Villainous Heroes
Heroes or villains? Stewart Russell looks at the Indian after-life of American Civil War generals.
In Montana, on December 10th, 1991, the National Park Service inaugurated the Little Big Horn National Battlefield, previously called the Custer Battlefield National Monument. The new signposts symbolised official recognition of a revisionary process that had turned George Armstrong Custer from hero to 'an immature personality beset with inner conflicts that could only be compensated by glory-seeking bravado and swagger', in the words of the eminent scholars of the frontier, Ray Allen, Billington and. Martin Ridge.
But has revisionism not also turned Custer into something of a scapegoat? Should historians not be making more effort to guide public opinion toward a reassessment of the reputations of some of his illustrious colleagues, notably the generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan?
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