The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian Wars - Softcover

Hatch, Thom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811704777 ISBN 13: 9780811704779

Publisher: UNKNO, 2002

Synopsis

Few figures in American history inspire more interest than the enigmatic George Armstrong Custer. From his early service in the Civil War to his later years fighting Indians on the frontier, Custer's image has been indelibly imprinted on the pages of American history. His last stand at the Little Bighorn has been retold over and over and remains one of the most infamous stories of the American West. Author and historian Thom Hatch has scoured the historical record to prepare this exhaustive compendium of information of and relating to Custer. It will, he believes, come to be known as "the classic reference source" for the enigmatic cavalryman.

About this title

About the Author

Thom Hatch is the author of numerous other works on Custer, including "Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn: An Encyclopedia" and "Clashes of Cavalry: The Civil War Careers of George Armstrong Custer and J. E. B. Stuart" (0811703568).

Reviews

This book does exactly what its title claims: it assists both readers and researchers in sorting through the mass of material on Custer. Each chapter contains an overview of a particular stage of Custer's vivid life, followed by specific articles, biographical sidebars, maps, cavalry organization tables, and photographs. Each article and sidebar is accompanied by a bibliography of the most relevant books, articles, and archival collections. In this respect, it is a much different work from Custer hobbyist Hatch's earlier encyclopedia, Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, although both draw on the same body of literature. Here, Hatch concentrates on Custer's post-Civil War career on the Plains, as a more than adequate number of reference works on the Civil War are available. But even so, he is selective in what he covers because his purpose is not to define but to guide. He is careful to include military forts, Native American tribes, and their leaders, and he covers the various controversies about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. All special collections on Custer will need this book as a reliable and impartial guide to the subject and literature, and it is also highly recommended for most public and academic libraries.
Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811704777
• ISBN 13: 9780811704779
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288