself.

One of the co-authors -- Brian Prohanka -- recently died. A well-known expert in the Civil War as well the Little Big Horn, the present volume makes a valuable,lasting, and appropriate memorial to someone who was truly a gentleman and a scholar.

I have a BA in History, and have researched over the last 40 years the Indian Wars and Battles.

Custer's battle over these 40 years has changed in perspective from the real truth, very much.

The archeology research and the using of the Indian's interviews taken before the Indian participants all died, have changed what "really happened".

I have been to the battle field. I spent over two days going over the 5 mile battle on foot last year. This book is the "greatest" for being able to see what, Custer and Indians saw, and what it looks like today. It's easy now to see the nuances that have occurred over the last 130 years to the terrain and how they affected the battle.

Having recently read two books on the Battle of the Little Bighorn, I decided to continue (and, I think, finish) my education on that event by reading, and viewing, WHERE CUSTER FELL. Earlier, my understanding and "feel" for the Civil War battles of Antietam and Gettysburg was enhanced considerably by William Frassanito's books, which made extensive use of historical photographs. I hoped that this book would do the same for my understanding and feel for LBH. To a certain extent it did, but ultimately it is more suited for the specialist on the LBH than for a generalist and ultimately it is not as satisfactory for the generalist as are Frassanito's Civil War books.

Basically, what the triumvirate of author/photographers did was accumulate a large number of "historical" photographs of the LBH battlefield that were taken beginning one year after the battle and continuing on through about 1950. They then searched for the precise spot at which each of these historical photos had been taken and, shooting in the same direction and replicating the perspective as much as possible, they took a "contemporary" photograph (mostly from the 1990s). Comparing the two, they often were able to draw reasonably sound conclusions about various matters that have long and hotly been debated by LBH students, both amateur and professional, relating to the battle itself, the marking of spots where 7th Cavalry soldiers had died, the topography of the battlefield and its environs, and the extent to which the integrity of the battlefield has been preserved. Incidentally, their conclusion on this last point is that "the Little Bighorn Battlefield is in an excellent state of preservation." (The biggest changes have been wrought by nature, through such things as flooding of the Little Bighorn River and alteration of its course.)

In the first chapter, the authors provide a good brief summary of the battle, without going deeply into explanations for the actions of the principal figures and whether or not they deserve to be praised or censured. But neither that first chapter, nor the book as a whole, makes for good introductory reading for the uninitiated to the LBH. The principal audience for this book most definitely is serious students of the Battle. Inasmuch as I don't count myself among their number, I found far too arcane and detailed many of the points addressed - for example, whether or not an iron pipe should have been used in marking the spot where First Sergeant James Butler had died. A secondary audience for the book would consist of those interested in how historical photographs can be used in corroborating or revising the best contemporary understanding of an historical event.

Given the complexity and detailed nature of the matters covered in the book, the organization and presentation is very good. My one significant criticism has to do with the fact that many of the topographical features discussed in the book are not located on any map. To cite several examples, Greasy Grass Ridge, Deep Ravine, Calhoun Coulee, and Henryville are oft-mentioned in the text, but they are not located on any of the book's 15 maps.

Conclusion: For the generalist, this is a three-star book. For the avid or serious scholar of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, it is a five-star book. Taking the average, I give the book four stars.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the men of the Seventh U.S. Calvary have long ago entered western legend with their hard fought demise at the Battle of Little Bighorn against overwhelming Native American forces in 1876. Interest in Custer and his 'last stand' have been the subject of countless books, articles, and films. Now the team of James S. Brust (a specialist in historical photographs and prints), Brian C. Pohanka (an accomplished military historian), and Sandy Barnard (an independent scholar specializing in the Indian wars) have collaborated to produce "Where Custer Fell: Photographs Of The Little Bighorn Battlefield Then And Now". An informed and informative text is accompanied by 217 black and white historic photographs and illustrations, plus fifteen maps associated with the battle and the landscape. The product of years of painstaking research, meticulous scholarship, countless trips to the battlefield site, and drawing upon both common and uncommon source material, "Where Custer Fell: Photographs Of The Little Bighorn Battlefield Then And Now" is essential reading for anyone studying the 19th century Indian wars in general, and the life and times of Custer in particular.

This is a great publication.
I have always loved books like this that show historical images then and now.
I highly reccomend this book to anybody with an interest in history.