George A. Custer

American military leader

• Born: December 5, 1839
• Birthplace: New Rumley, Ohio
• Died: June 25, 1876
• Place of death: Little Bighorn River, Montana Territory

Although Custer’s reputation is obscured by the events surrounding his legendary death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, his illustrious Civil War exploits made him one of the nation’s most respected military figures and a national idol. After the war, his expeditions into the Yellowstone region and the Black Hills earned for him renown as an explorer and compiler of scientific information.

Early Life

George Armstrong Custer was born in Ohio. When he was ten, his father sent him to live with his married half sister, Lydia Reed, in Monroe, Michigan. The elder Custer wanted his favorite son to acquire the best possible education, and he had been assured by his daughter that the private “Young Men’s Academy” in Monroe would benefit George. At the age of sixteen, “Autie,” as Custer’s family affectionately nicknamed him, returned to his parents’ home and began a career as a schoolteacher. Always devoted to his family, Custer faithfully presented his mother his monthly salary of twenty dollars as a token of his appreciation of their sacrifices to enable him to become educated.

Like many young men who had been swept up in the thrilling accounts of the Mexican War, Custer nurtured his boyhood love for the military and was determined to make it his profession. In 1857, Custer entered West Point, but during his four years at the Academy his academic record and numerous demerits placed him near the bottom of his class. “My career as a cadet,” he recounted in his “War Memoirs” (1876), “had but little to commend it to the study of those who came after me, unless as an example to be carefully avoided.” What became known as “Custer’s luck” prevailed, however, and in early summer, 1861, the Union Army, desperate for officers, took Custer’s entire class, and three days before the first Battle of Bull Run, Second Lieutenant Custer reported to the Army of the Potomac.

Life’s Work

While Custer was serving as aide-de-camp to Generals George Brinton McClellan, Philip Kearny, and Alfred Pleasonton, his enthusiasm, bravery, and dedication to duty earned for him rapid promotion to the rank of captain. While under Pleasonton, the chief of the Union cavalry, Custer gained a reputation for zeal, sound tactics, and active participation in combat. Consequently, upon Pleasonton’s recommendation, on June 29, 1863, Custer, at the age of twenty-three, was made brevet brigadier general in command of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade.

As a general, Custer’s initial distinction was his attire. In an attempt to achieve a look of maturity, the sad-eyed youth grew a mustache and allowed his sandy blond locks to drape nearly to his shoulders. To adorn his wiry five-foot, ten-inch, 165-pound frame, the Army’s youngest general chose rather foppish clothing. Unlike his more conservative fellow officers, Custer wore a broad-billed hat, blue velvet coat with a wide sailor collar, red silk tie, gold insignia tie clasp, white gloves, and loose trousers tucked inside high riding boots.

Any doubts as to the well-dressed cavalier’s leadership qualities vanished quickly, as Custer’s junior officers marveled at his acts of bravado. Custer enjoyed the thrill of battle and led his men into the fray, waving either his hat or sword, and exhorting them to charge with a shrill “Come on, you Wolverines!” Unlike many Union commanders, Custer gave his troops all the credit for his victories, while shouldering all blame in defeat. This gave “Old Curly,” as his men dubbed him, the reputation of being a “soldiers’ general,” and by the end of the war Custer ranked behind only Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan as a beloved savior of the Union.

Custer’s combat record was outstanding, and his victories over J. E. B. Stuart’s forces at Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern were instrumental in the ultimate triumph of the North. To honor his achievements, Custer, who had risen to the rank of brevet major general in 1864 and had accepted Robert E. Lee’s symbolic white towel of surrender, was permitted to witness Lee’s official surrender in the McLean House at Appomattox Courthouse. General Sheridan then purchased the table upon which the document had been signed and presented it to Custer’s wife, Elizabeth, with the notation: “There is scarcely an individual in our service who has contributed more to bring about this desirable result than your very gallant husband.”

Custer’s war record was sufficient to warrant his place as an American military hero. Custer differed from many of his fellow generals, however, in that he felt himself too young to retire on his laurels and had no desire to enter politics. Therefore, he remained in his chosen profession and was sent West. In May, 1865, he was dispatched to Texas to help destroy the remnants of General Edmund Kirby-Smith’s rebel forces, and the following year he was ordered to Washington, D.C., to testify before a congressional committee on conditions in Texas and western Louisiana. In 1866, he reverted to his regular army rank of captain and returned to Monroe. The remainder of that year was spent writing his memoirs and accompanying President Andrew Johnson on his campaign “Swing Around the Circle.”

In late 1866, Custer was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, to head the newly formed Seventh Cavalry. The next year, he participated in General Winfield S. Hancock’s campaign against the Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne. During this expedition, Custer and his men broke through a virtual siege of Fort Wallace and rescued the garrison. Finding the post ravaged by cholera, he took part of his command on a two-hundred-mile trek to Fort Harker to obtain medical supplies for Fort Wallace. He sent the medicine back with a junior officer, while he obtained permission from the commanding general at Fort Harker to return to Fort Riley to visit Elizabeth. Following the disastrous campaign, Hancock told Congress that he had been undermined by actions of his subordinates, especially Custer, and demanded that the offending junior officer be court-martialed for deserting his command. Despite saving Fort Wallace from attack and disease and having authorization for his absence, Custer was found guilty and suspended, without pay, for one year.

In September, 1868, Generals Sherman and Sheridan had Custer reinstated to lead the Seventh Cavalry on another campaign. Sheridan told Custer: “I rely on you in everything, and shall send you on this expedition without orders, leaving you to act entirely on your own judgment.” This faith was rewarded, as a surprise dawn attack on an encampment of hostile Cheyenne along the Washita River resulted in one of the military’s most successful Indian battles. Custer seized large quantities of ponies, blankets, weapons, and food, but found himself criticized in the eastern press because during the daylong fighting fifty-three Indian women and children were slain.

Four years of relative inactivity ended in 1873, when Custer was named second in command for General David Stanley’s fifteen-hundred-man force assigned to guard the Northern Pacific Railroad Company survey party. During this service in the Yellowstone region, Custer enhanced his reputation as an Indian fighter by defeating a war party of three hundred Lakota, while sustaining only one casualty among his ninety men.

In July, 1874, Sheridan again called upon Custer, whom he said was “the only man who never failed me,” this time to lead an expedition into the Black Hills of the Dakotas. Sheridan feared that if the Lakota went to war, they would use their sacred territory in that area as a refuge. Because the Black Hills had never been explored by whites, Custer was instructed to take more than one thousand men, including soldiers, geologists, paleontologists, zoologists, botanists, and photographers, to reconnoiter the region. Custer sent back voluminous data on scientific discoveries, but the public was most interested in his finding of gold and other precious minerals. Soon a rush of miners flooded onto land reserved by treaty for the Lakota.

Ironically, Custer’s downfall was his successful Black Hills expedition. As the Lakota joined with the northern Cheyenne to repel the white trespassers, the federal government embarked upon a military campaign intended to celebrate the nation’s centennial by ridding the plains of all Indian resistance to white expansion. A coordinated three-prong attack, under the leadership of Generals Alfred Terry, George Crook, and John Gibbon, was to converge on the suspected main Indian encampment along the Little Bighorn River in the Montana Territory. Custer, commanding the only cavalry in the expedition, was sent ahead by Terry to scout the area, and he arrived at the Little Bighorn late on June 24, 1876, two days before the scheduled rendezvous.

On the morning of June 25, fearing that his force had been seen and that the enemy would flee before the vise could close around them, Custer decided to launch an attack. Splitting his forces for a pincer movement, as he had done successfully in the past, Custer found himself facing between three thousand and five thousand warriors, nearly three times the number Sheridan had predicted. Cut off from all assistance, Custer and the remainder of his 225 men staved off two charges before succumbing to the superior numbers and weaponry of the Indians.

Significance

Articulate and intelligent, Custer exemplified the nineteenth century career officer by making the motto “duty, honor, country” a way of life. Although his best friends at West Point were southerners, Custer fought against them because he believed their cause was traitorous. Personally sympathetic to the plight of Indians being driven from their land, he fought against them because his government ordered him to do so. Insubordination was intolerable to Custer, and he believed that orders, no matter how personally offensive, had to be obeyed. Contrary to allegations, Custer did not attack a day early because he sought glory, but rather because his orders from Terry permitted him to act upon his own best judgment.

In death, Custer achieved the ultimate goal of the campaign. National outrage demanded vengeance, and, to avoid possible annihilation, the Indian forces disbanded. Even defeat could not dim Custer’s fame in the eyes of his adoring country.

Bibliography

Ambrose, Stephen E. Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors. New York: Anchor Books, 1996. Ambrose, a historian who has written several popular biographies and military histories, examines the similarities between Custer and Crazy Horse.

Carroll, John M. Custer in the Civil War: His Unfinished Memoirs. Edited by John M. Carroll. San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1977. A compilation of documents relating to Custer’s Civil War career, followed by a reprinting of the seven chapters of the general’s unfinished “War Memoirs,” first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1876. Although self-centered, these chapters are significant because they represent the final works in Custer’s prolific literary career.

Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984. A thoroughly researched examination of the personalities of Custer, government officials, and Indian leaders. A skillful blend of biography and history of the Plains Indian Wars.

Custer, Elizabeth. Boots and Saddles: Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer. Reprint. Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House, 1974. This facsimile reprint, without introduction, of the original 1885 edition recounts the travels of “Libbie” with her husband from the spring of 1873 through what she calls “Our Life’s Last Chapter.” An adoring wife, Mrs. Custer dedicated her life to the glorification of her husband. This book, like her Tenting on the Plains and Following the Guidon, is in her husband’s memory and, for that reason, must be read with scrutiny.

Custer, George A. My Life on the Plains. Edited by Milo Quaife. New York: Citadel Press, 1962. Originally written as a two-year series of articles for Galaxy Magazine, this first appeared in book form in 1874. It offers a self-serving account of Custer’s activities from 1867 through 1869. This edition offers the best introductory material and a faithful reprinting of the original.

Frost, Lawrence A. The Custer Album. Seattle: Superior Publishing, 1964. Former curator of the Custer Room of the Monroe County (Michigan) Museum, Frost is one of the foremost experts on his hometown hero. The text is completely sympathetic to Custer, but even those who do not share that view will be fascinated by the wealth of photographs of Custer and his family.

Graham, William A. The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custerania. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1953. An encyclopedia of events concerning Custer’s last battle. Graham spent much of his life obtaining interviews with Indian and white participants of the Little Bighorn. Essential for anyone seriously interested in Custer.

Hatch, Thom. The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian Wars. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2002. Hatch’s book seeks to help readers sift through the many materials about Custer’s life. Each chapter provides an overview of a specific phase of his life, followed by articles and biographies of people associated with Custer. Hatch focuses on Custer’s post-Civil War career on the Plains, including the controversy surrounding the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Jackson, Donald Dean. Custer’s Gold: The United States Cavalry Expedition of 1874. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966. A brief, scholarly account of the Black Hills expedition and its impact on both Indians and westward expansion.

Monaghan, Jay. Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer. Boston: Little, Brown, 1959. Perhaps the most balanced biography of Custer. Well-researched and written in a flowing narrative, the book is sympathetic to Custer, but Monaghan resists the temptation to gloss over the general’s flaws.

Utley, Robert M. Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. A revised and expanded edition of the best-selling biography originally published in 1998. Utley disagrees with historians who maintain that Custer lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn because it was a vain attempt to achieve personal glory. Instead, Utley argues, the battle was lost because of bad intelligence and because Custer underestimated the ability and determination of his opponents.

Van de Water, Frederic F. Glory Hunter: A Life of General Custer. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1934. As the title indicates, this is a hostile biography, written to counter the image set forth by Mrs. Custer’s works. Custer is portrayed as a selfish, vain glory-seeker, willing to risk his men’s lives to achieve fame. Still considered by many “Custer haters” as a classic, this book should be read with Frost’s or Monaghan’s to gain a more accurate picture of Custer.