Custer's Last Stand: Death in the Black Hills | Part 5

In the wake of the barbaric Washita River massacre, George Custer found himself drifting; addicted to gambling, at odds with his wife, and failing in his efforts to take advantage of the American gold rush in New York. Finally, Custer was sent to Kentucky to suppress the terrible post war fighting there, but again found himself alienated from many of his companions by his controversial views on Reconstruction. Restless and dissatisfied, the chance for danger and action finally came Custer’s way, thanks to the ambitions of the Northern Pacific Railway. With plans to build it right across Lakota territory, the venture was intended to and would fatally threaten their way of life, by spelling the death of the bison. With this threat on the horizon, the mighty Lakota war leaders, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse lead violent raids against the survey party sent to prospect the land, hampering and halting their efforts. So it was that in 1873 another expedition was sent, and with it went George Custer, bringing him into contact for the first time with the two mighty warriors who would shape his destiny. A fearful, bloody game of cat and mouse would ensue, culminating in an epic confrontation…
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the evolution of Custer’s career leading up to his first legendary encounter with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the incremental creep of the Northern Pacific Railway, and the U.S. Government’s secret plan to defeat the Lakota Sioux, once and for all.
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[@tonykehoe123]

Great introduction from stinky Pete 😂

[@Waterhorse1]

I love it when you guys "lose control of the narrative" - they're often the best bits (like Hugo giving us pages about the sewers of Paris in Les Mis)

[@davepannekoek1562]

I thought Tom was doing a Quagmire impersonation!

[@troidva]

Just because Custer was from southern Ohio doesn't mean he had an accent like Scarlett O'Hara's evil twin brother.

[@theshrubberer]

best opening laugh by Dominick..."That was George Armstrong Custer!" .😂😂.God almighty 😂😂😂"

[@bearhustler]

Tom's accent at the start was moving around as quickly as the Sioux around Custer.

[@kimdecker8901]

At points I wondered whether he was treading into leprechaun territory. (And I want to make clear: This is not a complaint on my part. I rather enjoyed the whole interpretive reading, as I'm enjoying the whole series.)

[@kenithandry5093]

Great stuff. I’m an American from the South (Louisiana), and I thoroughly enjoy your podcast.

[@ToddSauve]

My heartiest congratulations on your series on the Little Bighorn and its surrounding geopolitics! You folks do a much better job of this than the vast majority of American chroniclers. Indeed, just yesterday a program came out on KZbin called "Truth About George Armstrong Custer" and it was simply riddled with errors that were appalling for such a grandiose title, and which relied on terribly outdated source material. I can even recommend your series to citizens of the US who want to actually learn many of the verified facts about this famous event. Not being American myself, but Canadian, I have been able to take a little more dispassionate view of the entire history of what happened and get down to the meat and bones of the entire affair. I suppose this is the puzzling aspect of it all. Some Americans get so frenzied about this battle that a high percentage would probably step into a time machine to go back and win the battle for the good guys. Poor educational standards and a misplaced patriotism seem to be the governing factors in much of this. 🤷‍♂

[@matthewhansen2126]

Amen.

[@eshaibraheem4218]

Yes.

[@Jupiter-Ace]

I love the podcast, but the youtube version, with the cutaway to Dominic holding in laughter was just brilliant 😂

[@deedeemegadoodoo70]

I have a new favorite history podcast 👏

[@bigblue6917]

Is there no end to Tom's talent as a voice over actor. I had no idea that General Custer came from the North of England. If you ever decided to tell the story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tom, Butch's family have said his voice sounded a lot like George Formby, if it helps. Though there is no truth to the rumour that after a successful train robbery he was once heard to say "It's turned out nice again."

[@eshaibraheem4218]

I'm with you, big. I adore Tom and all these podcasts.

[@TheGlobalfrog12]

Frontiersman 😂😂😂😂 omg !!! That sound was coffee spitting hilarious!!!!!

[@Moonman63]

My history professor would have loved this series. We spent a couple weeks on Custer as part of us history post civil war.

[@henkvandergaast3948]

Guys.. you broke me up today.. Hilarious

[@elizabethj8510]

The Gabby Hayes impersonation aka "Frontiersman" blew me away. Thank you for the laughs--and the solid history lessons.

[@Roman.Leave.Me.2.My.Circles]

Undoubtedly another certified hood classic

[@SeanRCope]

Well done and thanx again. Looking forward to the episode.Cheers!

[@Waterhorse1]

Love this podcast. Have you ever thought of doing one on Australia's Ned Kelly? You could bring in Peter Fitzsimmons as a guest.

[@jimb9063]

Thank you, fabulous education and entertainment. History podcasts that are stuffed with silly points are ten a penny. As yet there's only one that wants to mount a legendary allrounder. I'd like to think Bloody Knife got his name from the frustration of it not being very good when he used it.

[@waynedoucette1492]

Love you guys. This is great history.

[@paardeberg]

Excellent series . Ref Custer's rank he is a substantive Lieutenant Colonel (i.e. his regular army rank) whilst army convention was to refer to an officer by his highest rank achieved, thus he is conventionally referred to as General Custer. Similar to this, Captain Frederick W. Benteen was referred to by his Civil War rank of Colonel....Just heard the section about his hair, he was losing it but had it cut short for the campaign....

[@Terinije]

I have no clue what species that accent was supposed to even represent.

[@jimb9063]

Species? You did well to narrow it down that far.

[@ropeburnsrussell]

Love Tom's accents.

[@thejustifier5566]

I really like this series. You guys should do the gunfight at the ok corral next.

[@neilhatcher2494]

Scat! Tom enjoyed that

[@rmorani2174]

37:08 We love you guys for who you are!!

[@jeffreyhill4705]

Tom opens with his natural voice

[@bearhustler]

Ignore Dominic's sneering about fossils, loved your appearance on the Terrible Lizards podcast Tom : )

[@SKILLIUSCAESAR]

The generals knew eachother bc all Civil War era top brass, both sides, were West Point grads.

[@dvt6778]

First! Looking forward to this. Absolutely fantastic mini series.

[@richardperkins2781]

Custer would not give two thoughts about his actions against Tribes, except for the opportunity for self glory.

[@lddcavalry]

Just like you giving no thought about commenting on a subject you have no knowledge of.

[@thomasbradley2225]

Lt Col GA Custer had been breveted major general, Michigan volunteers during the Civil War, then busted down to his regular rank of ltc though was honorific ''general'' to accord his highest rank.

[@lddcavalry]

Not busted

[@MattFrancis1]

Here must be a super cut of all these amazing readings

[@jimb9063]

Christmas quiz. Guess the country, region, and maybe the individual for a bonus.

[@brianbooth679]

Custer went looking for something ..... found a lot of somethings.....glory hunter...murderer...adultery....some hero!

[@nigeh5326]

Imagine Buffalo Bill’s Flying Circus. Sitting Bull zooming overhead on a cloud firing down with a banana bow shooting celery arrows. Next to him his old friend called Sitting on a Cloud is telling him why their friend Fell of a Cloud isn’t there. 😃

[@ToddSauve]

During Custer's suspension from the army he took a trip to Canada, in southern Ontario, with one of his "royal family" members WW Cooke, who was a Canadian and died with him on the Little Bighorn. Accompanied by the mayor of Detroit they went on a gambling and partying tour. I don't think his wife Libby went with him, so who knows what this crew got up to. 👀🤷‍♂😟

[@largesatsuma]

"No-one studies that 1870s or 1880s anymore" It's a shame because that was the time when America's economic and industrial might really began and continues to this day. You still see it in modern companies: Standard Oil > S.O. > Esso > ExxonMobil

[@oldasrocks9121]

You two should watch the 6 episode "The English" w/Emily Blunt

[@troidva]

One issue about the quality of the cavalry’s weaponry: the 1873 Springfield single-shot carbine was a fairly good weapon. But thanks to the poor quality ammunition provided by Grant’s very corrupt War Department, the weapons would frequently overheat and jam after firing a few shots because the substandard copper-jacketed cartridges would be distorted by the heat.

[@CinRife]

I'm Lakota and we have always been here...don't believe all the history written. We the Lakota have always been here thousands of years

[@fastpublish]

I believe the meeting with Grant was in the little known Wannsee Room at the White House

[@VaucluseVanguard]

That made me think of the similarities between Custer and the man who Chaired the Wansee conference.

[@fastpublish]

@@VaucluseVanguard Custer is more your Einsatzgruppe commander, like Otto Ohlendorf, who wound up on the gallows. Timing is everything

[@VaucluseVanguard]

@@fastpublish True in practical terms. But I was thinking of personality and politics. Both Custer and Heydrich were flamboyant narcissists. Both believed they would go on to bigger things politically, and both engaged in genocide because they believed a group pf people were in the way of progress not because they had an especial hatred for the group concerned. While in Custer's case that was to some degree true because the Lakota were physically occupying the great planes, in Heydrich's case it was just delusional or perhaps a political convenience. He once said that if the Jews had not existed, the Nazi's would have had to invent them. To him, Nazism needed a race enemy and he did not particularly care who it was.

[@fastpublish]

@@VaucluseVanguard They had some similarities but Heydrich was of a different order altogether. I cannot imagine Custer planning the systematic slaughter of 13 million people in gas chambers. Heydrich was a more intelligent man, too. Custers are reasonably common; Heydrichs are, thankfully, rare.

[@707jette]

Wot a cliffhanger

[@Ozgipsy]

“It’s not all racism, to be fair…”😂

[@kambrose1549]

Colonial forces first were seen as the instrument of God's will. So darwinism is like a secular version of the same idea. The the invaders in whatever land were the sword of fate against the locals

[@lddcavalry]

50 million ounces of gold from the black hills.

[@tomtaylor6163]

Good American accent at the beginning pretty good. I’m a big history guy , you could maybe pass as somebody from Michigan

[@ToddSauve]

But in the 1870s, as far as I know, there were no American accents that were so pronounced. Tom gives an almost southern accent to Custer, which I suppose is from watching too many 20th century Western movies, LOL!

[@tomtaylor6163]

@@ToddSauveI have heard about Accents really forming up after the Civil War. I’ve found that people from Michigan tend to have a very neutral accent .

[@ToddSauve]

@@tomtaylor6163 I live in Calgary and I find that most Americans from the northern states sound virtually indistinguishable from Canadians. This is the accent that the media seem to try to implement across the continent.

[@tomtaylor6163]

@@ToddSauve The people I know from Michigan sound different from South And North Dakota.

[@ToddSauve]

@@tomtaylor6163 There can be a bit of a Western accent in the US, as well, so that may be it. Usually a good way to differentiate which side of the border a person is from is they will use "huh" or "eh," the former often signifying they are American and latter they are Canadian. There are exceptions to even this rule, however. 🤠

[@gbickell]

Tom Holland - master of voices

[@hungrimoon]

Custer fathered an illegitimate child by a Cheyenne woman. The Cheyenne knew this and therefore considered him a relative. It is believed that this was the reason his body was not mutilated after he was killed.

[@SKILLIUSCAESAR]

It’s thought to be his brother’s bc they shared her, as Custer was sterile from an old ghonorrea treatment. Perhaps they assumed it was his tho…

[@michaelkennedy3372]

Tom Holland is truly the man of 1000 voices

[@nigeh5326]

And a lot of the American ones are northern English 😃

[@fastpublish]

New History subset - Comparative Genocide

[@tommonk7651]

Tom, don't ever do that again.... LOL There are lt. colonels (not colonel lieutenants) in the US army. I've been to the Badlands and Black Hills twice. Just beautiful land....

[@ToddSauve]

Hmm, lieutenant colonel is an official rank in the US military and it certainly existed back in the 1870s because that is what Custer was. He had the rank of brevet brigadier general from the civil war but only lieutenant colonel in the peace time army.

[@fastpublish]

Lt Colonel/Brevet Major General

[@KeepingTheIronThroneWarm]

A for effort on your Southern accent. But it's misapplied. Custer wasn't a Southerner.

[@darrellrobinson9354]

Great episode, but if you want to know how Tom's American accent sounds to Americans, just think about how Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent sounds to Brits.

[@holysab7]

Would love some podcasts on the history of Israel!

[@ianburns6218]

WTF was that accent

[@joegcass]

So drawn out

[@bishwatntl]

The accents are getting worse.....perhaps better to underplay rather than go over the top

[@2tr6dinquwjos]

No we love it!

[@user-ig2qh1pk8g]

Why did you have Crazy Horse name in this when you both spend very little time talking about him sorry but its all about Custer and no more accents I was interseted because of crazy horse but poor show

[@2tr6dinquwjos]

The title refers to the 8 episode series which this episode is part of. Highly recommend checking out the other episodes where they cover Crazy Horse in detail!