Given the annilation of the men with Custer at the end, there is a natural tendency for the author to focus on the experiences of the survivors. As in many other histories of the Little Big Horn, this means that historians and authors tend to tell the story of the commands of Reno and Benteen. Donovan does this well, giving a real sense of how the troops there, a few miles from Custer's position, had little understanding of what had happened, and their terrifying nights defending their position while being unsure what had happened to Custer's force.
Donovan places pride of place to Benteen here. Benteen, hated by Custer, is built up here as a brave tactician, able to step in when Reno fails and loses control. Benteen's ability to organise the defence and a fighting retreat after Weir's unsuccessful attempt to reach Custer probably saved the companies on the hill. Reno himself is depicted as a coward and a drunk, though Donovan is perhaps less critical that other historians of the man himself. There's no doubt that Reno's initial charge was met by a heavy force, and could not have survived a full scale attack on the Native American village. In the aftermath of that collapse, Benteen could save the men, but there was an utter failure of collective leadership. The real failure of command however, was Custer.
Custer's luck ran out at the Bighorn. It is noticeable that many of those who survived with Reno (thanks to Benteen) assumed that Custer must have survived - he was considered unkillable. But that reputation was built on luck itself. Indeed what's really noticeable in contemporary accounts such as Donovan's is that the massacre of the Seventh Cavalry took place because Custer's command decisions were frequently made on the basis of his personal animosity and factional fighting in the regiment. Ironically, Custer took his friends and family with him, leaving his antagonists with Reno. They're the ones who lived.
Despite starting decades before, James Donovan's book is focused on the battle to the exculsion of much interesting contemporary material and suffers from a lack of Native American material and voices. It is interesting to compare and contrast the account of the Little Bighorn told in Pekka Hämäläinen's Lakota America. Which is entirely from the perspective of the Lakota forces on the day. Donovan's book would have been much stronger had it used this approach alongside the well worn tale from the Cavalry's side.
In the final third of the book Donovan tells the story of the recriminations and blame after the battle. Here the reader is likely to be disappointed. The survivors banded together, for the good of the regiment, and everyone failed to learn any lessons. Many of those who survived however suffered badly - what we would today call PTSD led many to drink, and tragic deaths. The Native Americans celebrated, but were rounded up and destroyed by a beligerent US and so it is right that Donovan finishes with the horror of Wounded Knee - making it clear how the US Army saw this massacre of men, women and children as revenge for the Custer's death.
A Terrible Glory is a readable account of the Little Bighorn fight. But readers will likely find themselves wanting more than James Donovan offers here. Readers looking for a first book about this subject might find Nathanel Philbrick's The Last Stand a better introduction.
Related Reviews
Hämäläinen - Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power
Estes - Our History is the Future
Philbrick - The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Tully - Crooked Deals and Broken Treaties
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