Little Bighorn
His mother’s dalliance with Col. George Armstrong Custer lands eighteen-year-old Allen Wright a position as the colonel’s aide. Riding with the glamorous Seventh Cavalry, famed for the 1868 battles with Cheyenne Indians, is every young man’s dream. Now, Allen will take part in Custer’s 1876 campaign to drive Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and their rebellious Sioux back to their reservation.
Allen isn’t the only civilian in Custer’s expedition. Custer’s younger brother, Boston, and his nephew Autie Reed are also going as their famed relative’s aides. Custer also tasks Allen with escorting the sister of his regimental surgeon westward, so that sixteen-year-old Addie Grace Lord can bid her brother goodbye. It’s love at first sight. The pair have an eventful train ride to Bismarck, and then to Fort Lincoln, Nebraska, where Addie remains as a companion to Custer’s wife, Libbie.
John Hough’s Little Bighorn is great entertainment and a fresh look at the infamous battle at Little Bighorn. It’s well known that there were no survivors at Custer’s part of the battlefield. Allen Winslow and his blithe companions are an engaging lot, and it’s sad to know that they are riding to their doom. However, Allen is a fictional character, so can he survive somehow to return to his beloved Addie? Read Little Bighorn to satisfy that bit of suspense, for a breathtaking description of Custer’s final hours, or as a fine piece of historical fiction, but read it.
