A Life Cut Short at the Little Big Horn - by Todd E Harburn (Hardcover)

About the Book

A portrait of a singular figure in the milieu of the American military's nineteenth-century medical elite, A Life Cut Short at the Little Big Horn offers a close look at a familiar chapter in U.S. history, and a reminder of the humanity lost in a battle that resonates to this day.

Book Synopsis

Of the three physicians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Doctor George Edwin Lord (1846-76) was the lone commissioned medical officer, an assistant surgeon with the United States Army's 7th Cavalry--one more soldier caught up in the U.S. government's efforts to fulfill what many people believed was the young country's "Manifest Destiny." A Life Cut Short at the Little Big Horn tells Lord's story for the first time. Notable for its unique angle on Custer's last stand and for its depiction of frontier-era medicine, the book is above all a compelling portrait of the making of an army medical professional in mid-nineteenth-century America.

Drawing on newly discovered documents, Todd E. Harburn describes Lord's education and training at Bowdoin College in Maine and the Chicago Medical College, detailing what the study of medicine entailed at the time for "a young man of promise . . . held in universal esteem." Lord's time as a contract physician with the army took him in 1874 to the U.S. Northern Boundary Survey. From there Harburn recounts how, after a failed romance and the rigors of the U.S. Army Medical Board examination, the young doctor proceeded to his first--and only--appointment as a post surgeon, at Fort Buford in Dakota Territory. What followed, of course, was Lord's service, and his death, in the Little Big Horn campaign, which this book shows us for the first time from the unique perspective of the surgeon.

A portrait of a singular figure in the milieu of the American military's nineteenth-century medical elite, A Life Cut Short at the Little Big Horn offers a close look at a familiar chapter in U.S. history, and a reminder of the humanity lost in a battle that resonates to this day.

Review Quotes

"A deeply researched and well-written biography of an Army surgeon during the Gilded Age. It demonstrates the many fascinating details that can be gleaned from military and civilian records when historians are willing to spend the time and effort to discover and analyze them. A Life Cut Short at the Little Big Horn is highly recommended."--Journal of America's Military Past


"An admirable addition to the Little Big Horn canon."--James Donovan, author of A Terrible Glory


"Three doctors rode with Custer to the Little Bighorn--two died there. They were among the most educated and accomplished men in a battle that has spawned endless interest, yet until recently, only survivor Dr. Henry Porter had much written about him. That has been corrected over the past six years by a current-day physician, Dr. Todd Harburn. His zealous research gave us the story of Dr. James DeWolf in 2017. He has now completed the trilogy with this biography of Dr. George Lord. The tale of Lord's great professional achievement and personal mystery will interest all students of the Battle of the Little Bighorn."--James S. Brust, coauthor of Where Custer Fell, Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now