Custer's Last Charge (I)

DESCRIPTION: Custer leads his men into battle against the Sioux; a fierce scene is described, with bullets flying and dead falling on both sides. Three hundred US soldiers are killed and scalped by the Indians, who leave Custer with his dead
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930
KEYWORDS: army battle fight violence war death corpse soldier Indians(Am.)
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
June 25, 1876 - Battle of the Little Bighorn. Lt. Colonel George A. Custer (who had been a Major General during the Civil War) is killed, along with the entire force of cavalry (five companies with somewhat over 250 men) with him.
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, p. 561, "Custer's Last Charge" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 274-275, "Custer's Last Charge" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8598
RECORDINGS:
Warde Ford, "Custer's Last Charge" (AFS 4199 B1, 1938; tr.; on LC30, in AMMEM/Cowell)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Last Fierce Charge" [Laws A17] (subject)
NOTES [93 words]: This is a separate song from "The Last Fierce Charge," although [some versions of] both describe the battle of the Little Bighorn. Confusingly, some versions of "The Last Fierce Charge" share this song's title. They can be distinguished by the description of two men and a letter, which is present in "The Last Fierce Charge" but not in "Custer's Last Charge."
Warde Ford states that the words to this song were copied from the Custer Monument by his friends Robert & Charles Walker, and that the tune is generic; I do not have information to confirm this. - PJS
Last updated in version 6.6
File: RcCLC

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