Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I am looking for a book about General George Armstrong Custer that was written/co-written by Giovinni Martini. He rode almost to the last with Custer, but was sent to take a message to Benteen shortly before the battle. He was a trumpeter, and his name in English was John Martin.

I found a couple on Abe Books that were $125. I don't need a museum piece - I thought this book was reprinted.

Did a search on Bookfinder.com and could not find it. They do have a lengthy list on Custer however.

http://tinyurl.com/czvurk

The book you want augusta, is the title John Martin, an Italian With Custer at the Little Big Horn, 1876-1976? If so, alibris has a copy. It's not $125, but $75. (The book in question runs 80 pages.) The author is Frank Perfetti.

Thanks, Doug! You got me a title and author! I had them from Abe Books, but the second time I went there for some reason it gave me too many results to look thru.

Well, I doubt I'll spend $75 on the book. (Martini died in the 1920's, I think. It could have been reprinted on the 100th anniversary. And if they didn't print many, it could be pricey. Darn it.)

Thanks for looking, Harry.

Something else I've wanted to read is the transcript of Custer's court martial. I can't find where they even have it available. (Not to be confused with the book called something like "The Court Martial of Custer", that is a novel.)

Did anybody see that years ago on tv? That Custer looked crazy! Maybe he was supposed to have gone crazy. I think it was after the battle, and they showed what might have happened if he had lived. I can't remember who played Custer in that. And for some reason I'm thinking of Brian Keith as maybe the prosecutor, unless I'm thinking of 'The Andersonville Trial'. Seems to me they had Custer sitting at the defense table humming 'Garry Owen'.

That reminds me. One day I went to the Custer museum in Monroe, and I came back and stopped in to visit my sister. I told her I bought a t-shirt with "Garry Owen" on it. And she goes, "Who's Garry Owen? That guy on Laugh-In?"


("Garry Owen" was Custer's regimental tune. If you've ever seen a Custer movie, you've heard the song.)

Well, scans of the original (hand-written) documents can be found on footnote.com -or Court Martial of General George Armstrong Custer at http://www.amazon.com/Martial-General-G ... 0806116080. Author there is Frost...

A search at bookfinder.com actually yields several bargain-priced copies of this title. (Not so cheap as dirt, but hey...it's a start!)

Thanks for the tip on the website, Doug! I'll go there. I'll visit bookfinder.com too then. Maybe I'll get lucky. I always forget about bookfinder.com. There's half.com too, if they are still around. I haven't looked them up in ages.

BTW, I went in the physical building of Alibris.com a couple summers ago. One is located in downtown Calumet, Michigan,and I love it. If you go, ask the clerk to see the old postcards. They are in photo albums at the check-out counter. I found three postcards of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair there. They were priced at a dollar. I mentioned it to the clerk what I thought they were, and she said she didn't think so because why would there be gondolas on them. I couldn't remember why they had the gondolas there at the time, but I said I was pretty sure they were, to give her a chance to re-price them or take them off the 'shelf', but she still thought they weren't. She had a lot of Victorian postcards, many in real good shape, for good prices.

There also is another location of Alibris, outside of Calumet, where the books are all in a barn. I didn't go there - yet.