Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors

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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, May 1, 1996 - History - 560 pages
The full story of what led Crazy Horse and Custer to that fateful day at the Little Bighorn, from bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose.
 
On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611  U.S. Army soldiers rode toward the banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory, where 3,000 Indians stood waiting for battle.  The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked throughout history: Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong Custer of the Seventh Cavalry. Both were men of aggression and supreme courage. Both had become leaders in their societies at very early ages; both had been stripped of power, and in disgrace had worked to earn back the respect of their people. And to both of them, the unspoiled grandeur of the Great Plains of North America was an irresistible challenge. Their parallel lives would pave the way, in a manner unknown to either, for an inevitable clash between two nations fighting for possession of the open prairie.
 

Contents

A Summer on the Plains 1867
275
The Treaty of 1868 and the Battle of the Washita
305
Truce on the High Plains 186973
331
PART FOUR
349
Crazy Horse and Custer on the Yellowstone 1873
351
The Panic of 1873 and the Black Hills Expedi tion of 1874
371
Politics Red and White
387
Crazy Horse Fights on the Rosebud While Custer Closes In
411
The Battle of the Little Bighorn
435
The Death of Crazy Horse
451
What Happened to the Others
477
Acknowledgments
484
Notes
485
Bibliography
512
Index
517
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Stephen E. Ambrose was the author or co-author of more than thirty books on military affairs and foreign policy. Early in his career he was an associate editor of The Eisenhower Papers, and he later went on to publish the definitive, three-part biography of Eisenhower, as well as many bestselling books of military history, including Band of Brothers and Undaunted Courage. He died in 2002.

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