The Human Custer

Allen Barra: You wrote in your preface, “Custer battled American Indians ruthlessly, yet wrote that he would resist too were he one of them.” His attitude reflects empathy toward Plains Indians, yet he has been reviled unmercifully by a modern generation of Indian writers, including Vine Deloria Jr., author of Custer Died for Your Sins, who called him the “Adolf Eichmann of the Plains.” Why did you take this stance? T.J. Stiles: I try to understand Custer as a human being, in all his