Few of the fabled heroes of American history are more controversial than Custer. He amassed a then record of demerits as a cadet at the United States Military Academy, and finished last in his class in academic standing. Yet within two years of his graduation he held the rank of brevet (temporary) brigadier general of volunteers. He was the youngest general in the American army since Lafayette. Over the course of the Civil War he developed the reputation of possessing superb leadership skills, a sound sense of military tactics, and personal courage, leading his troops from the front.
After the war, assigned to the west to assist in the pacification of the Western tribes, his reputation plummeted. He was elevated to near mythical status as a martyr following his death at the Little Big Horn, largely through the efforts of his widow, Libby Bacon Custer. Films and early television exaggerated his mythos. Then, beginning in the 1970s changes in attitudes towards American history regarding native Americans once again brought his lofty status as a hero to the ground. Here are ten incidents in the life and death of George Armstrong Custer which contributed to his mythos, and which remain controversial.
10. He didn’t exactly distinguish himself at West Point
Later in his military career George Armstrong Custer wrote that those who adopted his behavior should disregard his career at West Point unless they looked at it as, “…an example to be carefully avoided”. He arrived at the Military Academy equipped with a marginal education in mathematics, though he had some experience as a school teacher in other subjects. He also had a lifelong penchant for practical jokes and an established contempt for higher authority. None of those traits were indicative of assured success at a highly disciplined environment, known internationally for the quality of the education it provided its cadets.
He excelled, if that is the word, at the school in one area. During his four-year stay at West Point he accumulated a then record number of demerits, awarded for various infractions. He kept cooking utensils in his barracks room. In Spanish class one afternoon Custer asked the correct way to say “Class is dismissed” in that language. When the instructor uttered the phrase Custer grabbed his books and strode from the classroom. His uniform was incorrect, his hair too long, and his boots insufficiently polished, far from the dandy he later became.
Like many cadets of the time period, Custer frequented a nearby tavern, Benny Havens, officially off-limits but nonetheless popular. He also became notable among cadets and the academy staff for his horsemanship. In June, 1861, the scheduled five-year term for his class was shortened to four, and Custer graduated. His tenure at West Point was well-known to the officers with which he served, both the senior officers who preceded him at the Point, and the cadets who followed, awed by the legendary record of escaping severe punishment he left behind.
9. Northern newspapers lionized him early in the Civil War
Custer graduated with his West Point class in 1861, one year earlier than planned, due to the need for trained officers in the rapidly expanding Union Army. At that stage of the war Union victories in battle were scarce, and Confederate troops were encamped just thirty miles from Washington in Virginia. Custer served with distinction in the First Battle of Bull Run. He then participated in the Peninsula Campaign, the Maryland Campaign, and the Battle of South Mountain. He led numerous cavalry attacks, served as an aide to General George McClellan, and developed a reputation as an audacious commander in the field. In June 1863, with the Confederates under Robert E. Lee marching into Pennsylvania, Custer received the command of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, with the rank of brigadier general of volunteers. He was 23.
His success in the early campaigns brought him to the attention of northern newspaper reporters and magazine correspondents. As a commanding officer, using his perquisites of rank, Custer adopted flamboyant uniforms, much to the delight of the writers. He justified his appearance as being necessary on the field of battle, making it easier for his officers and men to identify him, as well as for messengers from other units to find him in the chaos of battle. During the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, Custer led his unit, called the “Wolverines” , into a pitched battle with the near-legendary Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart, which was attempting to flank the main Union army. Despite being heavily outnumbered Custer led his command to victory, driving the Confederates from the field.
In reports covering the Gettysburg campaign, Custer received lavish praise for his performance. His flamboyant dress in battle drew the attention of his enemies as well as his friends and commanders. The New York Herald called him “The Boy General with the Golden Locks”. His unit took heavy casualties during the campaign, and he had at least one horse shot from under him while in action. The newspapers extolled his leadership, always from the front, and personal courage. Custer found himself an acclaimed hero in the North, a reputation he enhanced with further actions during the Civil War.
8. Custer stole a horse and refused to return it when ordered
Custer commanded a cavalry division as a major general by early 1865, and maneuvered it to block Lee’s escape at Appomattox. There, he learned of a prized thoroughbred race horse owned by Richard Gaines, near Clarksville, Virginia. Custer dispatched a patrol to seize the horse, as well as its written pedigree. Lee had surrendered over two weeks earlier, and the terms of surrender allowed his defeated army to retain its remaining horses. Custer didn’t care, he had heard much of the fifteen-hand stallion named Don Juan. His decision to obtain the pedigree, which would be essential to a later sale of the animal at its true value, means Custer came to the premeditated decision to steal a horse.
Custer rode Don Juan in the Grand Parade of the Army of the Potomac in Washington, during which the skittish animal bolted from the noise of the crowds. The sudden charge of the horse allowed Custer, famous for his long blond hair, to display his horsemanship before adoring crowds. Grant later ordered Custer to return the animal to his rightful owner. Custer refused, supported by Philip Sheridan, insisting the animal had been contraband of war, and that he had purchased it legally from the Union Army for his personal use.
To Custer the horse represented the spoils of war, and he wrote in several letters he intended to sell the animal, believing it could bring him $10,000 ($176,000 today), a handsome sum at the time. The horse died suddenly in 1866, ending Custer’s hopes for a nest egg. Custer’s behavior in obtaining the horse, and his perceived insolence in refusing to return it despite being ordered to do so widened the rift between him and General Grant. Though the story was not widely known by the public at the time, gossip among officers of Custer’s theft was rife at military posts. Today’s Custer State Park, in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore contains amongst its treasures the ironically named Horse Thief Lake.
7. Custer exploited his fame in post-war New York
After the Grand Parade Custer returned to his hometown of Monroe, Michigan for a rest. Custer then assumed command of Federal cavalry in Louisiana, destined to form the basis of occupation forces in eastern Texas. His command there was difficult. Most of the troops were volunteers who wanted to be discharged from the service, since the war they had volunteered to fight had ended. Custer’s attempts to maintain discipline among the troops drew resentment, desertions, and outright mutiny. He also found he no longer had the support of US Grant, after his insubordination over Don Juan and other issues.
Relieved in early 1866, Custer was ordered to Washington, where he lobbied for assignment. He considered a career outside the army, journeyed to New York to hobnob with high society and captains of industry. He also requested a leave of absence to allow him to go to Mexico and support the forces of Benito Juarez in the Mexican Revolution. Grant endorsed his request, but Secretary of State William Seward opposed it, and Custer remained unemployed in Washington, with the permanent rank of captain.
In the summer, 1866, Custer joined President Andrew Johnson, along with other Civil War heroes such as Grant and Admiral David Farragut, on a campaign tour to build up public support for Johnson’s Reconstruction policies. It was the first time an American President undertook a national speaking campaign along party lines. The tour proved disastrous for the President, Grant refused to speak before the crowds, and Custer spent most of his time lobbying the President for promotion and a command in the west.
6. The 7th Cavalry was a new unit when Custer was assigned to its command
In movies and television productions of the Custer mythos, particularly those made before 1970, Custer’s 7th Cavalry is usually depicted as an established regiment. In fact, the US Army created the 7th Cavalry in July, 1866 as part of a general expansion of the regular army. Custer was not the first commander of the 7th Cavalry. Colonel Andrew Smith took command and organized the new regiment at Fort Riley, Kansas. In February, 1867, Custer arrived at Fort Riley and assumed command of the regiment, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Before the year was out Custer was suspended from his command, without pay, after a botched pursuit of hostile Indians which led to the desertion of several men. After he returned to the regiment and its command he was again suspended and arrested in August, 1868, having gone AWOL (away without leave), when he abandoned his post against orders. He remained under suspension until October, 1868, when he rejoined his command at the behest of Philip Sheridan, then in command of all United States Cavalry.
By 1869 Custer’s once vaunted reputation was in tatters. He had antagonized US Grant, several members of Congress, and several of his fellow officers. His flamboyant appearance, and the fact he was frequently followed about by several dogs, was regarded with disdain by many junior officers. He nonetheless retained the support of Sheridan, and certain his star was falling, he longed for a major victory against the Indians which he could exploit to public acclaim.
5. Washita River restored Custer’s reputation in the East
Custer gained what was considered the first major victory over the western Indian tribes when he led the 7th Cavalry to attack a village of Cheyenne under Chief Black Kettle in November, 1868. Custer’s scouts had trailed a raiding party from the settlements they had attacked to the village. Black Kettle had claimed during negotiations with Indian agents and military officers that his people wanted peace. Nonetheless, warriors from several raiding parties had come from his village and returned there during the summer and fall months.
The Washita action has long been controversial. In the 1960s-70s Indian activists claimed the battle had been little more than a massacre, primarily of women, children, and older men. They claimed there had been few, if any, warriors in the village at the time of the attack. Custer initially claimed 103 warriors were killed, later revising the number upwards to 140. He acknowledged a “few” women casualties, and reported 21 dead troopers from the 7th, and an additional 13 wounded.
The Washita River attack restored Custer’s reputation in Eastern newspapers and among the general public as a daring cavalry commander and a staunch Indian fighter. Yet during the battle he withdrew before learning the whereabouts of a small troop, dispatched to pursue fleeing Cheyenne. That group encountered warriors from other nearby encampments, and greatly outnumbered they were overwhelmed and killed. The incident led to deeper suspicions among junior officers that Custer placed his search for glory ahead of the welfare of the men under his command.
4. Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn shocked the nation
The summer of 1876 saw the United States beginning the long planned celebrations of the nation’s centennial. Passenger rail excursions to Philadelphia, for the Centennial Exposition held there beginning on May 10 were nearly always full. So were the steamboats and ferries bringing visitors to what was the first World’s Fair. Among the items to make their first public appearance at the exhibition were Hires Root Beer, Heinz Ketchup, and a communications device its inventor called the telephone.
Americans celebrated their national unity, emerging technologies, and the vast wealth of the continent. The revelers at the exposition, those traveling to it, and those remaining at home were shocked at the news that Custer and his command at the Little Big Horn had been wiped out by Indians. The exposition displayed numerous examples of modern military weapons, including those from Germany and France, as well as the United States. The public perception of the Indians prevalent at the time rendered their crushing a disciplined unit of American cavalry unthinkable.
The shock led to an immediate decision to crush the Indian tribes which had destroyed Custer’s command. By the spring of 1877 the Cheyenne under Chief Dull Knife were defeated, their villages destroyed, and they were forced onto the reservations. Little evidence exists that Dull Knife had been involved at the Little Big Horn. Also crushed and forced onto reservations were the Sioux, Arapaho, and other of the plains’ tribes. Many of the tribes were forced into the Indian Territory, as it was then known, today’s state of Oklahoma. A significant number of Sioux under Sitting Bull fled across the border into Canada.
3. His widow, Libby Bacon Custer, worked tirelessly to enhance his heroic reputation
In the United States Army, up to and including its Commander in Chief, President US Grant, there was little praise of Custer in the immediate aftermath of the Little Big Horn. Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, both survivors of the battle because they were not with the five companies personally led by Custer, blamed him for the defeat. Reno had a checkered career following the Little Big Horn, including charges of making advances on another officer’s wife, being drunk on duty, and the worst of all charges on a military officer, cowardice before the enemy.
Benteen, who had been ordered to reinforce Custer’s command during the battle, instead rode to the support of Reno. He too blamed Custer for the debacle at the Little Big Horn. Few in the army command structure defended the dead Custer’s actions. President Grant publicly condemned Custer for his actions and the resultant loss of life. In the absence of support for her late husband, Libby Bacon Custer stepped into the void. Libby had kept detailed diaries of life with her husband on the American frontier, where she had accompanied him to his posts.
Libby polished and published her diaries in the 1880s; Boots and Saddles (1885), Tenting on the Plains (1887), and Following the Guidon (1890). Her books were aimed at giving Custer a glorious image, and they were for the most part historically correct, other than for details regarding maneuvers in the field. They were widely popular, were soon supported by dime novels and penny papers, and the Custer legend, as well as the legend of the Last Stand, entered the public eye. Artists produced paintings depicting Custer fighting to the death heroically, including one commissioned by Anheuser Busch which hung in saloons all over the nation. The legend of Custer’s Last Stand stood, untarnished, for nearly 100 years.
2. Custer in films and television
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq68RGtRP3g
Beginning with a silent film in 1912 Custer has appeared in films over 30 times, portrayed by a number of distinguished actors. Ronald Reagan played Custer in an entirely fictional film, Santa Fe Trail (1940). The following year Errol Flynn depicted Custer heroically (how else could Flynn play anyone?) in They Died with Their Boots On. Several films depicted Custer as defending the rights of the Indians against nefarious government agents, illegal traders, and corrupt officials exploiting them. In 1967 Robert Shaw, later to star in Jaws, played Custer as risking his military career to defend the rights of the Indians in Custer of the West. The legend of the Last Stand remained very much alive.
During the Civil Rights movements of the 1950s-60s, historians and filmmakers began to reexamine the Custer legend. An early example is 1970s Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman. The fictional story, told through the eyes of a White man raised by the Cheyenne, was in part intended to ridicule the military establishment at the height of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Richard Mulligan portrayed Custer as a borderline psychotic, driven by a deep hatred of the Indians, and finally acting completely insane during the climactic Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Television largely followed the same pattern, with early programs depicting him as a heroic icon of American history, and later portrayals making him insubordinate, egomaniacal, and determined to eliminate the tribes in order to gain greater glory for himself. Whether sympathetic, critical, fictional, or even as a spoof, Custer remains a popular character in television productions, including on Netflix’s The Ridiculous 6, released in 2015. Custer was played by David Spade. The production earned some of the harshest reviews of film history.
1. The Indigenous of his day held Custer in respect
Although some revisionists dispute it, the troops of General Terry’s command which discovered the bodies of Custer’s men found them to have been horribly mutilated. Except for two, Custer’s and Miles Keough’s. Allegedly, Keough was spared because he wore a religious medallion from the Papal States. Superstition among the indigenous likely led them to respect the medal. Custer reportedly had his eardrums punctured, but his body was spared mutilation. Terry’s men found two wounds, to the head and chest. Either of the two wounds could have been instantly fatal. Some allege an arrow was found in Custer’s genitalia, though official reports do not.
Most of the command’s dead were horribly mutilated. Custer’s brother Tom, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, was so mutilated he could only be identified by part of a tattoo which remained. Custer’s body had been more or less left as it fell, though his eardrums, according to tribal folklore, had been pierced, making him deaf in the afterlife in their belief. The fact that his body did not undergo the indignities of those of the rest of his command indicates his enemies had a level of respect for Custer not shared by those who continue to rewrite the story of his career and death.
Custer was buried, along with the rest of his men, as they lay on the field. Attempts to identify them at the time were hampered by their mutilations and the pillaging of personal items by their killers after the battle. Custer’s body was later exhumed and reinterred at West Point in October, 1877. By then actions by the US military to crush the western tribes which had prevailed at the Little Big Horn were well underway, For the Native Americans, Little Big Horn (which they called Greasy Grass) proved a pyrrhic victory. By the end of the decade the Indian tribes of the plains were subdued, and the revisions of their history had begun.