Indian war buffs will be absorbed by Mr Philbrick's intelligent, yet necessarily speculative, reconstruction of Custer's reckless encounter.

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The gelding gained legendary status as the sole survivor on the U.S. Cavalry side of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn -- fought between General Custer's troops and native American Indians.

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In American military mythology Custer's last stand ranks alongside the Battle of the Alamo, an attack by Mexican forces on a compound in Texas, which left all the defenders dead.

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John Lauer, a seasonal firefighter in Custer, S.D.

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"The uniforms we have today are not so different from the ones we had in Vietnam, which are not so different from the ones in Custer's day, " says Ned Thomas , MIT materials science professor and director of the ISN.

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This is Custer's last stand.

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