Custer and the Epic of Defeat

This exploration of the making of a legend compares the actual events surrounding duster's defeat with the imaginative account of the "Last Stand" as it developed in American folklore. The battle of the Little Big Horn is then compared with other great “epics of defeat” in terms of both the similarities of the narratives and the known facts about them. The other epic stories include the Biblical account of Saul and his losing struggle against the Philistines, Leonidas's defense of the pass ...