Custer Myth

“I have collected here, and offer in this volume, a great many bits of now scarce source material, from which you, the reader, may construct a mosaic of your own, appraising the value and proper placement of each item, should you wish to write a story of Custer’s Last Fight. It will probably be a better one than many heretofore written.” From the Custer Myth
Firsthand sources in The Custer Myth include:

• Narratives of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arikara, and Crow
• Philo Clark’s 1877 battlefield survey
• Statements and letters by scouts and other nonmilitary participants
• The Benteen-Goldin letters
• “Custer’s’ Last Battle,” the 1892 Century Magazine article by General Edward S. Godfrey
• General Winfield Scott Edgerly’s 1881 statement about the battle
• Military and literary records of Theodore W. Goldin

William A. Graham, 1875-1954, studied at Beloit College in Wisconsin, Stanford University, and the University of Iowa, from which he received a law degree in 1897. Graham practiced law until 1912, when he joined the Iowa National Guard. Although he saw active duty, he spent most of his Army career as a judge advocate. In 1919 he began to study the battle of the Little Big Horn, and first published The Story of the Little Big Horn in 1925. He later published The Reno Court of Inquiry: Abstract of the Official Record of Proceedings and The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custeriana.

Brian C. Pohanka, one of the nation’s leading authorities on the life of the common soldier of the Civil War, is a frequent consultant of film and the television producers on Civil War reenacting and living history. Formerly an assistant editor and researcher for the Time-Life Books Civil War series, he is the author of Distant Thunder: A Photographic Essay on the American Civil War and Civil War: An Aerial Portrait. Pohanka is also active in Custer and Little Bighorn studies, including archaeological work on the Little Bighorn Battlefield. He works as a freelance writer and consultant from his home in Alexandria, Virginia.