What is your view of Custer?

[Wild Bill]

Lots of guts and short on brains. Graduated last of 34 in his West Point class in 1861.

Rode into the Chickahominy River to prove its depth when a staff officer under McClellan in 1862, while other debated its depth. Had 11 horses shot out from under him in the Civil War. He led the cavalry charge at Gettysburg that prevented Stuart hitting the Union rear at the same time Picket hit their lines at the High Water Mark. But he could not stay out of the fray in reserve as ordered at Trevillian Station which allowed the Confederates under Hampton make the last decisive charge and win the battle. He tore up the Shenandoah under Sheridan and was stopped from hanging Confederate prisoners only when Mosby replied in kind.

In Texas after the Civil War, occupation troops under his command tried to ambush and kill him for being a general jerk. Deserted his troops in Kansas when worry over the safety of his wife overcame his command responsibilities. Saved by Sheridan to lead the winter campaign against the same tribes. At the Washita, he abandoned a battalion of the 7th Cavalry under Major Joel Elliot, all of whom were killed in 1867.

And everyone knows about Little big Horn--or do they? A new book by Robert F. Burke, With Custer at the Death (Bakersfield CA: Strategy and Tactics Press, 2010) presents that battle in a new light, with the 2 battalions under his direct command keeping the Indians off guard until the very end by attempting 7 assaults on the combined Sioux-Cheynne village. Tragically, Burke did not footnote the book, but it is a revoting tale, nonetheless.

And he married the prettiest girl in hits hometown over the initial objections of her father and she wrote and spoke propaganda on his glory until the 1930s. One of Custer's disappointments in life is that his brother Tom won 2 Congressional metals of honor, while he won none.