George Armstrong Custer

George Armstrong Custer, hand-drawn from a photo reference taken by Mathew Brady in Washington, D.C. on May 23, 1865, wearing his Major General regulation dress uniform frock coat, with a scarlet scarf and his large, broad-brimmed sombrero, age 25.

Custer, born in Ohio and a resident of Monroe, MI was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
His nicknames were Autie (a mispronuciation of his middle name as a child), Yellow Hair and Son Of The Morning Star.

Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, but as the Civil War was just starting, trained officers were in immediate demand.
He worked closely with General George B. McClellan and the future General Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his qualities as a cavalry leader, and he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers at age 23, the “Boy General” and one of the youngest to do so.
Only a few days after his promotion, he fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade “Woverines” and despite being outnumbered, defeated J.E.B. Stuart’s attack at what is now known as the East Cavalry Field (which contributed greatly to the battle being won by the Union
forces).

In 1864, he served in the Overland Campaign and in Philip Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating Jubal Early at Cedar Creek.
His division blocked the Army of Northern Virginia’s final retreat and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates.

As a general officer, he had great latitude in the decoration of his uniform.
Though often criticized as gaudy, it was more than personal vanity. Historian Tom Carhart observed that “A showy uniform for Custer was one of command presence on the battlefield: he wanted to be readily distinguishable at first glance from all other soldiers.
He intended to lead from the front, and to him it was a crucial issue of unit morale that his men be able to look up in the middle of a charge, or at any other time on the battlefield, and instantly see him leading the way into danger.”

Known as one of the best rider’s in the Calvary, Custer had 11 horses shot out from under him during the war and never received an injury.

He was present at Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia and walked off with the small table that the surrender terms were signed on (which is now in the Smithsonian).

After the war, he was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army and was sent west to fight in the Indian Wars.

On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory against a coalition of Native American tribes (mainly Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors), he was killed along with all of the five companies he led after splitting the regiment into three battalions.
He had been shot twice; in the chest near his heart and in the temple, both from long-barrelled rifles. His body however, was not mutilated.

This action became romanticized as “Custer’s Last Stand”. Custer was 36 and was survived by his wife Libbie.

For a fair read of his life and controversy interwoven with the history and nature of the Plains Indians, the book “Son Of The Morning Star” by Evan S. Connell is excellent if not brilliant.

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