| George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel Henry Custer, a farmer and blacksmith, and Marie Ward Kirkpatrick. He spent much of his boyhood living with his half-sister and his brother-in-law in Monroe, Michigan, where he attended school. He then attended the McNeely Normal School, later known as Hopedale Normal College, in Hopedale, Ohio. Custer graduated from McNeely Normal School in 1856 and taught school in Ohio. Later, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating just as the Civil War began in 1861. Custer was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry and immediately joined his regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run. Reassigned to the 5th U.S. Cavalry, his involvements included the Peninsula Campaign and the Gettysburg Campaign, beginning with the cavalry engagement at Brandy Station. Three days prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, General Alfred Pleasonton promoted Custer from captain to brevet brigadier general of volunteers. Despite having no direct command experience, he became the youngest general in the Union Army at age 23. One of many of Custer's finest hours in the Civil War was just east of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. In conjunction with Pickett's Charge to the west, Robert E. Lee dispatched Stuart's cavalry on a mission into the rear of the Union Army. Custer encountered the Union cavalry division of David Gregg, directly in the path of Stuart's horsemen. He convinced Gregg to allow him to stay and fight, while his own division was stationed to the south out of the action. At East Cavalry Field, hours of charges and hand-to-hand combat ensued. Custer led a mounted charge of the 1st Michigan Cavalry, breaking the back of the Confederate assault. Custer's brigade lost 257 men at Gettysburg, the highest loss of any Union cavalry brigade. For this General Custer and the division were given the honor of leading the Army on point after the battle. But George Custer is best known for his “Last Stand” at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Remaining in the army after the war, in 1866 he was appointed Lt. Col. of the newly authorized 7th Cavalry, remaining its active commander until his death. He took part in the 1867 Sioux and Cheyenne expedition, but was suspended from duty one year for paying an unauthorized visit to his wife. His life would end on June 25, 1876, at the Little Big Horn, a conflict against a coalition of Native American tribes composed almost exclusively of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors led by the Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall and by the Hunkpapa seer and medicine man, Sitting Bull. It resulted in the extermination of his immediate command and a total loss of some 266 officers and men. On June 28th, the bodies were given a hasty burial on the field. The following year, what may have been Custer's remains were disinterred and given a military funeral at West Point. |
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| George Armstrong Custer |