Reno as coward, prudent soldier and condition of survival
Arrange short assessments of the same person or proposal in a close sequence so that their specific incompatibilities remain visible, while identifying the setting and limits of the selection.
Son of the Morning Star
Evan S. Connell · 24 weeksReno as coward, prudent soldier and condition of survival
SHORT SOURCE EXCERPT“Everybody had an opinion.”
Connell places Elizabeth Custer’s condemnation and Rosser’s judgment near a published defense that distinguishes bravery from rashness. Further denunciation is followed by Mathey’s recollection of an unnamed speaker who credited the survivors’ continued life to having been commanded by a coward.
The juxtaposition does more than establish that opinions differ. It exposes a disagreement about which consequence should govern judgment: pressing on, avoiding rashness or keeping men alive. The paradoxical remark complicates the label without establishing what would otherwise have happened.
The source in context.
The opening follows Bradley and the relief column as evidence of disaster arrives, then shifts into Reno, Benteen and other participants’ histories and testimony. Long movements through Custer’s life, prior campaigns and federal policy lead back to the 1876 approach, battle and aftermath. Later movements examine reputation, pictures, material remnants and contradictory recollections, ending with Kate Bighead’s remembered and uncertain relation to Custer’s body.
Open this chapterWhat this example supports
The juxtaposition does more than establish that opinions differ. It exposes a disagreement about which consequence should govern judgment: pressing on, avoiding rashness or keeping men alive. The paradoxical remark complicates the label without establishing what would otherwise have happened.
Its limit
Connell selects and orders the assessments and supplies his own commentary. The speakers are not a representative sample, and the paradoxical closing remark comes through Mathey without an identified original speaker; none of this establishes Reno’s actual character or the counterfactual outcome.
Source & edition
Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star, North Point Press, first eBook edition July 2011; supplied text with inclusive LF anchors.
Supplied text, lines 817–835. The short quotation is checked against the source.
Confirmed live development-family eligibility before source access. Read the complete whole-source AI synthesis and the summaries, section maps, qualifications and gaps of all twelve ordered segments. Checked the supplied contents and main-text boundaries, inspected the substantive narrative ending and the bibliography/index/imprint, and read each retained comparison with its surrounding source context. Checked purported section boundaries against the source’s quotation breaks rather than treating segment labels as chapter titles. This is a source-checked editorial pass, not a second full reading, an independent review or a verification of the historical events.
First eBook edition, North Point Press, July 2011; supplied text of a work first published in 1984, with images unavailable.