The Official Record of a Court of Inquiry Convened at Chicago, Illinois, January 13, 1879, by the President of the United States Upon the Request of Major Marcus A. Reno, 7th U.S. Cavalry to Investigate His Conduct at Battle of The Big Horn, June 25-26, 1876.

Cloth, two volumes bound in one, slight wear to bottom edges, a near fine copy. First edition. Limited to 125 copies, this is copy number 85. "This volume is produced by Direct Liquid Duplication, which consists in impregnation of the paper with an analine dye, that penetrates it so deeply as to defy erasure. As no dye yet developed is as fast as printers' ink, however, this volume should not be left open for protracted periods, but should be kept closed when not in use.Reno's conduct at Little Big Horn was the subject of controversy immediately following the battle and into the twentieth century. This item is the record of the inquiry that ultimately exonerated Reno of wrongdoing. This record had remained unpublished for 70 years, until historian W. A. Graham produced this scarce limited edition." Custer High Spots 45:"Turning now to the battle, among the accounts of white participants the most important book by far is W. A. Graham's The Official Record.published in 1951. Other than the contemporary newspaper accounts of these court proceedings in 1879, this is the first printing of the record. This record was not released from the War Department, Judge Advocate General s Office, to the National Archives until 1941. It was 1951 before Graham published this record in an edition limited to 125 copies. No other work contains such a wealth of eye-witness accounts. A word of warning: do not accept every word of the testimony as the exact truth or believe that every topic is exhaustively and completely explored. Nonetheless, Official Record is truly one of the Custer keystones." A cornerstone work in the Custer canon.…