George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Custer graduated in 1861 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, last in his class. Custer's initial class had consisted of 108 candidates of whom 68 men passed the entrance exam. However, following the start of the American Civil War, many of Custer's classmates departed the academy in a series of resignations to fight for their respective states. By his graduation date, Custer ranked 34th among 34 remaining classmates. Nonetheless, Custer achieved a higher military rank than any other U.S. Army officer in his class. Following graduation, he worked closely with future Union Army Generals George B. McClellan and Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his abilities as a cavalry leader. He was promoted in the early American Civil War, to brevet brigadier general of volunteers when only aged 23. Only a few days afterwards, he fought at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in early July 1863, where he commanded the Michigan Brigade. Despite being outnumbered, the new General Custer defeated Confederate States Army cavalry of General J. E. B. Stuart's attack at East Cavalry Field on the crucial third day of the Gettysburg clash.
In 1864, Custer served in the Overland Campaign and with Union cavalry commander General Philip Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley campaigns later that summer, defeating Confederate General Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. In the last year of the war of 1865, Custer destroyed or captured the remainder of Early's forces at the Battle of Waynesboro in Western Virginia. Custer's division blocked the Southern Army of Northern Virginia's final retreat from their fallen capital city of Richmond in early April 1865, and Custer received the first flag of truce from the exhausted Confederates. He was present at the Army of Northern Virginia commanding General Robert E. Lee's surrender ceremony at the McLean House to Union Army General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After the war, Custer was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the standing Regular Army and sent west to fight in the ongoing Indian Wars, mainly against the Lakota / Sioux and other Great Plains native peoples. On June 25, 1876, while leading the Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the southeastern Montana Territory against a coalition of Western Native American tribes, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led of his regiment. This event became known as "Custer's Last Stand".
Custer's dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his life and career, and the reaction to his life remains divided, even 150 years later. His mythologized status in American history was partly established through the energetic lobbying of his adoring wife Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer throughout her long widowhood which spanned six decades, well into the 20th century.
Family and ancestry
Custer's paternal ancestors, Paulus and Gertrude Küster, came to the North American English colonies around 1693 from the Rhineland in Germany, probably among thousands of Palatines whose passage was arranged by the English government to gain settlers in New York and Pennsylvania.Custer's maternal ancestors were of English and Ulster Scots descent, having ancestries from England and Northern Ireland.
According to family letters, Custer was named after George Armstrong, a minister, in his devout mother's hope that her son might join the clergy.
Birth, siblings, and childhood
Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel Henry Custer, a farmer and blacksmith, and his second wife, Marie Ward Kirkpatrick, who was of English and Scots-Irish descent. He had two younger brothers, Thomas and Boston. His other full siblings were the family's youngest child, Margaret Custer, and Nevin Custer, who suffered from asthma and rheumatism. Custer also had three older half-siblings. Custer and his brothers acquired a life-long love of practical jokes, which they played out among the close family members.Emanuel Custer was an outspoken Jacksonian Democrat who taught his children politics and toughness at an early age. In a February 3, 1887, letter to his son's widow Libby, Emanuel related an incident from when George Custer was about four years old:
"He had to have a tooth drawn, and he was very much afraid of blood. When I took him to the doctor to have the tooth pulled, it was in the night and I told him if it bled well it would get well right away, and he must be a good soldier. When he got to the doctor he took his seat, and the pulling began. The forceps slipped off and he had to make a second trial. He pulled it out, and Autie never even scrunched. Going home, I led him by the arm. He jumped and skipped, and said 'Father you and me can whip all the Whigs in Michigan.' I thought that was saying a good deal but I did not contradict him."
Education
To attend school, Custer lived with an older half-sister and her husband in Monroe, Michigan. Before entering the United States Military Academy, Custer attended the McNeely Normal School, later known as Hopedale Normal College, in Hopedale, Ohio. The school was known for training teachers for elementary schools. While attending Hopedale, Custer and classmate William Enos Emery were known to have carried coal to help pay for their room and board. After graduating from McNeely Normal School in 1856, Custer taught school in Cadiz, Ohio. His first sweetheart was Mary Jane Holland.Custer entered West Point as a cadet on July 1, 1857, as a member of the class of 1862. His class numbered seventy-nine cadets embarking on a five-year course of study. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the course was shortened to four years, and Custer and his class graduated on June 24, 1861. He was 34th in a class of 34 graduates: 23 classmates had dropped out for academic reasons while 22 classmates had already resigned to join the Confederacy.
Throughout his life, Custer tested boundaries and rules. In his four years at West Point, he amassed a record total of 726 demerits, one of the worst conduct records in the history of the academy. The local minister remembered Custer as "the instigator of devilish plots both during the service and in Sunday school. On the surface he appeared attentive and respectful, but underneath the mind boiled with disruptive ideas." A fellow cadet recalled Custer as declaring there were only two places in a class, the head and the foot, and since he had no desire to be the head, he aspired to be the foot. A roommate noted, "It was alright with George Custer, whether he knew his lesson or not; he simply did not allow it to trouble him."
Civil War
McClellan and Pleasonton
Like the other graduates, Custer was commissioned a second lieutenant; he was also assigned to the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment and tasked with drilling volunteers in Washington, D.C. On July 21, 1861, he was with his regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run during the Manassas Campaign where Army commander Winfield Scott detailed him to carry messages to Major General Irvin McDowell. After the battle, he continued participating in the defense of Washington D.C. until October 1861, when he became ill. He was absent from his unit until February 1862. In March, he participated with the 2nd Cavalry in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia until April 4.On April 5, Custer served in the 5th Cavalry Regiment which participated in the Siege of Yorktown from April 5 to May 4 and was aide to Major General George B. McClellan. McClellan was in command of the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign. On May 24, 1862, during pursuit of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston up the Peninsula, General McClellan and his staff were reconnoitering a potential crossing point on the Chickahominy River, they stopped, and Custer overheard General John G. Barnard mutter, "I wish I knew how deep it is." Custer dashed forward on his horse out to the middle of the river, turned to the astonished officers, and shouted triumphantly, "McClellan, that's how deep it is, General!"
Custer was assigned to lead an attack with four companies of the 4th Michigan Infantry across the Chickahominy River above New Bridge. The attack was successful, resulting in the capture of 50 Confederate soldiers and the seizing of the first Confederate battle flag of the war. McClellan termed it a "very gallant affair" and congratulated Custer personally. In his role as aide-de-camp to McClellan, he began his life-long pursuit of publicity. He was promoted to the rank of captain on June 5, 1862. On July 17, he was demoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. He participated in the Maryland Campaign in September to October, the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, the Battle of Antietam on September 17, and the March to Warrenton, Virginia, in October.
File:Lincoln and generals at Antietam.jpg|thumb|Custer with President Lincoln, General McClellan and other officers after the Battle of Antietam, 1862
On June 9, 1863, he became aide to Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Pleasonton, who was commanding the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac. Recalling his service under Pleasonton, he was quoted as saying that "I do not believe a father could love his son more than General Pleasonton loves me." Pleasonton's first assignment was to locate the army of Robert E. Lee, moving north through the Shenandoah Valley in the beginning of what was to become the Gettysburg campaign.
Brigade command
Pleasonton was promoted on June 22, 1863, to major general of U.S. Volunteers. On June 29, after consulting with the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Meade, Pleasonton began replacing political generals with "commanders who were prepared to fight, to personally lead mounted attacks". He found just the kind of aggressive fighters he wanted in three of his aides: Wesley Merritt, Elon J. Farnsworth, and Custer. All received immediate promotions, Custer to brigadier general of volunteers, commanding the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, part of the division of Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick. Despite having no direct command experience, he became one of the youngest generals in the Union Army at the age of 23. He immediately shaped his brigade to reflect his aggressive character.Now a general officer, he had greater latitude in choosing his uniform. Though often criticized as being 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."