Beyond the Bighorn: The Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer

When George Armstrong Custer's famed military career ended with his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, his widow feared that her husband was going to be blamed for the defeat and made a scapegoat. Libbie began writing articles and scheduling speaking engagements throughout the country. She even collaborated with Buffalo Bill Cody to perpetuate the Custer mythology in his Wild West show. Even a cursory glance at the literature on William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody will turn up the connection between the West's greatest showman and its fall boy general, George Armstrong Custer. Indeed, the study of Cody has become so entangled with Custer as to make the two nearly inseparable.