CAGB Online - Recent Publications

A stunning view of Last Stand Hill, taken from a ridge at the edge of the Custer National Cemetery, June 2017. (Courtesy of CAGB member Joe Creaden)

CAGB Online - Recent Publications by members of the Association

[1] Celebrating Custer's Last Stand (to be published 2 June 2026) by Sandy Barnard

In Celebrating Custer’s Last Stand, Sandy Barnard, author of four decades’ worth of books and articles on the Civil War, the Plains Indian Wars, Custer, and the Little Big Horn, analyzes the anniversary celebrations and other significant events at what is now Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to reveal how the memory of the battle and its participants has transformed over the last 150 years. Featuring 150 photographs, many of them previously unpublished, Celebrating Custer’s Last Stand is a must read for anyone interested in public history, Custer, or the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Publication date: 2 June 2026

[2] Custer's Last Stand Demystified: The Story of an Epic Defeat, co-authored by Bill Rini

Custer’s Last Stand Demystified: The Story of an Epic Defeat, by Phil Guarnieri and Bill Rini, £29.99 Paperback – 25 April 2026
Currently available at abebooks.co.uk
The shattering news of the Battle of the Little Big Horn swept into the American consciousness with all the fury of a storm at sea surging ashore. For a still-young nation celebrating the centennial of its birth and anticipating the promise of a boundless future, the news of Custer’s death ride hovered over the nation’s celebrations like a nuclear winter.
Ever since, gnawing questions surrounding this epic defeat have haunted the national imagination. How could the most famous regiment in the United States Army, led by a great war hero and its most renowned Indian fighter, succumb so disastrously and totally to the primitive savagery of the Western frontier?

Since no trooper or scout who rode with Custer survived, answers to the debacle have never come easy, even for those determined to know the truth. From the first sighting of the massive Indian village, this new account provides a first-class, gut-wrenching historical reconstruction of events that is a model of prodigious research, as it builds, step-by-step, a case for what happened and why on that sweltering afternoon in June 1876.
Drawing upon hundreds of personal accounts from both sides, furnishing exhaustive timelines and exquisitely detailed, uncluttered maps, the authors amplify old evidence while plowing untrodden ground in search of elusive clues.
The result is a narrative bristling with the unholy cacophony of war, blending the art of superior storytelling with the historian’s factual rigor. Unearthing fresh revelations of the great West’s most storied and spellbinding encounter, this climactic slaughter along the banks of the Little Big Horn ultimately drove the Plains Indians and their way of life to an unmarked grave-even as other forces forged together a Continental nation of mythical proportions.

[3] An Englishman on Otter Creek, by Mike Bell

An Englishman on Otter Creek: The Montana Life and Times of Sidney Augustus Paget, 1857-1916, by Mile Bell, Paperback, 148 pages, £12 (February 2026)

Sydney Augustus Paget, left England one step ahead of a scandal at cards. He travelled to the United States where he drove cattle from Texas to Montana. There he established his own ranch, where he raised cattle and horses. But his main interest was in raising and racing racehorses. He spent nearly twenty years in Montana among a community that included English nobility, settlers, outlaws, and tribes people of the Crow and Blackfoot nations. He did not know it, but he lived through the last days of the Old West. When he left Montana in 1897 he went on to even greater things in the horse racing world on both sides of the Atlantic.
An English Westerners’ Society publication.

[4] In Custer's Boots by Gordon Richard

In Custer’s Boots: The Little Bighorn Campaign: Revelations, Reconstructions, and Reviews, Amazon UK, 192 pp, Paperback £22.48, Kindle £13.95 (15 December 2025).
The Battle of the Little Bighorn remains one of the most debated events in American military history. In this collection of meticulously researched essays, the author challenges long-standing myths, examines key decisions made by Custer and his superiors, and re-evaluates the evidence surrounding the battle and its participants. Drawing on articles published in leading historical journals, this volume delves into topics such as Custer’s reconnaissance, the accusations that he disobeyed orders, the strength of the warrior force he faced, and the reliability of testimony from the Reno Court of Inquiry. It also investigates the fate of the 7th Cavalry’s horses, the provenance of a multi-million-dollar battle relic, and the distortions of modern internet sources.

[5] Extermination or Civilization by Rob Cormican

Extermination or Civilization: America’s road to the Great Sioux War, by Rob Cormican (2 Dec. 2025)
“Let us have peace,” President Ulysses S. Grant declared. Few imagined that within a decade his Army—led in part by George Armstrong Custer—would march into Sioux country and ignite one of the most consequential wars of the American West. Extermination or Civilization presents a meticulously documented account of the decade leading to the Great Sioux War, drawing on contemporary newspapers, congressional records, military documents, journals, books, and firsthand published accounts. It reveals how political expediency, shifting federal policies, and the attractions of gold, converged to push the nation toward conflict. For readers seeking a grounded, primary-source-driven history of America’s westward expansion through Indian land and its entanglement with post–Civil War Reconstruction politics, this book offers a compelling and essential perspective.

[6] Atlas of the Lakota Sioux Wars 1854 – 1891 Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho

Atlas of the Lakota Sioux Wars 1854 – 1891
Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho
The Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association is very pleased to announce an upcoming two volume set field guide of 90 maps of 30 battles, massacres, and historic sites by cartographer Dana R. MacBean with narratives by JoAnne Puckett, and publishing support by the
Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association.
Release dates: Volume I on May 1, 2026, and Volume II on June 1, 2026
Cover art: Rescue at the Rosebud sculpture by renowned artist D. Michael Thomas of Buffalo, WY. www.dmichaelthomas.com

VOLUME I
First Sioux War 1854 – 1855
1: Grattan Fight, Aug. 19, 1854 (2 maps)
2: Blue Water Creek Massacre, Sept. 3, 1855 (2 maps)
Southern Cheyenne War 1864
3: Sand Creek Massacre, Nov. 29, 1864
Indian War of 1865
4: Platte River Bridge Station July 26, 1865
5: Connor’s 1865 Expedition – Wyoming Overview
6: Connor Fight – Tongue River Aug. 29, 1865
7: Sawyer Fight – Tongue River Sept. 1, 1865
8: Connor’s 1865 Expedition – Montana Overview
Red Cloud’s War 1866 – 1868
9: Fort Phil Kearny July 1866 – Aug. 1868
10: Carrington Fight Dec. 6, 1866 (2 maps)
11: Fetterman Fight Dec. 21, 1866 (5 maps)
12: Hayfield Fight, Ft. C.F. Smith Aug. 1, 1867
13: Wagon Box Fight Aug. 2, 1867 (2 maps)
Southern Plains War 1867 – 1869
14: Beecher Island Sept. 17 – 25, 1868 (2 maps)
VOLUME II
Crook’s Big Horn Expedition March 1, 1876
15: Powder River Fight March 17, 1876 (3 maps)
Terry’s Campaign June 10 – 14, 1876
16: Tongue River Heights Skirmish June 9, 1876
17: Rosebud June 17, 1876 (14 maps)
18: Little Big Horn June 25 – 26, 1876 (26 maps)
19: Sibley Scout July 5 – 8, 1876
20: Warbonnet Creek July 17, 1876
Crook’s Big Horn and Yellowstone 2nd Expedition Aug. 5 – Oct. 24, 1876
21: Slim Buttes Sept. 9, 1876 (2 maps)
The Closing End Period Oct. 20 – Dec.19, 1876
Miles’ Yellowstone – Ft. Peck Expedition
22: Cedar Creek Oct. 21, 1876
23: Bark Creek Dec. 7, 1876
24: Ash Creek Dec. 18, 1876
Crook’s Powder River Expedition Nov. 14 – Dec. 29, 1876
25: Dull Knife Red Fork of Powder River Nov. 25, 1876
Final Action Jan. – May 1877
Miles’ Wolf Mountain Expedition
26: Wolf Mountain Jan. 8, 1877
27: Lame Deer May 7, 1877
The Last Days of Crazy Horse 1877
28: Attack on Crazy Horse’s Village Sept. 4, 1877
29: Last Day of Crazy Horse Sept. 5, 1877
30: Last Hours of Crazy Horse Sept. 5, 1877
Northern Cheyenne Breakout 1879
31: Fort Robinson and Antelope Creek
Jan. 9 – 22, 1879 (2 maps)
Pine Ridge Agency and Wounded Knee 1890 – 1891
32: Regional Map
33: Pine Ridge Agency
34: Pine Ridge Agency
35: Wounded Knee Dec. 28 – 29, 1890 Prelude
36: Wounded Knee Dec. 29, 1890 Massacre
37: Wounded Knee Jan. 3, 1891 Burial Detail
38: Last Action – Catholic Mission
Pine Ridge Agency

[7] LBHA Conventions of Yesteryear

'The happy children of Howlett Hill', by Elizabeth B. Custer (1927).

'Stories of the Civil War', by Samuel Harris, undated.

In January 2003, the late Bruce Liddic, Syracuse, New York, a valued associate member of the CAGB, kindly sent me two delightful little booklets (above) which were printed especially for members of the Little Big Horn Associates attending their annual conventions.
‘The happy children of Howlett Hill’, by Elizabeth B. Custer, was presented at the Thirteenth Annual Convention (1986) in Auburn, New York. My copy is number 107 of 200. Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon attended the Auburn Young Ladies Institute, 1858-59.
‘Stories of the Civil War’, by Samuel Harris, was presented at the Seventeenth Annual Convention (1990) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My copy is number 194 of 300.
I wonder how many current members of the CAGB have one or both of these booklets plus, perhaps, others dating from around the same period. If so, I would very much like to hear from you – menwithcuster.uk@btinternet.com –
When did LBHA conventions become conferences and are similar booklets still given to attendees?
U.S. member Dale Kozman, who attended his first ‘convention’ in 1994, has #110 (1986) and #113 (1990). In addition, Dale has an original hard copy of Harris’s 1897 volume Personal Reminiscences of Samuel Harris which compiled several little pamphlets he distributed to customers of his Chicago Tool & Die Shop.
Chuck Merkel says a member objected to the word convention because it was used by political parties, so the name was changed to conference, although the year was not specified.