General George Armstrong Custer may have fought for the north in the Civil War but his “last stand” against American Indians at Little Big Horn has put him in the pantheon of white guys progressive academics love to hate.
He actually deserves further study, and historian H. W. Crocker III has given him just that. In the course of his research, Crocker unearthed a startling quote from Custer that was startlingly prescient. The general once said, “If I were an Indian, I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhered to the free open plains, rather than to submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without stint and measure.”
