Custer conspiracy theories!

Anybody else ever heard this stuff? It popped up last week on the PBS American Experience episode about George Custer, and that bit of unpleasantness he had with the Sioux in 1876.

I've read quite a bit about that battle, most recently Nathaniel Philbrick's Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of Little Big Horn. It was just published a few years ago. But I've never read this nonsense before.

Near the end of the show, the narrator mentioned "conspiracy theories about the battle." Naturally my ears pricked right up.

These conspiracies included...but may not have been limited to, since I was laughing so hard I could've missed something:

1. Sitting Bull was really a white man.

2. Sitting Bull went to Europe for several years and studied military science. Especially the battles of Napoleon.

At least the show brought out one reason why Custer acted even more stupidly than usual - the USA was throwing a big Centennial party in the summer of 1876, and Custer was desperate for a big victory while the Centennial celebrations were happening. That guy was a master of image, P.R. and self-marketing long before such things became generally popular.

Also noticed that most of the newspaper headlines at the time contained the word "massacre." Proving, I guess, that the mainstream media was about as reliable in 1876 as now.

Custer and the 7th Cavalry weren't "massacred," they were armed soldiers who died in battle. Massacre was what Custer did in 1868 to the women and children at the Washita River.