It justified the military campaigns that followed — the sustained, brutal effort to force the remaining free Lakota and Cheyenne onto reservations that constituted the U.S.

Army’s response to the Little Bighorn.

It made Custer a martyr rather than an officer who had made serious tactical errors.

And it placed the story firmly within the frame of American heroism rather than examining the political causes that had brought the Army to the Greasy Grass in the first place.

The Lakota and Cheyenne perspective was not represented in this mythology.

The people who had defended their families and won the battle were the villains of the story — treacherous savages who had ambushed brave soldiers.