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My Life on the Plains

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About this listen

George Armstrong Custer attended West Point, graduating in the Class of 1861. He served as an officer in the United States Army during the Civil War. He was present at the Civil War's first major engagement, the First Battle of Bull Run, and was the officer who received General Robert E. Lee's Flag of Truce, marking Lee's surrender, at the end of the war.

Custer fought with the US Seventh Cavalry in the Indian Wars beginning in 1867. He was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, a battle that has come to be known as Custer's Last Stand.

Public Domain (P)2020 Tim Simpson Americas Military & War War Civil War Military Native American
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I chose to read this after being enthralled by "empire of the summer moon" and it turned out to be a good choice to learn more about this era from a slightly different perspective and different region. Custer was an excellent writer and his retellings of his adventures are engaging and fascinating. My Life on the The Plains is the story of the period of the final battles with and the containment of the indians to the reservations. The "depredations" and "atrocities" of the indians are referred to as such with the decorum of the times but those who have read the S.C. Gwynne book will have a more complete understanding of what they refer to. Custer does manage to quite well convey the tense constant threat and the horror of the endings that some of his companions meet. He is also not without compassion for the plight and admiration in battle for the indians either and is aware of the thanklessness of the task he was given from both the sympathisers and the opposition. There are many entertaining anecdotes and humourous parts to the book. Custer was of course unaware of his final fate but this window into his experience makes it all the more fascinating and I will next want to find out about his final battle as a sequel. I thought the narration was good, fairly slow paced and with a fitting voice for the tale. It took a little getting used to but conveyed the story well. Highly recommended.

Entertaining and well read.

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