The Real Custer (2 page)

I have so much to be thankful for in my life. God grant that I may always prove as deserving as I am grateful to Him for what He has given me. In years long numbered with the past, when I was merging upon manhood, my every thought was ambitious—not to be wealthy, not to be learned, but to be great. I desired to link my name with acts and men, and in such a manner as to be a mark of honor, not only to the present, but to future generations.

—GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER

W
hen you mention the name George Custer, most people first think of his Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. His was a tragic death, some even argue a foolish or needless one. Others see him as the Civil War–era “Boy General with the Golden Locks,” at twenty-three the youngest general officer to that point in American history. From Gettysburg to Appomattox, Custer led every charge, as Abraham Lincoln said, “with a whoop and a shout.” Or maybe Custer's fight with the Cheyenne on the Washita River comes to mind, which some called a significant battlefield victory, while others saw only a senseless massacre.

Custer is talked about, written about, debated, loved, and hated. His name has come to symbolize tragedy, recklessness, valor, and disaster. He has been lionized and demonized, admired and mocked. Much of his history has been denounced as myth, but his celebrity is rooted firmly
in reality. Custer became a legend for good reason. But whether elevated to heroic perfection or denounced as a fiend, Custer the symbol has overcome Custer the man.

The real Custer is more complex and interesting than the one-dimensional caricatures he has often been reduced to in popular culture. Custer was a polarizing figure even in his day, with strong supporters and detractors. Biographers have grappled with this duality from the start. Frederick Whittaker's influential though embellished account of Custer's life came out the year George died, but even Whittaker felt it necessary to address the Custer legend that had grown up during his lifetime. “The popular idea of Custer as a soldier,” Whittaker wrote, “is that of a brave, reckless, dashing trooper, always ready to charge any odds, without knowing or caring what was the strength of his enemy, and trusting to luck to get out of his scrapes.” But he argued that “the real Custer” was “a remarkably quiet, thoughtful man, when any work was on hand, one who never became flurried and excited in the hottest battle.” He also claimed Custer had never been caught by surprise, which was not true, and was “equal to any emergency of whatever kind,” which may have been true until it wasn't.
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As for trusting to luck, throughout the Army the expression “Custer's luck” meant having the good fortune to get out of trouble—until it came to mean the opposite. “‘Custer's luck' will no longer be so much envied by his brother soldiers,” journalist and Civil War veteran George Edward Pound wrote four months after Little Bighorn. But Pound admired Custer and said he “would not have so praised his luck had he not confided more in his courage,” and that his fortune was not in the stars “but in his own soul—the born spirit of the cavalryman that flowered into exploits.”
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What is it about Custer that makes him one of the most talked about figures in American history?
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Even in his day, Custer was a magnet for attention. With his striking presence and unconventional uniforms, he
attracted comment wherever he went. But what he did once he had that attention is what made him memorable. He was talked about, but that was because he gave people something worth talking about. He cultivated an eccentric image, but he was more than simply the nineteenth-century equivalent of tabloid fodder.

At base, Custer was a hardened warrior. In the Vietnam War film
We Were Soldiers
, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, wonders aloud, “What was going through Custer's mind when he realized that he'd led his men into a slaughter?” Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, played by Sam Elliott, growls, “Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't.” The expression soon appeared on bumper stickers and t-shirts. But even if Plumley said it, which is doubtful, it is far from the truth. Custer was physically brave and morally courageous. As his bugler Joseph Fought said, “He was always in the fight, no matter where it was.” As a junior officer, he went out of his way to place himself in danger. As a commanding officer, he led from the front. To paraphrase the real Hal Moore, the only thing he had in the Ia Drang Valley that Custer didn't at Little Bighorn was air support.

Custer has been portrayed frequently in movies and television, in characters from the heroic to the absurd. He was a well-meaning fool in 2009's
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
who lamented, “I will always be famous for my biggest failure.” Richard Mulligan played him as a volatile, arrogant clown in
Little Big Man
in 1970. Ronald Reagan, a self-described Custer buff, portrayed him in the historically challenged 1940 feature,
Santa Fe Trail
. “His image has been blurred and distorted over time,” the Gipper wrote, “but in truth he was a brilliant officer and not at all the boastful show-off his detractors would have us believe.”
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Errol Flynn's interpretation of Custer in
They Died with Their Boots On
in 1941 also took some liberties with history but was a popular and critical success. Flynn best captured George's boyish spirit and charm, and the movie shaped perceptions of Custer for decades.

The continuing fascination with Custer stems partly from his contradictions. He was a good friend who inspired loyalty, but his outsized personality could provoke bitter rivalries. He was a devoted husband whose natural flirtatiousness opened him to rumors of infidelity. He didn't go to church, but he prayed before every battle. He was a lifelong Democrat who had to downplay his political views to placate radical Republicans. He was the scourge of the Confederacy but a close friend to many rebels. He was Sitting Bull's foe but said that if he had been born an Indian, he also would have abandoned the reservations to ride free on the Plains.

Custer lives strongest in the American memory as an Indian fighter, and while he criticized aspects of Native American culture, he also found much to admire. He took to the field against bands the government deemed hostile, but he said there was nothing better than living side by side with tribes at peace. He studied and attempted to understand the people of the Plains and was sometimes compared to them—the officer with the “heart of an Indian” who “charged like a Sioux chieftain.” Custer was as willing to smoke the peace pipe as he was prepared to fight. But as a soldier, he followed orders, and his primary concern was achieving victory. He killed Indians in battle, just as he killed Confederates in the Civil War, and in greater numbers. He burned Native American lodges, just as he scoured the Shenandoah Valley. Whether in the West or the East, he said he preferred peace. But when the sword was drawn, he was determined to make war his way until the enemy was vanquished.

Custer did not do it all alone. His wife, Elizabeth, was his lifelong love and constant focus of his thoughts. He was very close to his family, and his brother Tom served by his side to the end. There were also the men he led into battle, his officers and staff who helped translate his orders into action, and especially his superiors, most notably Generals George McClellan, Alfred Pleasonton, and Philip Sheridan. These senior officers possessed the insight to understand how to use Custer's talents,
how much initiative to let him have, and what risks he could reasonably take. The Custer they knew was a gifted tactician who had the ability quickly to sum up the shifting situation he faced and use the forces at his disposal swiftly and effectively. They set the stage for him, and he did his part to win their battles. And when necessary, they helped keep their adventurous protégé out of trouble.

Custer had a talent for getting into scrapes. As a cadet at West Point, he believed that rules were made to be broken. He was the merry prankster of the Corps of Cadets, the lovable rogue who did things his way, witty, charismatic, and popular. And while there were others like him who courted the retribution of the authorities, Custer had an uncanny ability to get himself out of trouble as artfully as he got into it. He racked up demerits but stayed just below the line that brought expulsion. He submitted to periodic punishments as the price of playing the game. Whether it was due to his charm, good fortune, or intuition, he managed to live the life of the cadet
bon vivant
and still graduate, albeit at the bottom of his class, and facing a court-martial the day before graduation.

Custer's West Point exploits give insights into his combat leadership. He was a creative thinker and dynamic problem-solver. The sense of adventure that led him to blow post in the middle of the night for the forbidden pleasures of Benny Havens's saloon was the same spirit that led him to volunteer for dangerous wartime scouting missions or lead dramatic charges against difficult odds. He could have done much better at the Academy if he had followed more rules, studied more lessons, avoided demerits, and played fewer pranks; but then he would not have been Custer.

Custer made things happen. He came from a humble background and got ahead on ability and pluck. He was a risk taker who traded on his accomplishments, not his background or birth. He would rather shape events than be shaped by them. He was at his best in situations where dash and quick decisions were needed. He was comfortable on
the knife-edge of reality, where will, idea, and circumstance merge in an onrushing wave. He arrived on the national scene at the right time, a natural warfighter thrust into the greatest conflict of the nineteenth century. He wound up in situations where he could give full expression to his instinctive genius for war and was rewarded with rank, fame, and influence. But when the Civil War ended, Custer had trouble adapting. There were fewer battles to be fought, less opportunity to give expression to his spirit. He had to reinvent himself while staying true to his character. It was a challenge he faced for the rest of his life.

John M. Bulkley recalled Custer as the “genial, warm-hearted friend” from his childhood, and wrote that “under the garb of the soldier, and the sometimes austere exterior, there beat the warmest of hearts, and existed the most affectionate of natures.” Bulkley believed that the Custer he knew would long be remembered. “The gallant bravery, the spirit, and the patriotism of Custer commended him to public favor,” he wrote, “and it is not in the heart of the American people soon to forget those whose blood has been shed in their name.”
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Custer has not been forgotten, but he is commonly misremembered. This book explores the real Custer.

PART ONE

BEGINNINGS