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More than 130 years after Little Bighorn, people are still arguing about what happened. The passions and conspiracy theories are a lot like those surrounding the JFK assassination in our era. What makes the story of the battle so compelling?

The analogy to the JFK assassination is a good one, and I've often compared the two in terms of the interest they excite. I see each one as the great American "history mystery" of its respective century, because that's what binds them together. We know Kennedy was killed, but we don't know exactly how--or at least the majority of the American people don't believe we do. With Custer, we know he and the 210 men under his command were annihilated by a combined force of Sioux and Cheyenne, but no one knows exactly how it happened.

For more than a century, just about everyone thought his battalion was driven to Custer Hill and destroyed there by a much larger force of Indians--the fatalist theory. But recent archaeological finds and forensic work, combined with a close sifting and analysis of the often contradictory Indian accounts, has provided evidence of a far different movement. I've incorporated much of that into my narrative.

But you're right, I see a lot of the same kind of passion. It wouldn't be near as much fun if we knew what happened, I suppose. Gettysburg was a far more important battle, but you don't have the mystery to incite argument.

What was your mindset about Custer when you began your research, and how had it changed by the time you finished the book? Do you feel sympathy for him?

Many of the older Custerphiles and Custerphobes -- that's what they're called -- were introduced to the subject by a childhood viewing of the Errol Flynn film They Died With Their Boots On, or by reading one of the several laudatory biographies of him. Though I'm a film fanatic, and I love westerns especially, somehow I missed that film, and I never read a book about Custer until recently. So I didn't have a preconceived notion of him, or of the battle.

I tried to be as objective as possible in writing this book, though of course we're never as objective as we like to think we are--look at just about every major biography of any important historical figure: by the end of the book it's clear what the author thinks of his subject, pro or con. But I did come to the conclusion that there was far more good than bad in Custer, and I do think there was a disinformation campaign against him that largely worked, due to the simple fact that he was dead and easily blamed--facts were distorted by officers eager to avoid association with such a debacle.

His widow, Libbie, worked hard to burnish his memory, but once she died in 1933 more negative portrayals of her husband began to appear. Yes, he was a glory hog, he could be arrogant, and he had a healthy ego, but he had far more friends than enemies; he was quite possibly the most popular cadet ever to attend West Point, for one thing. He's a classic example of the All-American success story -- he was the son of a blacksmith who quickly rose to the top through dint of effort and ability and married a smart, beautiful high-society woman. He loved her and his family more than anything; as a grown man he would cry when he left his mother after a visit. And he didn't hold grudges, even against men who did him wrong.

Unfortunately, some people have turned him into this power-crazed monster who sacrificed his men in his quest for advancement -- even the Presidency, an old chestnut with no basis in fact. It's going on to this day: On the Deadwood Web site, David Milch, the show's creator, recently called him a psychopath, and made other irresponsible and erroneous statements about Custer -- surprising from someone who brags about his primary source research. (He also claimed that the Little Bighorn is "a stone's throw from Deadwood," when it's actually about 200 miles away.) He clearly hasn't read any objective, well-researched book about the man or the subject, and he should check a dictionary to find out what "psychopath" actually means.

So yes, I feel sympathy for him. To a certain extent--he wasn't Mother Teresa by a long stretch. He must be judged by the tenor of the times, and by those standards he was no worse than his contemporaries, and at times better, at least in his views toward the Indian. He wasn't an Indian lover, but he certainly didn't espouse total annihilation. He never exhibited the vicious hatred of Indians that characterized Colonel John M. Chivington, whose Colorado militia almost completely destroyed the peaceful Cheyenne village of Black Kettle at Sand Creek in 1864. But because of his fame he's been made a symbol of our nation's wrongs against the Indians--and there were many -- and I don't think that's entirely justified.

The film Little Big Man, which caricatured him as a loony, exacerbated that perception, and at the perfect time: in 1970, you couldn't portray the military as horrific enough. Custer admired many things about the Indians, and was much respected by his Crow and Arikara scouts--at least one, Bloody Knife, was by most accounts a friend of his.

You paint a particularly unflattering portrait of Maj. Marcus Reno. Is he an easy scapegoat? How much blame does he deserve for what was, from the Army's standpoint, a military disaster?

I brought no preconceived notions to my research and analysis for this book, and that includes Reno. I tried to be as objective as possible, and went to great lengths to provide a balanced portrait of him and reasons how and why he became what he was at the time of the battle. I read everything I could about him, and at the end of the day the evidence seemed overwhelming.

Robert Utley, one of our best historians and a man who's written several excellent books on the subject, called him "a besotted mediocrity," and I think that's about right. After his wife died, he drank even more heavily. He was disliked by just about everyone who knew him, fellow officers included, and his troopers had little respect for him. I certainly don't think he deserves a larger share of the blame than Custer--he wasn't told of Custer's plans, and was simply ordered to chase down a group of Indians a few miles ahead. I don't blame him for halting his charge when he came into view of the massive campsite.

But the retreat back up the valley and across the river and up the bluffs, with little organization and no rear-guard action, was handled disgracefully, and he bears full responsibility for that. He was later drummed out of the Army on several charges, among them conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman. There was little or no objection in the press or from his fellow officers at the time.

What was the bigger challenge in researching the battle--constructing a Sioux version of events, which has to rely on oral tradition, or sorting through the Army version, where each eyewitness seems to have his own agenda?

Doing right by the Indian version was probably tougher, though the Army version wasn't a piece of cake. I wanted to show both sides of the battle, as accurately as possible. Fortunately, there were quite a few excellent interviews with Sioux and Cheyenne veterans conducted by good researchers. I obtained virtually every known primary-source account of the battle from both sides, white and Indian, and read them over . . . and over . . . and over. For many reasons -- faulty interpretation, overly dramatic reporters, and the very different Indian way of perceiving things and describing actions and events, etc. -- there's a goodly amount of contradiction, and it required plenty of sifting and cross-checking against other accounts and what we know actually occurred. And in the last quarter-century, there's been some excellent archaeological research and forensic analysis that's contributed greatly to our knowledge of the battle.

After synthesizing all this, and more, I think one can arrive at a reasonably accurate idea of what really happened.

You were able to tour the battlefield by horseback. That land looks much as it must have in 1876. What was your experience like, and what emotions did it stir?

For one thing, it gave me a new appreciation of what those troopers endured, and I like to think it informed and enriched my writing to some extent. I did a couple of tours, but one was an all-day ride over a good portion of the battlefield, which stretches along the hills above the Little Bighorn for more than four miles. I've been on a horse many times, but I could hardly walk after that one. I understood much more fully why so many cavalrymen developed spinal problems--and why Custer's men called him "Iron Butt" for his stamina in the saddle.

The area has changed very little since the battle, except for the headstones erected where they found the bodies. It's extraordinarily evocative for that reason--unlike any other battlefield I've ever seen. If you stand on Custer Ridge, or Battle Ridge, or anywhere else with a view of Custer's stand and the river below, it's not hard to conjure up images of the battle, if you know a little about it. I went up there a few years ago to do some research and was the first and only person in the gates on a cool and overcast October morning, and as I stood up there alone with no cars or other people to spoil the view, chills ran up my spine.