Download or read book Before Custer written by M. John Lubetkin and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-02-25 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The firsthand accounts compiled here by M. John Lubetkin document the survey’s three-month struggle with the Lakotas and other Plains Indian people. Before Custer: Surveying the Yellowstone, 1872 tells the story of a military and public relations disaster. Much to the surprised dismay of U.S. Army strategists and railroad executives, the Indians repeatedly harrassed army forces of nearly a thousand men.