Crazy Horse and Custer

"On the sparkly morning of June 25, 1876, 611 men of the United States 7th Cavalry rode towards the banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory where three thousand Indians stood waiting for battle. The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked in history.

"This is the story of two men who died as they lived - violently. They were both war lovers, men of aggression with a deeply rooted instinct to charge the enemy, rout him, kill him. Men of supreme courage, they were natural-born leaders in a combat crisis, the type to whom others instinctively looked for guidance and inspiration. They were always the first to charge the enemy, and the last to retreat. Both became leaders in their societies at very early ages; both were stripped of power, in disgrace, and worked to earn back the respect of their people. Both had much to win and only life to lose.

"There were other parallels. Neither man drank. Both were avid hunters, for whom only the excitement of combat exceeded the joy of the chase. Each man loved horses, and riding at full gallop across the unfenced Great Plains of North America, day after day, was a source of never-ending delight for both of them.

"Yet Crazy Horse and Custer, like their societies, were as different as life and death."

Crazy Horse and Custer, by Stephen Ambrose (1975 BCE with dj). Offered for sale by Chewybooks as of June 16, 2010.