Reviews for Lakota Noon
Review - Lakota Noon
What I liked about it: It was easy to understand. It gave me a new perspective of what the Indians were thinking, how they fought, and why they won. The frequent maps, showing the positions of each Indian and the 7th Cavalry companies, were very helpful.
What I didn’t like about it: Michno takes too much time debunking the theories of other authors. (This seems to be a common thread running through most histories of the battle, and it gets annoying.) Reading the accounts of several Indians describing the same thing was tedious at times.
Recommendation: The only better book I’ve read on The Battle of the Little Bighorn was Custer’s Last Campaign, by John S. Gray, and that one goes into intricate detail too.
Other comments:
— I have yet to visit the battlefield and am not overly-fascinated by histories of other Indian wars. I think the reason I find this battle so interesting is because I put myself in the place of one of the troopers and try to imagine what it must have been like — on an open prairie hillside, able to see for miles and knowing there was no help in sight. Everywhere around you, Indians keep popping up from hiding, taking shots at you and disappearing. Maybe only a handful are visible at any one moment, but as soon as you try to move, hundreds appear. It must have been very eerie.
— There are a few Indian accounts of a 7th Cavalry trooper who jumped on his horse and tried to flee near the end of the battle. He made it through the Indian lines and was outdistancing his pursuers. The Indians were about to give up the chase when there was a shot, and the man fell off his horse. Some say an Indian shot him down. Others that the man deliberately shot himself in the head (which I think highly unlikely in the circumstances). But a couple Indians think that the trooper, on the verge of freedom, accidentally shot himself with his own pistol while whipping his horse. Wouldn’t that be a bummer?
— Two days after the battle, the Chicago White Stockings (the franchise that would become the Cubs) lost to the Philadelphia Athletics 14-13.
What I didn’t like about it: Michno takes too much time debunking the theories of other authors. (This seems to be a common thread running through most histories of the battle, and it gets annoying.) Reading the accounts of several Indians describing the same thing was tedious at times.
Recommendation: The only better book I’ve read on The Battle of the Little Bighorn was Custer’s Last Campaign, by John S. Gray, and that one goes into intricate detail too.
Other comments:
— I have yet to visit the battlefield and am not overly-fascinated by histories of other Indian wars. I think the reason I find this battle so interesting is because I put myself in the place of one of the troopers and try to imagine what it must have been like — on an open prairie hillside, able to see for miles and knowing there was no help in sight. Everywhere around you, Indians keep popping up from hiding, taking shots at you and disappearing. Maybe only a handful are visible at any one moment, but as soon as you try to move, hundreds appear. It must have been very eerie.
— There are a few Indian accounts of a 7th Cavalry trooper who jumped on his horse and tried to flee near the end of the battle. He made it through the Indian lines and was outdistancing his pursuers. The Indians were about to give up the chase when there was a shot, and the man fell off his horse. Some say an Indian shot him down. Others that the man deliberately shot himself in the head (which I think highly unlikely in the circumstances). But a couple Indians think that the trooper, on the verge of freedom, accidentally shot himself with his own pistol while whipping his horse. Wouldn’t that be a bummer?
— Two days after the battle, the Chicago White Stockings (the franchise that would become the Cubs) lost to the Philadelphia Athletics 14-13.
Reviewed by Roger on 2006-07-26 14:00:14