The Real Custer (4 page)

Custer's family lived in Ohio's competitive Twenty-First District, which had shifted over the years between Democratic, Whig, and other parties.
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Emmanuel was a Jacksonian Democrat and a man of strong convictions. “He was an ardent, impulsive Methodist, and a staunch, uncompromising Democrat,” one profile noted. “People who did not believe as he did in either way he would not even argue with, unless the argument was all on his side.”
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“Father Custer was a man of fire and intense feeling,” Elizabeth Custer recalled, “and though he exhorted in the prayer meetings Sunday, politics and patriotism were equally as much a religion to him weekdays.”
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George followed in his father's outspoken partisan footsteps. Unfortunately, their member of Congress was John A. Bingham, elected
in 1854 on the post-Whig Opposition party ticket and reelected in 1856 as a Republican.
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Under most circumstances the congressman would not be expected to grant his allotted seat at West Point to a vocal member of the opposing party.

“Bingham was a Republican and Pap was a Democrat,” Nevin said, “and we didn't think George would ever get anything.” Father Custer recalled that George “asked me once to see Congressman Bingham about getting him an appointment to West Point. Bingham and I were opposed politically, and I didn't want to ask him to do anything for me or mine.” But George went ahead anyway, “stole a march on his father and asked Bingham himself.”
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“I received a letter, a real boy's letter, that captivated me,” Bingham recalled. “Written in a boyish hand, but firmly, legibly, it told me that the writer . . . wanted to be a soldier, wanted to go to West Point, and asked what steps he should take regarding it.” The letter read,

            
Dear Mr. Bingham: I am told you can send a boy to West Point. I am also told that you don't care whether he is a Democrat boy or a Republican boy. I am a Democrat boy and I want to go to West Point and learn to be a soldier so I can fight for my country.

Sincerely yours,

GEORGE A. CUSTER.

“Struck by its originality, its honesty,” Bingham said, “I replied at once.”
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Bingham “took a fancy to him,” a local politician recalled. “He saw that there was something in the young man and so pushed him along. Bingham was a good judge of boys, as well as of men, and he could see that Custer's bright eyes, quick perception and fluent manners marked for him a successful career, if he ever had a chance to show himself. Bingham determined to give him a chance.”
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Bingham's nomination letter for George describes him as “17, 5'9 3/4”, good health, no deformity, reads well, spells correctly, writes a fair and legible hand, able to perform with facility and accuracy the ground rules of arithmetic, fully possesses all the qualifications physical, mental, and moral required.” It was an accurate, if not dazzling description. But the hopeful applicant was also aided from an unexpected quarter.

While teaching, George roomed at the home of a local farmer named Alexander Holland, who was influential in Republican circles. Holland made an appeal to Bingham on Custer's behalf and helped secure the appointment. He might have fallen under the Custer charm and wanted to help the earnest young man realize his ambitions. Or he might have had another motive—namely, breaking up a budding romance. While staying at the Holland house, George formed a close relationship with the farmer's daughter Mary. In one letter to her, he wrote, “You occupy the first place in my affections, and the only place as far as love is concerned.” After alluding to the possibility of marriage, he concludes, “I will talk with you about it when I see you next at the trundle-bed. Farewell, my only Love, until we meet again—From your true and faithful Lover, Bachelor Boy.”

“Bingham appointed him in spite of politics,” Nevin said. “Men was honester then than they are now—and if you ever saw a crazy youngster it was George.” The congressman's recommendation was approved, and George's appointment letter for the Academy arrived in early 1857, signed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.

CHAPTER TWO

CUSTER THE GOAT

“I
never heard anything of his successes at West Point,” Libbie recalled. “It was a tale of demerits, of lessons unlearned, of narrow escapes from dismissal, of severe punishments, but all told in so merry a way and the very caressing tone of his voice proving that nothing was dearer to him than the four years of his life as a cadet.”
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George cautioned that his “career as a cadet had but little to commend it to the study of those who came after me, unless as an example to be carefully avoided.”

Like most “animals” or “beasts,” as the new arrivals were (and still are) called, George Custer's introduction to West Point life was three months of drill, servitude, and sleeping in tents. When he arrived at the Academy in the summer of 1857, the cadets were in their summer encampment on the Plain. One new arrival described encampment as “a time of joy and merriment to the old cadets, but a time of trouble and
fatigue to the new ones. The new cadets are compelled to clean the parade ground, before the tents, in the tent, make the beds, clean the ditches, bring water, while the old cadets fiddle, dance, sing, get drunk and be merry.”
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But the indignities of the encampment did not seem to make an impression on young George, and a few months into his stay, he wrote his sister, “I like West Point as well if not better than I did at first.”
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George easily made friends in the Corps. His natural charisma and easygoing, fun-loving personality resonated among his peers. Morris Schaff observed his inborn qualities: “His nature, so full of those streams that rise, so to speak, among the high hills of our being. I have in mind his joyousness, his attachment to the friends of his youth, and his never-ending delight in talking about his old home.”
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George quickly established himself as one of the Academy's lovable rogues. Then-plebe John Montgomery Wright recalled the scene in August 1859 when the cadets who had been on furlough were returning through the gate, and the cry went up “from a hundred throats . . . ‘Here comes Custer!'” Wright saw “an undeveloped looking youth, with a poor figure, slightly rounded shoulders, and an ungainly walk. . . . an indifferent soldier, a poor student and a perfect incorrigible . . . a roystering, reckless cadet, always in trouble, always playing some mischievous pranks, and liked by everyone.” A few nights later, in one of the traditional West Point initiations of the day, a laughing Custer “yanked” Wright from his tent, dragged him in his blanket across the Plain, and sent him flying down the slope.
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Like most cadets, Autie picked up nicknames, such as “Fanny,” for his long hair and peaches-and-cream complexion. It was an unbecoming moniker for a warrior, but cadets could be harsh with those who too obviously paid attention to their grooming. He was called “Curly” for his curly locks, which coincidentally was Crazy Horse's boyhood name. He tried to keep his curls under control using cinnamon-scented hair oils, which were the style of the time, but this made matters worse, and
he became known as “Cinnamon.” He then sought to dispense with all hair-related names and shaved his head. However, now Custer faced reports for having his hair too short, so he wore a wig to stay within regulations until his hair grew out.
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The cycle of life at West Point was well established by the time Cadet Custer arrived. The structure, traditions, and importance of the Academy were firmly rooted. The academic system devised by Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer forty years earlier had remained largely unchanged. Cadets experienced a mix of academic and tactical instruction geared toward producing what the institution believed was the ideal officer. The academic curriculum was focused on mathematics, drawing, language, and some history and liberal arts. Military lessons included infantry, artillery, cavalry tactics, and practical leadership lessons. Discipline was strict, and daily life was highly regimented. The most notable difference between the Thayer system and the West Point of Custer's day was the addition of a fifth year, which was instituted a few years earlier by Secretary of War Davis, who was an 1828 grad. When Davis fought to preserve the extra year as a senator, a Georgia cadet wished he would go to hell, but then quickly said, “No, I take that all back; for I believe the day is coming when the South will have need of Mr. Davis' abilities.”
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The first big hurdle in a cadet's academic career was the series of first-year midterm exams. This was the largest winnowing of any incoming class. “Our January examination is over now and I am glad of it,” George wrote after the 1858 exam. “I passed my examination very creditably but there were a great many found deficient and sent off. . . . My class which numbered over 100 when we entered in June is now reduced to 69. This shows that if a person wants to get along here he has to study hard.”
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The end-of-year exam was another milestone that could potentially be disastrous for an unprepared cadet. The trial lasted over two weeks and covered all aspects of the cadet curriculum. The 1858 exam claimed more plebes from Custer's class, but he was not among them. “I am glad
that I can say that I went through my examination in a manner that did honor not only to myself but to my instructors also,” George wrote from his second encampment.
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He had come in fifty-eighth of the sixty-two who passed. “I am now one class higher than I was before,” he continued. “I am well and have been well all the time. I would not leave this place for any amount of money because I would rather have a good education and no money than to have a fortune and be ignorant.”

If Autie got a good education at the Academy, it was despite himself. Custer's poor academic performance at West Point is part of Academy lore. George was consistently in the last academic section, known as “The Immortals,” and also performed poorly in tactical instruction. But not everyone who wound up at the bottom was there because they could not cope with the curriculum. Cadet Custer had a sound educational background and clearly could have done better if he had chosen to. But George was part of a long line of West Point cadets who did not care about class rank and were content to use the time they might have been studying (or “boning,” as cadets said) to socialize, play pranks, or engage in other forbidden pursuits. The least able cadets and those with severe disciplinary problems would wash out early. Those left at the bottom were either working diligently to hang on or, like Cadet Custer, taking it all in a carefree spirit, knowing they could pull out a minimal passing grade at the last minute.

Custer might also have been gaming his likely branch assignment. In those days there was a fairly rigid system of branching, with top cadets being assigned to engineers, artillery, and ordinance, and those with lower grades sent to the infantry, dragoons, mounted rifles, or cavalry. George noted that “the cavalry offered the most promising field for early promotion,”
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and he enjoyed his daily riding lesson. Custer was “the beau ideal of a perfect horseman,” by one account. “He sat in the saddle as if born in it, for his seat was so very easy and graceful that he and his steed seemed one. At West Point he was at the head of all the classes in
horsemanship and delighted in being on the tanbark. It is related of him that he could cut down more wooden heads on the gallop than any other one of the cadets.”
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But while Custer developed a reputation as an expert rider, this did not translate into military proficiency, and his worst grades in his final year were in cavalry tactics.

Anecdotes of Custer in the classroom relate his happy-go-lucky attitude toward his studies. He once asked his Spanish instructor how to say “class dismissed” in Spanish, and when the instructor answered, Custer led the class out of the room. In French class he was bidden to translate
Léopold, duc d'Autriche, se mettit sur les plaines de Silesie
, and began, “Leopard, duck and ostrich met upon the plains of Silesia.”
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John Montgomery Wright said that Custer's bravery in battle did not surprise anyone who had seen him “walking up with calm deliberation to the head of the section-room to face the instructors with the confession that he knew nothing of his lesson.”
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Custer was not a great reader at West Point. While he read much in the years before he reached the Academy, he did not check out a library book once after his plebe year. Studying was something to be done only when absolutely necessary, usually before an exam. In the winter of his third, or “cow,” year, while prepping for the January exam, he complained that the lessons were “twice as long in reviewing as when they first were given out” and that he was studying “almost night and day to make up for lost time.”
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