James E. Mueller

Taking a rather different tack on the famous battle, Mueller systematically examines how the press broke the story of Custer's defeat, how it impacted perceptions in a political campaign year, and what lasting contribution this coverage made to the Custer legend.

In the first place, Mueller finds that the accounting of what happened was fairly accurate out of the box. Further, despite the unabashed political partisanship of the time, there was relatively little effort to play with the destruction of Custer's command for political ends, though pro-Republican papers tended to play up Custer's reputation for brash behavior and Democratic papers tended to lay the blame on incompetence in the Grant Administration.

For all that this event became rather less of a political football then it might have been if Grant had been running for reelection. For one, as spectacular as a story this battle was, there was very little public dissension over the needed policy outcome; the defeat of the Sioux nation in the field. Two, neither Rutherford B. Hayes or Samuel J. Tilden could see any percentage in making this an issue, when the key national concerns were whether to discontinue Reconstruction, the state of the economy, or the failures of the outgoing administration. This is exemplified by the story that pretty much kicked Custer off the front page of the major papers of the nation; a nasty outbreak of racial violence at Hamburg, South Carolina.

As for the meaning of this battle in the current age, Mueller largely uses his epilogue as a meditation on how the modern news media doesn't deal especially well with exemplary personal valor and honor. While the reporters and editors of the time might have reason to doubt Custer's tactical savvy, none of them would have failed to take his character seriously and they probably would be taken aback at how Custer has mostly become a symbol of hubris; this is keeping in mind that these were people who weren't lacking in a taste for mean-spirited humor.… (plus d'informations)