War narratives are an important part of world and American history. From a literary perspective, war narratives are powerful in their engagement with historical events of the utmost dramatic magnitude. War is an arena where questions of mortality, comradery, heroism, and humanity are situated within complex sociopolitical contexts and global power structures. War is often defined by an overarching story founded on a basic dramatic premise where a protagonist battles an antagonist as a way to resolve political conflict. Of course, war is sometimes perpetuated upon participants who are subsequently forced to defend themselves against foreign invaders or external threats. For example, when used as an arm of colonialism, war typically involves the conquest of indigenous lands; this conquest is often justified by an overarching narrative pitting European conquerors and settlers as civilized and aligned with God against indigenous peoples characterized as uncivilized and savage (Callahan et al. 2006, p. 556). Colonialism depends on the construction of a war narrative wherein an antagonistic enemy must be defeated in the name of civilization. The North American Indian Wars were perpetuated by colonial, governmental, and military forces inspired by this very logic.
As one of the most iconic and mythologized figures in the history of the American West, General George Armstrong Custer was a major participant in the North American Indian Wars. His infamous defeat at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn largely defines his legacy; historical scholarship and popular representations of Custer consistently focus on his “Last Stand”. However, Custer was also a writer with a keen appreciation for arts and culture. Beginning in 1872, Custer began publishing accounts of his frontier experiences in The Galaxy, a magazine “which contained better-class fiction along with articles dealing with history and biography and some verse” (Custer [1874] 1976, p. xxiii).
