Crazy Horse And Custer The Parallel Lives Of Two American Warrior Summary

In the novel Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors by Stephen E. Ambrose (1996); the author tells the full story as to how the parallel cultures of the Sioux and the White Americans had shaped Crazy Horse and Custer into the great leaders that they needed to be. Crazy Horse was a brave warrior, who led many successful hunting and war parties and had the respect of his tribe (Ambrose, 1996). Custer was a Civil War hero, who had been put in charge of protecting the construction of the railroads from the Indian hostiles and later fight the Indians over their actions on the Plains (Ambrose, 1996). The Sioux and the White Americans had different ideas and concepts of warfare; as well as, what constituted a successful

The Sioux had learned through previous experience with white soldiers that their normal attack strategies of the past would not be successful against the well-armed troops that were brought in to remove the hostile threat from the Plains. The Sioux had developed a strategy that they believed would allow the warriors to overpower and destroy any force of soldiers that might come at them (Ambrose, 1996). According to Ambrose (1996), “After some discussion, the shirt-wearers themselves decided to lead a small decoy party the next morning” (p.236). There would be a separate attack to lure the soldiers out of the fort to chase away the attackers, and then the decoys would appear from behind a hill and lure the pursuers into the valley beyond supporting distance of the fort (Ambrose, 1996, pp.236-237). After the Sioux had overcome Fetterman’s men, they mutilated the bodies and left them on the battlefield. This strategy had worked well for the Sioux against Captain Fetterman and his troops, which later led to the fear that the Sioux would be attacking the forts next (Ambrose,