Billy Heath - 9781591020660

Although opinions vary on the details of the battle, virtually every book in the Custer literature agrees on one point: not a single soldier was alive after the dust settled in Montana that fateful day. However, recent facts uncovered by author Vincent J. Genovese bring the universally accepted conclusion of no survivors into serious doubt. Genovese has presented compelling evidence that one soldier, Pvt. William (Billy) Heath, the farrier for Company L, did manage to escape the carnage at Custer's Last Stand.
With all the drama and intrigue of a Hollywood movie, the story of Heath's survival is the substance of Genovese's controversial book, Billy Heath: The Man Who Survived Custer's Last Stand. Less than a year before the battle, twenty-seven-year-old Billy Heath strolled into the army's recruiting office in Cincinnati and joined up. The immigrant coal miner from Pennsylvania was on the run from death threats back in his hometown of Girardville, leaving behind his family. In a few short months he found himself in the midst of one of the most famous battles in U.S. military history.
Army records confirm Heath was in battle and list him as being killed in action. His name is carved into the battlefield monument where the U.S. Army says his remains lay. Not so, says Genovese. Somehow William Heath escaped death and was later found by a wagon of settlers migrating west. Nursed back to health, he eventually returned home to Pennsylvania. Genovese introduces proof showing that Heath lived for fourteen years after the battle.
Lavishly illustrated, this volume contains a foreword by noted Custer and Little Bighorn scholar Brian Pohanka, and an afterword by professor of political science and American history William Gudelunas.