Perhaps no clash between Indians and white men does more to highlight the sorry relations between the two than that of George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry and Sitting Bull's forces at the Little Big Horn in 1876. The trauma of Custer's defeat and death was a national experience that continues to stir feelings in books and motion pictures. The book, one of Haycox's best, is widely read for very good reasons.

Custer and the 7th Cavalry are not vague figures painted on a backdrop but very much a part of his novel. The story is told from the perspective of Kern Shafter, a veteran of the Civil War, who travels to Bismarck to sign up with the 7th. On the journey he meets Josephine Russell who is going there to meet her father.

Shafter fits into the Army with ease and is soon advanced to sergeant. He...