The Last Stand Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Compelling narrative and balanced analysis. Cuts through the myth of Custer and presents the whole campaign in an engaging story.

I'm very glad I read this book. Prior to doing so, I knew only the basic, highly sensationalized details of the infamous battle. While I'm still a bit iffy on Philbrick's choice to include tales of the "Indian supernatural" (aka Sitting Bull's visions and etc) as quasifactual, I thought this was a well-written book. I love the fact that Philbrick gives fairly equal and detailed background description of the events leading up to the "Last Stand." He also very carefully navigated the treacherous waters caused by lack of evidence in certain arenas of the battle. (In other words, he took later accounts with a grain of salt because all the participants in certain parts of the battle were killed thus leaving now first hand narrative evidence.) On top of the excellent narrative, the book was read by a fairly decent narrator. That always makes an audiobook immensely more pleasurable. I would definitely recommend this book.