It seems that this character is very full of himself, and not to mention his last decision that cost him his life, even if it was exagerated a little bit, Does anyone know if this is a close to accurate depiction of General Custer?
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I know that Custer was not a good student. He graduated last in his class at West Point.
shareThis is totally off the subject but I am in a politics class (politics in the cinema) and the question is in Little Big Man; Chief Lodgeskins repeatedly points out the White man's problem is that he does not know where the center of the earth is; any ideas on what he means by this?
shareHe is talking about the Great Circle of Life (Sacred Hoop) which is an important part of Cheyenne rituals and of many other tribes as well. They recreate the circle in their ceremonies. At the center of the circle all things are connected and whole. If one is within the circle he will always find his way home (to the center). I think that what Chief Lodgeskins is implying that White Man has spiritually lost his way.
sharesounds about right.
🌴"I'm not making art, I'm making sushi." Masaharu Morimoto🌴
Pretty accurate from what I have read. Additionally, at the time of his demise, he was no longer even a general. He had been reduced to colonel due to his attitude...in fact, there is some bit of dispute as to whether or not he ever actually was promoted to general in the first place.
yeah but not half as sure as your tone. Wether he was General or Major or Captain, is surely missing the point which is; was he a responsible soldier or was he a murderous fool?
share"yeah but not half as sure as your tone. Wether he was General or Major or Captain, is surely missing the point which is; was he a responsible soldier or was he a murderous fool?"
Murderous, yes; racist, definitely; but based on what I know about him, I wouldn't call him a fool. In one of my classes, we watched a bit of "Little Big Man" (Basically, from the scene when Custer lets Crabb act as his scout at Little Bighorn, thinking he'll be a "Reverse Barometer," up until Custer's death scene). From what I saw, I thought their portrayal of him was definitely exaggerated, at least a little. He was certainly a vain man (In a letter to his wife, he referred to his own face as "beautiful"), but he was also a smart, skilled leader who had genuine respect for his troops. Also, as I recall, during that scene in the movie, Custer's hair was long, though from what history books have told me, the real Custer had either cut off most of his hair or started to go bald at the time of his death, which is why he was the only dead white soldier at Little Bighorn who wasn't scalped.
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actually dude, custer wasnt alone. About 50 of his men werent scalped or mutilated at all, and a good amount wern't striped (like mark kellogg)
These go to Eleven
Not exactly sure how smart or talented Custer could be made out to be.
Custer was famous (or infamous) for being the most headstrong and arrogant officer in the Union army. McClellan had given him his firs major command after an incident while the officers were out riding and discussing strategy: The party came to an overflowing river, and while McClellan and the more senior officers discussed whether it was safe to ford or they should turn aside, Custer rode straight out into the middle of the stream and waved back to McClellan that he thought it was safe. This impressed McClellan, who gave him his command.
His tactics were very direct and aggressive, using superior Union numbers to overwhelm Confederate positions and bttle lines generally with a direct charge, using the Cavalry more as a sledge hammer than to flank or pentrate enemy lines. In a way, this countered many of McClellan's strategies, which were careful, slow, calculated, and precise, though totally inaddequate for dealing with Lee and especially Jackson. After McClellan's removal, Custer found his fortunes severely reduced, and while not quite "disgraced", did not enjoy the same position as he had.
Custer's assesment of Grant, as represented in the movie, is fairly accurate. Custer resented Grant for being successful with tactics that Custer considered "his"; name, the idea of constant attack, or, as Sherman put it, "Total War". That Grant also made it to the Presidency grated him as well; Custer felt that he had somehow been cheated or passed over, and here was someone who, using "his" tactics, had not only acheived victory in the Civil War, but had been elected to the highest office in the land, something which Custer clearly aspired to.
That being said, the one thing no one could ever accuse Custer oof was being disliked. He had genuine respect and concern for his troops, and from all accounts they responded likewise. As for his tactical brilliance, I for one would say it can seriously be called into question. As I said he was an aggressive, "run-at-the-enemy-and-kill-them" type of strategist, and what he lacked in tactical skill he made up for in drive. However, he lacked some of the finesse and awareness of Grant and Sherman. In the end, his tactics became predictable, and his aggressiveness was used against him.
McClellan gave Custer a position on his staff and got him bumped up to captain. Custer actually got his command when there was a shakeup in the Union Cavalry. Pleasonton was promoted as Chief of Cavalry, and he appointed his choices for brigade and division commands. Custer was one of them, and he was given the Michigan Brigade. By that time, McClellan was long gone. Custer's rise was despite and after McClellan's dismissal.
Grant had finesse? He had a smashmouth method, find Lee and attack, losses be damned.
Custer did not enjoy the same position after McClellan left, he advanced quickly and to Brevet Major General. He thrived under Pleasonton and then Sheridan. And none of the conflict between Grant and Custer was from clash of tactical ideas.
And Custer didn't win due to having superior numbers, many of his attacks and battles were against larger units, regiment v. brigade, brigade v. division, etc.
But he had more tactical ability than you give him credit for. He didn't just charge.
Will you keep it down? I'm trying to do drugs!share
Grant had plenty of finesse, and also revolutionized the entire way that wars were fought up to 1939. Eliminating the concept of "set-piece" battles; moving a small force quickly up the steepest part of a hill to be outside of the angle of emplaced cannons; setting up a continuous front at Cold Harbor and forcing the South to commit massive amounts of men a material to hold him off, then as soon as the South is full entrenched quickly pulling out and attacking with troops on another front... this isn't finesse?
Anyway, beside the point. The man had several key victories, and far be it from me to deprive him of those victories. But, the man was far from a tactician, and while he often won battles in the face of overwhelming odds, his main strategy can often be attributed as little more than "put a whole bunch of men in a small space, make a gap, then the cavalry comes bravely riding into the gap and saves the day." Don't get me wrong, Alexander the Great used the same tactics in all of his battles up until he entered India, but these are not the earmarks of a subtle, well-thought-out strategy.
I've only read a coupe of Civil War books , 'our hallowed ground' been one of them. Custer prospered under Sheriden, who like him so much he gave him the small table or one of the seats from appomadox court house! Custer was said to have rode off holding the table on his head!
Custer's depiction was definitely a caricature - and an intentionally humorous attempt to play upon Custer's most well known character quirks.
Custer was used throughout the movie as a metaphor for the increasingly powerful, yet bizzare military policies of the vietnam war.. his slide into insanity at the end was definitely raw satire of our whole vietnam experience.
The whole Custer/Little Bighorn episode is one of the most popular and most researched subjects in american history - the director knew this and took HUGE artistic license in his handling of Custer in his story - it was quite effective and entertaining in what it attempted to portray; Custer in actuality was like most well known military figures, competent, vain, impetous, loved and hated......but he was not the cartoon character in the movie.
I thought Custer's depiction was the film's biggest flaw. Sure, he probably often thought of himself as larger than life, but the filmmakers never really knew what to think of him overall. Penn didn't seem to know if Custer was an impossible man, or quite frankly a stupid man. That whole recreation of the Battle at Little Big Horn was ridiculous for all the wrong reasons. And I really didn't think the mule-skinner joke was that funny, either.
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"It's the frost, it sometimes makes the blade stick."
Lt. Colonel Custer is one of the most controversial military commanders in US history - the director showed acute insight into Custer's most notable character traits..... he was known to be fond of looking at himself in the mirror, as portrayed in the film, he was very devoted to his wife - hinted at when he took the picture of his wife out during the battle and looked at it longingly. History has far from concluded whether he was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to attack such a large Indian camp....So the director in light of this historical indecision decided to portray him as a fearless leader eager to attack his powerful enemy - but using a stupid form of logic in using Crab as a 'reverse barometer' to justify his decision to attack. It was an extremely clever way for a director to portray events that are - then and now almost impossible to confirm as happening one way or another. Anyone who has spent any real amount of time studying General Custer understand's 'the joke' in his portrayal.
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Well stated, El Crab.
shareIt was a bloated depiction. Served the story well, though.
shareIt was a bloated depiction. Served the story well, though.
Will you keep it down? I'm trying to do drugs!share
While the Custer depiction in the film was most certainly exagerated for comic effect, it was, afterall, a comedy, it is at least as accurate, and probably more so, as any film about him that was made up until that point.
Perhaps he cared about his soldiers but not enough to keep from getting a few hundred of them killed because of terrible tactics that July day in Dakota.
He was demoted twice. First, when he ignored orders while serving with the 7th in Kansas, marching to a fort to meet his wife. He was also demoted when he left Washington, D.C. against President Grant's orders (though he was right to leave, he had work to do and Grant was keeping him for political reasons). I suggest you read Stephen Ambrose's "Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two AMerican Warriors." Your facts are off as much as the man you are responding to.
shareAmbrose is good, but his Crazy Horse & Custer isn't his best work, at least not as far as the Custer portion.
Custer was never "demoted". He was suspended from rank without pay in 1867 for various violations, and he was removed from the overall command of the Montana column for the 1876 campaign. But he started the Civil War as a 2nd Lieutenant, ended the war with the Regular Army rank of Captain, Brevet Major General of Volunteers. He was then PROMOTED to Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh US Cavalry.
By the way, there were tons of Majors and Colonels and Generals that were reduced back to their Regular Army ranks, so you suddenly had a whole bunch of officers who were used to regiment, brigade or even division commands, that were now not even the commanding officer of a company. Custer, having come from West Point as a 2nd Lieutenant, 2nd US Cavalry, was promoted to Captain when he joined McClellan's staff. Captain of the Regular Army, not of Volunteers. And when the Volunteer Army was disbanded and the officers corps was restructured to Regular Army ranks. So Custer was now a Captain, but not for long.
Another odd thing about it is, before the Volunteer Army was disbanded but after the war was over, Custer commanded a division in Texas. Under his command was Samuel Sturgis, who was to be a full Colonel and the ranking officer of the Seventh. But Sturgis spent most of his time in St. Louis as part of recruiting, while Custer had field command of the Seventh. So Custer suddenly found himself under an officer he commanded. But such was the post-war Army.
At any rate, the point is Custer was never demoted to a lower rank. He was suspended (and even then, the suspension was ended early, at Sheridan's request) and at one point, removed from command of a larger unit (the Montana column), but never busted down.
I pinch. I want to pinch. Why no pinch? Maybe little pinch?share
On the contrary...
From a Wikipedia article:
In 1866, Custer was mustered out of the volunteer service, reduced to the rank of lieutenant colonel and assigned to the 7th U.S. Cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas. His career took a brief detour in 1867 when he was court-martialed for being AWOL and suspended for one year, returning to the Army in 1868...
In 1876, Hiester Clymer, Chairman of the House Committee on Military Expenditures, commenced an investigation of various acts of Secretary of War William W. Belknap. Custer was called to testify in the proceedings, despite his statement that what he knew was only by hearsay. But his testimony seemed to confirm the accusations not only against Belknap, but also against President Ulysses S. Grant's brother Orville Grant. The president ordered Custer placed under arrest. This delayed a scheduled expedition against the hostile Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes, in which Custer was to be involved. Grant relieved Custer of command and ordered the expedition to proceed without him. Custer wrote to the president:
As my entire Regiment forms a part of the expedition and I am the senior officer of the regiment on duty in this department, I respectfully but most earnestly request that while not allowed to go in command of the expedition I may be permitted to serve with my regiment in the field. I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share its dangers.
Grant relented and gave his permission for Custer to go...
You're correct that Custer was a colonel (lieutenant colonel, actually) at the time of the Little Bighorn. This wasn't because of his "attitude', however. He reached the rank of Brigadier General (one star) in the Civil War and received the honorific of "Brevet" major general--a brevet was kind of like getting a medal, no extra privileges or pay to accompany the honorary rank. But the brevet was permanent.
After the Civil War, when the army didn't need as many generals, Custer was reduced in rank to Lieutenant Colonel and assigned to command the 7th Cavalry. Far from being a demotion, this was an honor--most of Custer's peers did not receive such appointments and so became civilians or lower ranking officers after the war. Commanding the 7th kept Custer in the limelight, exactly where he wanted to be.
As for whether or not the depiction of Custer is accurate, you have to judge that for yourself. I think it's exaggerated, but it's certainly based in fact.
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I don't think you saw the same version of the movie I did.
shareTo add on to what I had said before, here's something I found out:
In my History in Film class, we had to evaluate both "Little Big Man," and "They Died With Their Boots on," two films which offer very different portrayals of Custer. I also had to read a book called "The Custer Reader," which stated, among other things, that "Little Big Man"'s portrayal of Custer was about as historically accurate as the dime novels that were written about him in the early 20th century (Which is another way of saying, "not very"). In my History in Film class, the conclusion that the teacher brought us to was that "They Died With Their Boots On" and "Little Big Man" were both valid historical resources, because even though neither movie contained a great deal of truth about Custer or Little Bighorn, they both tell a lot about the periods in time in which they were filmed. See, "They Died With Their Boots On" was made in 1941, at the start of World War II. So, the American people needed to see a film which presented the American soldiers as noble and brave fighting against enemy forces. In contrast, "Little Big Man" was made in 1970, which was right in the middle of the Vietnam War. It was clearly intended as an anti- war film, which many American audiences wanted to see as support for the War began to shrink. So, even though neither film is really historically accurate, they both can give us a better understanding about what American society was like during the decades when they were made.
Well Little Big Man doesn't pretend to be an historically accurate film and They Died... does. Little Big Man is a comedy that is funny. The Died... was a drama with very poor acting, poor script, poor directing and just generally is as boring as hell. You deserve an A in that class of your if you've really sat thru the whole film with out going out for a reefer break. Compare the acting of Ronald Reagan and Dustin Hoffman, one was a real actor.
share"Well Little Big Man doesn't pretend to be an historically accurate film and They Died... does."
Actually, in the book I read, "The Custer Reader," it at one point says that Raoul Walsh, the director of "They Died...", never intended for the film to represent historical fact, but for it to instead represent "How history should have been."
I kind of liked "They Died..." I know it's very cheesy, loaded with stereotypes, and far from historically accurate, but the battle scenes were pretty well- done, and it had a few funny moments (Some intentional, some unintentional). I could imagine audiences in 1941 loving it.
I'm not sure about "Little Big Man," since I only watched a couple scenes from it in class. The thing is, we had to choose one of the two films, watch it, and do a brief paper on it. I chose "They Died...", watched half of it one evening and half the next morning. Then, a few weeks later, in class, we watched each film's depiction of Little Big Horn. I'll probably watch all of "Little Big Man" when I have more time.
Oh, and by the way, why would you compare Dustin Hoffman to Ronald Reagan? Reagan wasn't in "They Died," that was Errol Flynn. Hoffman is a better actor, though.
Ronald Reagan was Custer in Santa Fe Trail...
Will you keep it down? I'm trying to do drugs!share
Got the films confused, thanks for clearing that up.
shareAs for Custer being last in his class at West Point, that doesn't mean he wasn't a good soldier. Hundreds apply to West Point every year, Custer got in! Ten's drop out from every year, or are kicked out, Custer remained!! The only reason he was last in his gradutaing class was because he was a prankster and was regularly on the verge of being kicked out, but he knew what he was doing. He played the joker until the 11th hour and then became a hardworking serious student, earning him the respect of the staff and students. Stephen Ambrose is actually amazed at the tactical nature Custer employed at West Point and remarked that it would take a very intelligent man to do what he did.
Empire Records, open 'til midnight, this is mark....Midnight!
I have heard he was stupid and his promotion was a mistake or something.
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Aaaahhhh YES! Rachel Ryan! HA! She dated Michael Keaton for a while until he found out she was a Porn Star! Ha! Unless someone finds a Custer diary, I doubt anyone will know the 'true' man. I have seen many movies on him Including the made for Tv movie with the badly cast Gary Cole as Custer. I have seen in my years, people who like to spread rumors and gossip about ME who know nothing at all about me,...so I am inclined to doubt what anyone says about the man unless it is signed G.A. Custer! But thanks to Hollywood, we at least get to 'see' what some people think happened,...I have heard too that Custer's ears were perforated at Little Big Horn by a squaw with an awl,...so that he would 'open his ears' in the next life. Anyone have anything on the validity of that???
The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get!
Yes,that part is true. His ears were punctured and one of his fingers was cut off.
Do you know which 'finger' and what the signifigance that was for???
The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get!
No, its not necessarily true. That's a Cheyenne story, the sewing awls to the ear. What's more likely is that no one identified him on the Lakota/Cheyenne side. And that story likely came along with the "I Killed Custer" stories.
At any rate, the soldiers didn't mention his ear canals being punctured. But there is debate on what happened to Custer's body, in terms of post-mortem mutilations.
Custer likely did have a trickle of blood coming from his ears. Most likely due to the gunshot wound to the head. He might have been missing his right trigger finger, or at least part of it. It might have been a ring finger, as it was sometimes easier to cut off the finger to get the ring than just pull the ring off. Its also rumored that he had a gash to a thigh, and possibly an arrow in his groin. Also, there have been accounts that mention a wound to a forearm, either a defensive wound or possibly inflicted by the bullet entering or leaving his chest/upper torso.
Lt. Godfrey is the source for the arrow to the groin and thigh gash, I believe. The thigh gash was likely inflicted by a Cheyenne, as that was their custom.
I pinch. I want to pinch. Why no pinch? Maybe little pinch?share
He had the chest wound intially and probably didn't die from it right away. Speculation that the gunshot wound to the head was from a 7th Calvary pistol, maybe from a fellow officer or his brother Tom to prevent capture and torture. He also had an arrow shoved up his "johnson", which nobody has mentioned yet. His brother Tom Custer really got it bad. Tom's head was smashed to the thickness of a human hand. He was identified only by a tattoo.
Custer had a lot of success in the Civil War. He defeated the Confederate Calvary at Gettysburg that was attacking the middle of the Union line from the east while Pickett was charging with 15,000 men attacking the middle of the Union line from the west. Had Custer failed and the Confederates breeched the Union middle, maybe Pickett's charge would have been successful as well and the Confederates would have driven the Union army and won the battle.
Custer was certainly less successful fighting the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne at The Little Big Horn. Although he did win the battle at the *beep* River pretty much the way the movie shows it against the Souther Cheyenne (more so a massacre than a battle, killing 100 women and children and about eighteen warriors). At the Little Big Horn he failed to fully scout the size of the village and also failed to find the divides or coulees (from which the troops would be able to descend from the hills down to the river and attack the village) before he split up his command. He split his 600 troops into four groups, 210 went with Custer, 150 with Major Reno who initially attacked the village from the southern end of it, 125 with Captain Benteen and 115 or so with the mule train that had the extra supplies and ammunition. Custer and his force of 210 men were more than 4 miles away from reinforcements and almost all wiped out by the time Reno, Benteen and the mule train eventually met up.
i belice custer strategy in little big horn was right . he did correct to split his army . he knew if he clould press indians they would be confused .general miles later said he praises custer for his strategy at little big horn. problem was that benteen and reno never joined him. although custer sent a note for benteen and informed him ( come quickly ) but against orders benteen joined wicked reno . if you read the battle you can understand that reno was responsible for big horn disaster .
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It maybe thought to be a comedy, and it is in places but I find nothing funny about women and children being shot, and a people forced off their lands.
Cheers
Ian
Liberate tute me ex inferis
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I think one of the lost points here is this isnt a HISTORICAL description of Custer, it's Jack Crabb's description of Custer. Crabb grew to hate what Custer stood for, if not the man himself, therefore, his representation of Custer in his version of the story is what he would like the world to have known Custer by.
So whether or not it is accurate or agrees with what the producer or director knows or believes about Custer, it is what Jack Crabb wants you to believe and remember about Custer.
Definitely, mikearama. But even Crabb's remembrances aren't anywhere near the truth. That's not to say that memories are infallible, they certainly are not. And its definitely not to say that its supposed to be historically accurate. But the depiction of Custer in Little Big Man is such a caricature, it is an incredibly funny character. A spoof, if you will. There's very little that's actually accurate, though.
But its supposed to be a comedy, and the Custer character is among the funniest in this very funny movie.
I pinch. I want to pinch. Why no pinch? Maybe little pinch?share
Seem's like Custer reached the rank of his incompetence no matter what it was.
It was only a matter of time that his troup of Massacring Soldiers met up with some real untamed Indians who weren't starving, broken and unarmed.
I find it difficult to believe anything except that Custer was a middling to poor officer. But even with that he was doomed to fail at the Little Big Horn due to the superior force he was facing.
For anyone interested in this subject I recommend "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell. It's very well written and interesting.
I don't think Custer was a poor officer. If he had been he would probably have been given a desk job somewhere. Having said that he was not exactly a genius either. LBM's portrayal of Custer is certainly a caricature, but then again LBM is not meant to be taken as a documentary. Custer was probably an average commander with a large ego, much like many ex-Civil War commanders. He was unlucky - he got himself and his men killed due to faulty intelligence and underestimation of his enemy's abilities - mistakes that occasionally got US Army units massacred in the Indian Wars.
shareI recommend this book:
Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors
by Stephen E. Ambrose
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I've read quite a bit about Custer and the LBH. An excellent recent book is by Nathaniel Phillbrick, but if you want the definitive on the battle and the build up try Custers Luck by Edgar I Stewart. Written in the '50's but a superb read for anyone interested in the topic.
shareI very much doubt that Arthur Penn was trying in even the least way to portray Custer with any kind of historical accuracy. Little Big Man is allegory, not history. Custer is another in a long line of "white men," an epithet Lodge Skins uses to describe a class of people who "do not know where the center of the earth is." That they are white-skinned is incidental, not integral. After all, Jack becomes a Human Being himself. The white men are characterized by their dishonesty (Merriwether), hypocrisy (the Rev. and Mrs. Pendrake), and blood-lust (Wild Bill & Custer). They speak of the spirit ("Poor Christian America!" cries Custer in his last moments), but live for the flesh. The movie asks you the viewer which kind of person you are going to be.
share"It seems that this character is very full of himself, and not to mention his last decision that cost him his life, even if it was exagerated a little bit, Does anyone know if this is a close to accurate depiction of General Custer?"
Very close - Custer was a "peacock" had no respect for the fighting abilities of the different tribes he fought against and of the several tribes (the Crow) that scouted for him.
All I know is-the actor that depicted him did a brilliant job, and I loved watching him!
Dini
This is a great thread. Keep in mind, Penn's film is based on a novel by Thomas Berger. I read the book before I saw the film, and the book (in first person narrated by Crabb) was very funny. There were several other "historical" encounters Crabb had that were omitted from the film to save time (Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, etc.).
Penn's Custer was definitely a caricature; note the sun's aura framing Custer's head, god-like, in the scene where Crabb first meets him. He wears the general's uniform Custer was known to have during the Civil War, but as was mentioned earlier, the wrong rank epaulettes - he was a Lt. Col. And in the final battle scene, he wears untarnished buckskins that looked fresh from the drycleaners.
Although Penn's depiction of the Little Big Horn battle is not accurate (where's the Reno and Benteen columns?), there are details that he applied that I haven't seen in earlier Custer westerns. He filmed very close to the actual location, so the viewer gets a true feeling of what the terrain was like. The troopers' uniforms looked realistic (no Hollywood yellow bandanas seen in most cavalry films) and worn, and as Custer did in the Seventh, each troop was uniformly mounted on matching horses (E Troop rode grays). I appreciated the DP's long shots of the Seventh riding toward the LBH - it looked like a command of about 250 soldiers rather than the fifty or sixty we usually get in earlier Hollywood attempts.
Well, it's difficult to know where to start about Custer. He is generally called General Custer, but actually he was a Brevet Colonel. He had been promoted to general during the Civil, but was reduced in rank after the war. We remember him as General Custer due to the exhaustive PR campaign waged by his widow, Elizabeth. When Custer was killed, she took to the podiums of America and wrote books and gave newspaper interviews, all with the same theme: Custer was actually a great officer, and he was a general.
That he was a great combat leader is questioned by many. His recklessness in battle during the Civil War was well-documented.
Also, there apparently was no Last Stand as portrayed in bar paintings and in Little Big Man. Battle field archeology has demonstrated that Custer and his officers stood off while his men fought the men of the Indian nations that came against them. His position was then charged and he was killed. (There is controversy between Indian and Seventh Cavalry survivors' accounts. Some of the Indians said that the line of charge stopped when Custer led his men down to the river. There were, I have read, only two reasons for a line of charge to halt. One was if the commander was seriously wounded or killed.)
Lastly, as the Little Big Man script mentions, Custer had aspirations to be president of the United States, and so he convinced his superiors that he should lead a campaign against the Indian people. We know the outcome of that campaign.
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