A good book for the person looking for information about Custer and his character as it relates to events leading up to and after the battle. We do not have to read about his childhood and all the other matter that is generally far removed from the 'last stand'. Importantly we learn of his weaknesses, failures, and generally get a feeling for why events unfolded the way they did. Some of his military history is disturbing, some of tactics make you wonder why he was in charge and in particular one is left with the sense that he may have been an armed sociopath. The result of course was compounded by the fact that he led so many others to a preventable ending. And yet his memory has largely been that of an intelligent and capable leader. This book also provides a good bibliography for those who wish to do further reading. Good illustrations make this book very interesting. It seems that his life may have been about making one blunder after another until the Little Bighorn when the blunder(s) were so big the outcome was almost inevitable. One also has to wonder if the reason he was given so much freedom to act as he did was to promote the interests of the greedy who wanted to control by any means all the wealth of the country.

If you're expecting one of McMurtry's Lonesome Dove type of writings, this isn't it. This is a biography, history book; well researched and plenty of pictures. My problem is that I can never keep all those historical figures separated. Still, what I read, skipping many pages, was still worthwhile. At least I learned that it wasn't Custer who said "don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes".