“There is a fascination with the battle unlike interest in any other historical event that comes to mind,” Scott said, standing on a spot overlooking the treeless ground where 250 white stones are scattered up and down the ridges marking where each soldier fell.
Indeed, the battle of the Little Big Horn has moved Hollywood to produce 41 movies featuring Custer`s Last Stand, including ”They Died With Their Boots On,” in which Errol Flynn played Custer bravely fighting to the death, bullets spent, waving his saber as hordes of Indians finally overran his men. ”Perhaps the most amazing thing that our research last year and this year indicates is that there really was a last stand and that it was just where they put the marker,” Scott said.
He said bullets, bones, arrowheads and other items recovered by the archeologists show that the stand took place at the top of ”Custer Hill,”
where an obelisk and 50 white stones are supposed to mark where the vastly superior force of Indians finally overcame the last defenders of the 7th Cavalry.
Scott said the National Park Service will publish the archeological findings of his study in late June or early July.
About 300 other books have been written about the battle as well as hundreds of academic papers, many of which seek to dispel ”myths” about the world-famous battle, Scott said.
Many authors of Custer literature have singled out the picture of a hilltop last stand as one of the major myths of the Custer legend. But, Scott said, the current research has used sophisticated computer analysis and other techniques to ”essentially confirm that there was indeed a last stand” a la Errol Flynn.”
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He Died with His Boots On
— Tim
