Neither Hero nor Villain

By Lisa Wright

[1] If history could speak (I mean, literally speak), it might ask itself: Was George Armstrong Custer a hero or villain? And, furthermore, does it really matter? Obviously, these would be extremely relevant questions to ask, as history itself could not hope to inherently know the answer to such queries. History was not there when Custer was on the battlefield at Little Bighorn. It was waiting in the wings for the battle to be over so that it could make its entrance.

[2] And enter it did. From the moment that news of Little Bighorn reached the American public, history was being made by those who wrote about the events of Little Bighorn, chronicled them, and presented them to an American public hungry for information. In other words, even before those intimately connected with the battle and with Custer himself had anything to contribute to history, the press was thereâ€"creating their own version of events that were often colored by opinion and, even more so, frequently bereft of fact. True, it was 1876, and they were not fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to possess the technology that we have today which would enable them access to everything they needed to know. They were not just a click away from the ability to fact-check, nor was it as easy to travel whenever or wherever they wanted. Additionally, Little Bighorn happened in the West; a still largely undeveloped West that retained an air of mystery for the majority of Americans. Subsequently, it was the job of the press to keep the public informed.

[3] Even before Little Bighorn, Custer was known in the press as “an active agent in building his own myth during his lifetime, cultivating the press and supplementing [their work] with magazine articles written about himself under the pen name Nomad” (Stekler 71). However, Custer was not the household name he would come to be in the years following Little Bighorn, though he was well known within the Army and, to some extent, within the U.S. government. Therefore, it was the press accounts emerging immediately after the battle, and in the subsequent examination of events by Army officials, that history, such as it was, began being written for Custer.

[4] Arguably, it was the press that originally planted the seeds of Custer’s myth, eventually growing the figurative tree of historical events that would grow tall with many branches. These branches would, in turn, branch off themselvesâ€"some would have leaves and some would have flowers, while others would turn brown and then wither awayâ€"either way, facts would be distorted, even as history itself struggled to pull a thread of truth from the accounts of those that were connected in some way to the battle and to Custer himself, and also from those who simply created the stories that the public wanted (or needed) to hear.

[5] This brings us back to the questions of history presented in the beginning of this essay. Unfortunately, there is no right way to answer the first question, except by examining what history itself has to offer. This may seem like something of a paradox, especially given the various contradicting accounts that exist regarding these events. However, when trying to answer questions such as these, it is important to consider every angle. That is why it is so essential to consider the myth of Custer within a larger historical framework. This framework may not always be dependable; however, it may be valuable regardless. This is why the press accounts following the Battle of Little Bighorn are so important: not only are they the closest thing we have to the birth of Custer’s history in the popular imagination, they also present Custer as both a hero and a villain. And, as history itself tells us through the changing and evolving perceptions of Custer throughout the years, he was both. In light of this, the second question is now a little easier to answer: yes, it does matter, it matters that Custer is neither hero nor villain. It matters because however we define Custer, whether hero, villain, or a mixture of both, we are influenced by historical context and our own preconceived notions about a myth and a legend that was born not only from factâ€"blooming from the seeds planted by our popular imaginationsâ€"imaginations that continue to be influenced by a history that does not (and cannot) know all the answers.