No one survived in Custer's immediate command, but other soldiers fighting in the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25-26, 1876, were doomed to remember the nightmarish scene for decades after. Their true and terrible stories are included in Troopers with Custer. Some of the veterans who corresponded with E. A. Brininstool were still alive when his book first appeared in a shortened version in 1925. It has long been recognized as classic Custeriana.

More incisively than many later writers, Brininstool considers the causes of Custer's defeat and questions the alleged cowardice of Major Marcus A. Reno. His exciting reenactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn sets up the reader for a series of turns by its stars and supporting and bit players. Besides the boy general with the golden locks, they include Captain Frederick W. Benteen, the scouts Lieutenant Charles A. Varnum and Lonesome Charley Reynolds, the trumpeter John Martin, officers and troopers in the ranks who miraculously escaped death, the only surviving surgeon and the captain of the steamboat that carried the wounded away, the newspaperman who spread the news to the world, and many others.