• 1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Little Bighorn: 300 men of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer are wiped out by 5,000 Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

George Armstrong Custer


Portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1865

Born: December 5, 1839; New Rumley, Ohio, U.S.
Died: June 25, 1876 (aged 36); Little Bighorn, Montana Territory, U.S.
Buried: Initially on the battlefield; later reinterred in West Point Cemetery

George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.

Custer graduated from West Point and, though characterized as an inept for having been last in his graduating class, actually finished 34th out of a starting class of 108 candidates. Following graduation, he worked closely with General George B. McClellan and the future General Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his ability as a cavalry leader. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers aged 23. Only a few days afterwards, he fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he commanded the Michigan Brigade. Despite being outnumbered, Custer defeated J. E. B. Stuart's attack at East Cavalry Field.

In 1864, he served in the Overland Campaign and Philip Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. In 1865, he destroyed or captured the remainder of Early's forces at the Battle of Waynesboro. His division blocked the Army of Northern Virginia's final retreat and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates. He was present at Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After the war, Custer was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army and sent west to fight in the Indian Wars, mainly against the Lakota and other Plains Peoples. On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory against a coalition of Native American tribes, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led. This event became known as "Custer's Last Stand".

His dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his career, and the reaction to his life remains divided. His mythologized status in American history was partly established through the energetic lobbying of his wife Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer throughout her long widowhood which spanned six decades.

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Civil War

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Shenandoah Valley and Appomattox Court House

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Custer was present at the surrender at Appomattox Court House and the table upon which the surrender was signed was presented to him as a gift for his wife by Sheridan, who included a note praising Custer's gallantry. She treasured the gift of the historic table, which is now in the Smithsonian Institution. On April 15, , Custer was promoted to major general in the U.S. Volunteers, making him the youngest major general in the Union Army at age 25.

On April 25, {1865,} after the war officially ended, Custer had his men search for and illegally seize a large, prize racehorse named "Don Juan" near Clarksville, Virginia, worth an estimated $10,000 (several hundred thousand today), along with his written pedigree. Custer rode Don Juan in the grand review victory parade in Washington, D.C., on May 23, creating a sensation when the scared thoroughbred bolted. The owner, Richard Gaines, wrote to General Grant, who ordered Custer to return the horse to Gaines, but he did not. Instead, he hid the horse and won a race with it the next year, before the horse suddenly died.

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Indian Wars

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Under Sheridan's orders, he took part in establishing Camp Supply in Indian Territory in early November 1868 as a supply base for the winter campaign. On November 27, 1868, he led the 7th Cavalry Regiment in an attack on the Cheyenne encampment of Chief Black Kettle – the Battle of Washita River. He reported killing 103 warriors; 53 women and children were taken as prisoners. Estimates by the Cheyenne of their casualties were substantially lower (11 warriors plus 19 women and children). Custer had his men shoot most of the 875 Indian ponies they had captured. The Battle of Washita River was regarded as the first substantial U.S. victory in the Southern Plains War, and it helped force a large portion of the Southern Cheyenne on to a U.S.-assigned reservation.

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JOHN MOSBY AND GEORGE CUSTER CLASH IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY
When Civil War's John Singleton Mosby's Partisan Rangers clashed with George A. Custer's Union Cavalry, the niceties of war were the first casualty. Reprisal and counter reprisal became the order of the day.

By JOHN F. WUKOVITS6/12/2006

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