British Custeriana Series

The second of the series is Francis Taunton’s concise examination of the U.S. Army’s failings in the 1876 Sioux Campaign which was first published in April 1963. Yet despite the fact that many worthwhile books have been written since then, very few, with the exception of John Gray’s Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876 first published in 1976, Wayne M. Sarf's The Little Bighorn Campaign March – September 1876, first published 1993 and Peter Panzeri's Little Big Horn 1876 - Custer's Last Stand Number 39 in the Osprey Military Campaign Series, have attempted to examine in any detail the complete campaign. Most writers have tended to concentrate on the events immediately before and after the defeat of Custer’s 7th Cavalry on the Little Big Horn. Others have dealt with it as part of a general theme on the history of the white man’s contact with the Native American Indian and the many wars that followed. Although it would be true to say that interest in the campaign worldwide would not have existed to the extent that it does had it not been for Custer’s demise, it is fitting that this article should be updated and republished now as we approach the 125th Anniversary of the battle, because it will allow general readers and historians to take a much wider view of the campaign than just those events on that fateful June day in 1876. 

In Taunton’s examination is an attempt to set the events in context and he argues that war in 1876 had been inevitable ever since Red Cloud’s war of 1866 had helped to persuade the U.S. Government to ultimately abandon the forts along the Bozeman Trail and attempt to negotiate a treaty. There were numerous factors, which all contributed to the U.S. Army’s failing during the initial stages of the 1876 campaign and Taunton eloquently makes these points. The military’s eventual defeat of the hostiles was inevitable but owed much to luck and the fact that it was impossible for the tribes to remain concentrated due to the scarcity of game. The latter fact meant that they could only survive by breaking up into smaller groups, particularly with the onset of winter. Yet out of these adversities both Sherman and Sheridan were able to put in place the institutions that would make the U.S. Army a more professional body although it would not be until the beginning of the 20th Century that the changes that began after 1876 were to bear fruit.