George Armstrong Custer
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George Armstrong Custer (December 6, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was an American cavalry commander in the Civil War and the Indian Wars who is best remembered for his defeat and death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn against a coalition of Native American tribes, led by Sitting Bull.
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Civil War
George Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio and attended school in Monroe, Michigan (where he is honored by a statue in downtown). He graduated last in his class from West Point in 1861. He immediately joined his regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run. As a staff officer, his daring and energy, and in particular a spirited reconnaissance on the Chickahominy River, brought him to the notice of General George McClellan, who made him an aide-de-camp with the rank of Captain.
A few hours afterwards Custer attacked a Confederate picket post and drove back the enemy. He continued to serve with McClellan until the general was relieved of his command, when Custer returned to duty with his regiment as a Lieutenant. In 1863, Custer was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general of volunteers. He distinguished himself at the head of the Michigan cavalry brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg, and frequently did good service in the remaining operations of the campaign of 1863.
When the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac was reorganized under Sheridan in 1864, Custer retained his command, and took part in the various actions of the cavalry in the Wilderness and Shenandoah campaigns. In February 1864, Custer raided a Confederate camp in a battle known as the Battle of Rio Hill. At the end of September 1864, he was appointed to command a division, and on October 9 fought in the brilliant cavalry action called the Battle of Woodstock.
While retaining his regular-army rank of captain, he was rapidly given brevet commissions in the Volunteers as Major, Lieutenant-colonel and Colonel, and finally brevet Major-general for his services at Gettysburg, Yellow Tavern and Winchester. His part in the decisive Battle of Cedar Creek was most conspicuous.
He served with General Philip Sheridan in the last great cavalry raid, won the action of Waynesboro, and in the final campaign added to his laurels by his conduct at Dinwiddie and Five Forks. At the close of the war he received the brevets of brigadier and major-general in the regular army, and was promoted major-general of volunteers.
Indian Wars
In 1875 Custer was made lieutenant-colonel with the 7th U.S. Cavalry, and took part under General Winfield Scott Hancock in the expedition against the Cheyenne Indians, upon whom he inflicted a crushing defeat at Washita River on November 27, 1868. Even though the Cheyenne he massacred were not part of a hostile tribe (and were in fact on reservation land), this was still regarded as the first substantial US victory in the Indian Wars. In 1873 he was sent to the Dakota Territory to protect a railroad survey party against the Sioux. Then on August 4 of that year near the Tongue River, Custer and the 7th Cavalry clashed for the first time with the Sioux. Only one man on each side was killed.
Battle of the Little Bighorn
In 1876, an expedition that included Custer and his regiment was made against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. The Seventh Cavalry attacked a large village of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne on the banks of the Little Bighorn River. A messenger who was sent back by Custer reported that Custer said, upon seeing a stationary village on the other side of the river, "Hurrah, boys, we've got them! We'll finish them up and then go home to our station."
Following the recovery of Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer was given a funeral with full military honors and was laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on October 10, 1877.
Controversial Legacy
After his death, Custer achieved the lasting fame that eluded him in life. The public saw him as a tragic military hero and gentleman who sacrificed his life for his country. Custer's wife, Elizabeth, who accompanied him in many of his frontier expeditions, did much to advance this view with the publication of several books about her late husband: Boots and Saddles, Life with General Custer in Dakota (1885), Tenting on the Plains (1887) and Following the Guidon (1891). General Custer himself wrote about the Indian wars in My Life on the Plains (1874).
Custer would be called today a "media personality" who understood the value of good public relations—he frequently invited correspondents to accompany him on his campaigns, and their favorable reportage contributed to his high reputation that lasted well into the 20th century. However, this assessment of Custer's actions during the Indian Wars has undergone substantial reconsideration in modern times. (See revisionist history.)
For many critics, Custer was the personification and culmination of the U.S. Government's ill-treatment of the Native American tribes. Others equate the actions of the 7th Cavalry under his command with Holocaust-type atrocities perpetrated during World War II, or with ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. Recent films and books including Little Big Man and Son of the Morning Star depict Custer as a cruel and murderous military commander whose actions today would warrant possible dismissal and court-martial.
Within the context of post-Civil War expansion, however, Custer's actions differed little from the standard military strategy of the time, which ultimately fragmented Native American culture in the American West.
Alternate History
In Harry Turtledove's novel How Few Remain, George Custer (either having survived Little Big Horn or not having participated in it at all--it remains unclear) is an Army colonel stationed in Kansas in 1881, chasing Indians and then doing battle with rebel Mormons in Utah Territory and an Anglo-Canadian column invading Montana in the Second Mexican War, becoming a war hero.
During the follow-up Great War trilogy, Custer is a 75 year old general in charge of a US army invading the Confederate state of Kentucky at the outbreak of World War I. His mode of warfare (prefers cavalry charges to modern warfare) and his obsession over his own image in the press is an analog to the old generals in real life who squandered soldier's lives in attacks for gain. Nevertheless, Custer bashes on to Nashville, which falls after he unleashes a massive tank offensive (called barrels in this universe: see Barrel Roll Offensive). His innovative use of armored machines win the Great War for the USA, and Custer is once again a war hero.
In American Empire: Blood & Iron, Custer becomes the governor-general of Occupied Canada. He survives several assassination attempts made by a farmer named Arthur MacGregor, and kills the man during his exit parade. By then, President Upton Sinclair's Socialist administration had retired the 80-something general, and Custer retires to die of old age in 1929.
Trivia
Custer County, Montana is named in his honor.
Films
George Custer has been played in motion pictures by Francis Ford (1912 twice), Ned Finley (1916), Dustin Farnum (1926), John Beck (1926), Clay Clement (1933). John Miljan (1936), Frank McGlynn (1936), Paul Kelly (1940), Addison Richards (1940), Ronald Reagan (1940), Errol Flynn (1941), James Millican (1942), Sheb Wooley (1952), Douglas Kennedy (1954), Britt Lomond (1958), Philip Carey (1965), Leslie Nielsen (1966), Robert Shaw (1967), Wayne Maunder (1967 & 1990), Richard Mulligan (1970), Marcello Mastroianni (1974), Ken Howard (1977), James Olsen (1977), Gary Cole (1991), Josh Lucas (1993), Peter Horton (1996) and William Shockley (1997).
Thomas Custer, or Tom as he was called, has been represented by John Napier (1965), Ed Lauter (1977) and Tim Ransom (1991).
Custer's Revenge
There was also a controversial adult video game known as Custer's Revenge for the Atari 2600.
Reference
- Welch, James and Stekler, Paul. Killing Custer. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, NY, 1994. ISBN 0-393-03657-X.