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Rating: 
Summary: Impressing... even if probably a little "embellished"...
Review: After reading a lot of books (more than 50) about the Little Big Horn Campaign/Battle and the career and life of George Armstrong Custer (including his briliant record in the ACW)... I finally got hold of one copy of his book "My Life in the Plains" (Captain Benteen used to call it derogatorily "My Lie in the Plains"... but he was'nt pro-Custer was he?...)Well, the truth (as usual) probably is there somewhere in between.. The prose is quite enterteining/good, and the military procedures of the US Cavalry policing the Plains is probably the best part of the tale/account... Even if HIS part on every chapter is full of "PRIMA DONA" spirit, tell me wich biography (even partial like that one...) is not!, specially if a bombastic character by nature... Anyhow, one thing I've learned reading this OPUS... CUSTER was NO FOOL regarding Indian warfare... and he was EXPERIENCED in INDIAN TACTICS and METHODS OF WARFARE..., so I do not think he is actually have been acurately portrayed when shown as a INSANE-PARANOIC-CRUEL-CIRCUS RIDER in novels, essays or the worst of all on the movies around the end of the sixties and up to the nineties... I do not consider myself PRO-CUSTER, or ANTI-CUSTER, but I can recommend to you this book as a valuable way to bewarily approach such a controversial historical cavalry leader.
Rating:
Summary: A great book by a great mind
Review: No one can read My Life on the Plains without coming away with a changed view of Custer as a military leader and an important historical figure. I often tell people that Custer was a great writer and direct people to read this book. I am occasionally met with laughter and suspicion--except by those who take my advice and read it. Amazingly well-written, and very descriptive.
Rating:
Summary: Indian fighting according to Custer
Review: This book is a partial memoir of General George Armstrong Custer, of Little Bighorn fame. This work does not cover Custer's campaigns against the Cheyennes and Sioux, however, nor does it detail his flamboyant career in the Civil War. Instead, this book is literally an account of Custer's life on the plains, and covers his experiences with the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians of the plains of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Despite the fact that this record is so incomplete a picture of Custer's life, however, this book is very valuable in that it covers the very controversial winter campaign of 1868-1869, which climaxed in Custer's attack of Black Kettle's village on the Washita River.
Custer had a remarkable gift for storytelling, and his prose, though flowery and often somewhat extravagant (as I envision the man himself), is crisp and engaging. In addition, this book provides a valuable look at the life of an army soldier campaigning against the Indians after the Civil War. The book may be very biased, and it may in fact contain many points of exaggeration, but it nevertheless is a valuable resource for any study of the Indian Wars.
Rating:
Summary: Indian fighting according to Custer
Review: This book is a partial memoir of General George Armstrong Custer, of Little Bighorn fame. This work does not cover Custer's campaigns against the Cheyennes and Sioux, however, nor does it detail his flamboyant career in the Civil War. Instead, this book is literally an account of Custer's life on the plains, and covers his experiences with the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians of the plains of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Despite the fact that this record is so incomplete a picture of Custer's life, however, this book is very valuable in that it covers the very controversial winter campaign of 1868-1869, which climaxed in Custer's attack of Black Kettle's village on the Washita River.
The question of whether Black Kettle and his band were hostile at the time they were attacked, as well as the question of whether innocent women and children had been wantonly slaughtered in the attack, is one of the driving forces behind this book. In it, Custer attempts to describe life as he lived it on the Plains, and attempts to paint a picture of the army that would persuade people back East that his Seventh Cavalry had acted in good faith, both in the battle and in the rest of the campaign that year. Custer had a remarkable gift for storytelling, and his prose, though flowery and often somewhat extravagant (as I envision the man himself), is crisp and engaging. In addition, this book provides a valuable look at the life of an army soldier campaigning against the Indians after the Civil War. The book may be very biased, and it may in fact contain many points of exaggeration, but it nevertheless is a valuable resource for any study of the Indian Wars.
Rating: 
Summary: My life with this book
Review: Wow, all I can is wow. This is a very interesting read. What a great way to see how life was out on the plains and during the war. Also, it's very trippy to read all about what Custer thought of "Indians" and the views that he held for them. What really got me was the reality of this book. Getting an intimate look at the life of not only Custer's, but the soldiers and scouts that he commanded and worked with. Very good and easy read. Custer does like to go off and get very wordy and talkative about subject matter that must have been important back in the 1870's. Still, it does not detract from the book, but only makes it that much more interesting. Pick this one up.
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