My Life on the Plains - George Custer Armstrong

“The Army is the Indian's best friend.” —General George Armstrong Custer

In My Life on the Plains, originally published as a series of articles in the Galaxy magazine starting in May 1872, General George Armstrong Custer describes his experiences during several military campaigns fighting the Indians in the late 1860s.

This book’s publication in 1874 stirred up the controversy over the Battle of the Washita during the Winter Campaign of 1868. During that campaign, then Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th U.S. Cavalry attacked a Cheyenne camp on the Washita River in Oklahoma, killing Indian women and children in addition to warriors. Custer especially denounced in his book the proponents of the “Indian peace policy,” such as General W.B. Hazen, who in turn wrote a pamphlet “Corrections of Life on the Plains” in 1874 defending his reputation.