A good historian has methods to winnow away the chaff and to find the kernels of truth/facts of the matter. That's the type of history I like to read.
I grew up thinking General Custer was an American Hero, the last man standing at the Little Big Horn, and the only body not desecrated after the massacre, because he was such a respected foe among the Souix. On our first family vacation out west, we visited the Custer Monument at the Little Big Horn (August 1954), and were regaled by the park attendants with stories about the heroism and dedication of Custer. That winter, my father came home from work one evening with some old clippings (or copies) of an article written by some army staff person who was one of the first on the scene of the massacre. He had written this many years after the battle, but it read like something out of the National Enquirer, and totally reversed everything that was known about Custer. I remember reading that his body was desecrated as bad as every other soldier, and there was no indication that he was the last to die. He may have shot himself in the head. It also brought to light much about Custer's barbaric approach to killing Indians, men women, and children. The author said in the article that he had withheld the information from the public, out of respect for Custer's wife, who lived a long time, and died just 10 years before I was born. A few years later history had changed, and Custer became widely recognized as an embarrassment, rather than a national hero. When my dad handed me those clippings, he just shrugged and said something like, "Here's a different point of view." I asked him if he thought the article was true, and he said, "Maybe time will tell."
