I joined others last week in observing the commemoration of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the death of George Armstrong Custer, commonly known today as Custer's Last Stand. In doing so it occured to me that I owed something of a debt to Custer, more particularly to Hollywood and how it portrayed Custer and that fateful, iconic episode, both in film and on television, mostly during the 1950s and '60s.
I first learned about Custer through the artwork you see above and on TV, first through "The Legend of Custer" (1968), a short-lived TV series. I also watched airings of classic movies like "The Plainsman" (1936), "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941), and others such as "Custer of the West (1967), Little Big Man (1970), and "Son of the Morning Star" (1991), and many Western TV shows with storylines that included Custer. You get the idea.
More importantly, and here is where my debt is involved, I developed a lifelong enjoyment of reading, while reading about the Custer and the Old West as a young student. I read a number of books about Custer, and several others about the U.S. government's handling of Native Americans. Readings on that subject led to related topics and those readings led to readings on other topics in U.S. history. An interest in Custer had a significant and lasting ripple effect.
I was thinking about all of that as the Little Bighorn's 150th anniversary approached. I don't watch film depictions of the fight these days. It's just too gruesome to contemplate, similar for me to watching movie accounts of World War 1 combat. However, whenever I'm reading a book, Mr. Custer invariably comes to mind, and I pause to mentally tip a hat to him for helping to spark a reading habit that remains vigorous to this day.
As controversial as Custer remains today for many Americans, he still interests me, and his iconic place in our national history is something I appreciate for personal reasons.
-- Thank you for reading.
