The Last Command: Custer and the 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn, by Kirk Stirnweis (2001)

The dramatic defeat of Gen. George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1876 has been the subject of several paintings by major artists.  But for today, I thought we would take a look at a work by the relatively little-known, working artist Kirk Stirnweis (born 1967), The Last Command: Custer and the 7^th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn.

Stirnweis was born in Suffern, New York, and grew up in Connecticut. He would eventually move with his own family to Montana, Arizona, and then back east to New Hampshire; while keeping a foothold in Loveland, Colorado.  His father was a professional illustrator, and his mother had a background in graphics.  He drew constantly as a child, and his family would often discuss art around the home.

During his high school summers, Stirnweis would draw and paint at the nearby Silvermine Artist Guild. During the same period he studied anatomy with a retired surgeon, taking one of the doctor’s first classes working with professional artists. Stirnweis was taught to master composition by copying the works of the Great Masters, and was encouraged to go into illustration to hone his skills to a professional level.

Kirk was educated at several different schools studying marine biology and medicine, holding degrees in radiologic sciences and Medical imaging. But his scientific studies did not keep him from art: immediately after high school he did illustration for Field& Stream, Harlequin Romance Novels and Leisure Books, and the Danbury Mint. 

Stirnweis says, For the past 20 years I have been painting and sculpting western/historical subjects, mostly Native Americans, mountain men, prairie women, land and seascapes nautical subjects and wildlife of all kinds. Out of the blue I was commissioned to paint Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Big Horn; a daunting task. To complicate matters I had virtually no knowledge of U.S. cavalry at the time and only scant knowledge of the battle. After months of intensive research, hours spent with experts on the subject and several visits to the battlefield; I started painting. Three months later I completed The Last Command. The homework was exhaustive but well worth it, the painting had reaped the distinction of being written up by a West Point graduate and historian as: “The most accurate depiction of the Custer Battle EVER!” An enlarged Copy of the painting now hangs in the renovated Museum of Military History in KS. Subsequently, I was invited to the 125th anniversary of the Little Big Horn Battle, where I met with Native American Veterans of Foreign Wars and Chiefs of the Crow Nation. They expressed their appreciation for the noble way that I depict their culture in my paintings and sculpture.

This is quite a dramatic painting, despite some rather telling flaws.  While Stirnweis has a great gift for painting dramatic faces, the figures all seem to inhabit different pictures, rather than act as an integrated group.  Indeed, in some figures, it seems as if they have no lower body whatsoever.  (Where is the rest of the bugler and his horse?)  Also under-realized are the two fallen horses, one on the left and the other, right.  Neither seem to fully inhabit the picture, and it looks like Stirnweis relied too heavily on tall grass to address issues of foreshortening.

But Stirnweis’ failings are solely those of technique: in terms of drama and composition, he performs admirably.  The gentle rise of the mountain allows the eye to read the frame from the fighters on the left, through the main action on the rise, and then scan back left (to the beginning) by following the trajectory of the arrows.  Stirnweis also uses the empty bask spaces of the West to heightened effect:  aside from another regiment battling in the distance, these men are alone and vulnerable.

Stirnweis also amps the drama by depicting many of the men already wounded or injured, but continuing to fight on.  The look of steely determination on the faces of the small knot of five men dead center of the picture tells the entire story. 

This is an admirable addition to the iconography of Little Bighorn.

Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T. J. Stiles (2015)

A fabulous book.

Many of us think we know George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) because we know how he died: at the battle of Little Bighorn, he and his men slaughtered by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors.  Most people see Custer’s end as a cautionary tale: one of hubris, or racism, or simple tragic miscalculation.  But Pulitzer Prize-winning author T.J. Stiles believes that this end-is-the-beginning approach is overly reductive.  In fact, the only way to make sense of Custer, he thinks, is to embrace the totality of his experience, and to understand how he was both a player and observer in a changing America.

Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America argues that Americans saw their world radically remade during Custer’s lifetime.  Custer’s life is the story of the American Civil War, the Westward expansion, and the Indian Wars.  Through it all, Custer was a study in contradictions as he struggled to find foothold in an earth that was ever-changing beneath him.  He was a brave Union solider who sympathized with the South.  He freed countless slaves, but was openly hostile towards people of color.  He was a dutiful and obedient soldier, but he also suffered from a crippling vanity and need for acclaim.  He behaved with reckless abandon and considerable courage on the battlefield, but it is unlikely that he ever fully internalized war’s catastrophic human cost.

Because of these contradictions, historians (and armchair philosophers) have had their way with Custer for decades.  Stiles argues that Custer has been left to be misremembered by each succeeding generation.  Because he is so contradictory a figure, he very much symbolizes to people what they like or dislike about American history.  Is he a hero who died to spread Western civilization, or a murdering racist who targeted Native Americans?  Is he representative of the heroism and valor that is part of the American character, or is he a bully and braggart?

Stiles believes that asking these questions is a losing game:  Custer does not need to bear the full weight of American history, and that his life has significant meaning outside of the narratives told by defenders or debunkers. 

In reading this long and well-argued book, I’ve come away somewhat surprised by how much I liked Custer.   There were many, many things detestable about the man by 21^st Century lights, but to condemn (or praise) figures of the past by the dictums of today is ridiculous.  Historical figures need to be seen in historical context, and to do otherwise would make as much sense as a Venusian judging a rural American through his interstellar worldview.  The differing points of reference are so vast as to render the exercise meaningless.

Custer was profoundly needy, troubled by self-doubt, and always hoping to improve himself.  Last in his class at West Point (a position routinely called ‘the goat’), Custer wanted to live up to his romantic ideals of military life.  His romantic ideals are not to be sneered at: they often translated into bravery in battle, magnanimity to captured enemies, and selfless protection of others.  One of the most telling stories in the book is Custer demanding a litter to take a wounded comrade away during a retreat – while his brother soldiers opted to leave the man behind.

Custer was not a bogeyman or devil nor an angel or a demigod; he was simply a man, with all of the qualities and flaws attendant to that designation.  And in reading this excellent book, Stiles allows us to know that man a little better.

Best of all, Stiles tells his tale with a novelist’s dash.  Here is a representative passage: She emerged into a clearing and encountered mayhem.  Custer’s brigade fought amid a sea of enemy soldiers – bullets cracking overhead, artillery shells exploding, mounted Confederates charging here and there with sabers swinging.  The wagon master approached Custer and asked if he could lead the wagon train to the rear.  Custer looked around and said, “Where in hell is the rear?”

This book is highly recommended to students of Custer, the Civil War, or simply American history.