We spent the entire afternoon talking about his book. There was one question that I was anxious to get answered. Why did he write less than a page about the Custer fight itself? Gray didn't really know what happened during that battle, so there really wasn't much to say. I laughed but it made sense.
This book is not about the Custer fight, but about the entire campaign of the Sioux War of 1876 and it is filled with new revelations about the causes and events of this war. Most interesting is Gray's narrative about the White House meeting between Grant and his aides concerning how they should deal with the Sioux problem and why they started a war.
The book is filled with detailed maps of the Indian movements during the campaign, where and when they camped and for how long. The same is done for soldier column movements.
There is an excellent analysis of the size of the warrior force at the Little Bighorn that historians accept to this day. The numbers will surprise you.
If you have not read much on the Sioux war, then I highly recommend this book. You'll learn that the Custer fight was just one of many events of a long brutal, bloody war.