Chief Sitting Bull-The General who outgeneraled Custer. General George Armstrong Custer-The slain General who went down in history.

'A Terrible Glory' is a study in juxtapositions situated against the historic twilight of the Manifest Destiny hysteria which witnessed America urbanize its Westward frontier. General George Armstrong Custer was tasked by the United States Government under incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes to acquire the mineral rich Black Hills for American territory. On the opposing end of the paradigm were the Sioux Tribes under the stewardship of Chief Sitting Bull who opposed attempts made at conquering their sacred lands.

'A Terrible Glory' charts how Custer sat out to confront the Sioux and rid the Black Hills of their presence. Custer had his eyes set on history feeling that he would earn a glorious niche within its annals if he expelled the troublesome Sioux from their homelands. Sitting Bull, fired by the cry of his faith, and the Sioux prepared to defend the 'temples of their forefathers' to the death and court martyrdom in doing so.

Custer's bid for glory blinded him and heightened his arrogance. As Donovan establishes, he made critical strategic errors; entrusted tactical arrangements to military officers wanting in such affairs and ignored the advise of his contumacious Captain Fredrick Benteen to avoid regular stratagems against the Sioux. The ultimate result was that Custer stumbled into an ambush of herculean proportions. He had divided his forces too far and was easily outflanked by the Sioux on their swift moving horses. Ultimately, he and 268 soldiers under his command perished under a savage hale of arrows and bullets unleashed by the fearsome Sioux.

Donovan's prose is exceptional and avoids the specialized terms otherwise used for military histories. If anything, he is highly critical of Custer but this is no biased vilification. Where he is found wanting is in his narrative which is at times tedious and highly steeped in military lore; to the degree it digresses from the history at hand and goes into a deep exploration of how a certain gun came into being. Otherwise, this is a very critical study of how human error contributes to military catastrophe. ( )

Saw it on the shelves in Borders and wanted to know more about an event in American History that has taken on some mythical form in popular culture. Ok book, but wish the author had included a list of the "dramatis personae". Not especially well-written, although it represents a huge amount of research. ( )

I am not an expert on George Armstrong Custer by any means, but I have to say I have been very impressed by this book.

Potential readers should note that the book primarily covers the period in Custer's life which begins in Kansas, in October 1867, through Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn, in June 1876. In the book, roughly the first 54 pages recap Custer's life up to 1867, so persons desiring to learn a complete history lesson on Custer will need to read other materials.

The author divides his work into four parts: I - Approach, II - Advance, III - Attack, and IV - Aftermath. Each part includes four to six chapters which are heavily end-noted. In fact, end-notes require 83 pages, and some of them are lengthy narratives. I encourage readers to read the end-notes, as they provide details that flesh-out and add value to the story.

The author includes numerous maps that help readers keep up with the locations of persons involved in the battle. Also in the middle of the book are 16 (unnumbered) pages of photos of key persons involved in the tragic event. There is an extensive bibliography and an excellent detailed index, which I referred to often.

I believe the author is even-handed in presenting the tragic story, but again, I am not a Custer expert. The fact that the book is fairly new (about 10 years old when I read it) is a plus in my mind. I would appreciate it if a reader of this little "review" who knows of a better book on the subject would let me know. In the meantime, I am glad to have received this book as a gift and have taken the time to read it. ( )

I was a bit disappointed in this book, which I purchased after visiting the Custer Battlefield National Monument (highly recommended, by the way). There were, of course, dozens of books on offer there, and the docent who led our tour group there recommended this one. One of the selling points was that Donovan was the first author to have access to the results of a 1984 forensic archaeological dig allowed on the battle site and which supposedly shed new light on details.

If such “details” were utilized in the book, they weren’t obvious. In fact, despite devoting a whopping 400 pages (plus extensive footnotes) to the buildup to and aftermath of the event, the section of the narrative on the battle itself is confusing and inconclusive. Much more ink is devoted to the actions of Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, whose mutual failure to follow the battle plans sketched out by Custer played a large part in the Seventh Cavalry’s devastating loss. In a way, this may be excused – there were many survivors in the Reno and Benteen camp whose testimony painted a clear picture of both groups’ actions, while the lack of survivors among Custer’s contingent made firsthand testimony impossible. Native American testimony, however, has long been available and one wishes more use had been made of those sources.

Donovan does paint a broad canvas, however, and effectively places Custer’s campaign within the larger picture of American incursion into Native American lands. That may be the book’s greatest value to the amateur historian. The Battle at the Little Bighorn, and indeed the entire post-Civil War era of the Indian wars, did not occur in a vacuum, and Donovan evokes the era and its players with style. ( )

A well written and well researched on George Armstrong Custer's feats and misdeeds with the American Indians. It is amazing as how when we read of these people a hundred years after the fact, we so clearly see their follies and errors. Definitely worth your time. Also some mental comparisons between the enlisted soldiers attitudes after the batles and our currently returning home veterans from the middle east is in order. We may label it differently but the outcome in the same. ( )