I bother to check every last detail when I have sufficient time to, Teribus. Otherwise, I am basically just enjoying myself here, discussing (in a general way) a subject that interests me. If I were taking a university examination and getting marked for it, and my future depended on that mark, then I guess I would take the time to fully research and document every single word I utter on this forum, and provide footnotes.

Is it really that important?

Do you think anyone will care a year from now? I know I won't. Why do you bother? Scoring petty verbal victory points on me over this little fact or that little variation on the theme will not enhance your development as a human being or benefit your life in any way.

I only do the same in retaliation to you sometimes because I am probably as weak and foolish an emotionally reactive jerk as you are, and as insecure too...but at least I have the honesty to admit to it now and then. I've never heard you admit to any weakness.

Look, man, I have slowly grown to detest you, primarily because of your political bent...and I react to you the way a dog reacts to someone that has been taunting it and throwing stones at it every day for a few years. It's predictable. I gather you don't like me either. That's equally predictable. But for Christ's sake, we could go on niggling at each other about details of the Custer fight and Rorke's Drift (or Rourke's Drift, or whatever the hell) forever, and all it would prove is that both of us are really, really insecure people. So give it up, I say.

As for the info you posted: Very good. Sounds pretty accurate to me. Plenty of useful details. I could have looked it up too, and posted it. So could anyone else have, if they took the time. There are obviously a number of different opionions as to how many Indians assaulted Custer's unit at the "last stand", and I suspect that no one will every know for sure, including the people who were actually there at the time. I mean, how CAN anyone ever know for sure at this point?

Melani - Yes, you're right. Custer's Indian mistress was reputedly a Cheyenne woman, not a Lakota. Very good. Lots of other good info in what you posted too. Crazy Horse's 3-day battle against General Crook was an extraordinary display of fighting expertise by the Lakotas. It certainly came as a surprise to Crook, and it was the only battle he ever fought against Indians where he took a serious reverse. Crook seems to have been a very effective commander.

There seem to be some slightly differing accounts about the mutilations to Custer's body. Most accounts indicate that he received far less mutilation than many others there, but the details differ. I've heard that he had knitting needles driven in his ears by the Indian women to make holes "so he would hear better in his next life". I had not heard before that they lopped off his "willy" (which is what I assume you were referring to), but that would probably be because people weren't inclined to speak openly about it for fear that his wife would hear...as you say...or that children would hear. Much of this kind of thing gets sanitized after the fact for the history books.