It presents the Washita simply as a successful engagement against a hostile camp, without acknowledging the specific character of who was killed and under what circumstances.

Fourth, the abandonment of Major Elliott and his men — the separate unit that was surrounded and killed while Custer withdrew — was the subject of intense controversy within the military that Custer’s account does not honestly address.

Custer’s version of the Washita became the dominant popular narrative for much of the following century, partly because of his celebrity and partly because it was convenient for the broader narrative of American expansion.

The fuller story — in which a peace chief who had been trying to comply with treaty terms was killed in a dawn attack — was harder to incorporate into the triumphalist history of the West.