Nathaniel Philbrick's "The Last Stand" Has I-Man Written All Over It

Historian Nathaniel Philbrick’s fascination with The Battle of Little Bighorn began when he was in high school, and upon finishing his most recent book, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Mayflower, he felt timing was right to tackle General Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians. So he wrote The Last Stand.

“It was history even before it was over,” Philbrick said of the Battle. “People know in the middle of it that this was going to be a big deal.”

Two years prior to the battle, General George Armstrong Custer had led an exposition that discovered gold in the Black Hills, which was Lakota land. The United States government decided to buy the land by forcing the Lakotas to sell it, and just before the centennial in 1876, Custer fought the Battle of Little Bighorn.

“I came away with immense respect for Sitting Bull,” said Philbrick of the leader of the Lakota and Cheyenne. “He was the right person at a very difficult moment in people’s history. Tremendous charisma, political savvy, spiritual power. He really guided them.”

Philbrick’s initial impression of Custer, that he was a reckless egomaniac, turned out to be somewhat off. “He was 36 years old, he was beginning to sort of age out of being a wild-eyed warrior,” said Philbrick.

Often remembered as “history’s biggest loser,” because he lost The Battle of Little Bighorn, Philbrick insisted Custer was really anything but. “In the Civil War, he was one of our greatest cavalry officers,” he pointed out.

As he researched the battle, Philbrick stumbled upon some other surprises about Custer. Despite his tough exterior, he was also a great writer, he read all the time, and was great friends with a Shakespearean actor named Lawrence Barrett.

“He had a shown talent for negotiation,” Philbrick said of Custer. “He had been able to bring the Cheyenne and Kansas in, after an initial battle. But this battle wasn’t going to work that way.”

It was a battle that, in Philbrick’s view, only happened because the U.S. government felt it had to punish the Lakota. “It was a bold stroke,” he added. Once The Battle of Little Bighorn began, Sitting Bull’s initial instinct had been to talk it out.  

“See if they want to talk, maybe they want to give us provisions rather than fight,” Sitting Bull had instructed his nephew. When a friend of his nephew’s returned with bullet wounds, Sitting Bull’s tone changed. “He said, ‘Let them have it,’” Philbrick noted.

In many ways, Philbrick does not believe the battle has ended. “Colonialism was going on in the 19th century all over the world—Africa, India, the Middle East,” he said. “It’s different here in America, because we’re living where that occurred. In that manifest destiny march west, the legacy of Western expansion is part of our country, on Indian reservations and throughout the West. It’s something our government hasn’t dealt with as I think they should.”

Beyond being known as Custer’s Last Stand, the Battle of Little Bighorn also symbolized a “last stand” for the Indians themselves. “This was a great Lakota-Cheyenne victory, but it was really the beginning of their culture’s last stand,” said Philbrick. “Because within a year, most of them were back on the reservations, and their traditional way of life on the Northern plains ceased to exist with the killing of the buffalo.”

Even though Mayflower didn’t win a Pultizer Prize, Imus was hopeful for The Last Stand, telling Philbrick, “Maybe you’ll win for this!”

-Julie Kanfer