Custer Custer the American Hero?

Custer was,at once,a Hero and a Jerk. So some remember him as a Hero,which he was.....and some remember him as a Jerk,which he was,also. Custer was overly condemned for his loss at the LBH. Jmo.

Actually, I think Custer was always a jerk. He just did one heroic thing ( Gettysburg is all I can think of) and then found a memorable way of getting killed. And that's about it for Custer IMO.
 
Last month I read "Custard's Fall" by David Miller. In the mid 30's Miller interviewed 70 some Native Americans about their role in the fight at LBH. I thoroughly enjoyed the book as I like to read about the battle from the Indians point of view in order to get a better understanding of what happened. I'm not sure if the book could be called history, as the author has been criticized for a lack of footnotes, not releasing his notes regarding his interviews with the natives, and not publishing his book until after all of his sorces had died (published in the 1950's). However, it was an enjoyable read.
One of interesting things the author brings up that I have never read about in any other books on the battle, is that according to the Indians he interviewed, Custer was shot in the heart as he was leading a charge down Medicine Tail Coulee and fell into the LBH river. This effectively halted the charge as troopers dismounted to haul his body back onto his horse just as the Indians who had been fighting Reno, began massing at the Ford. The command then broke into two parts, one group fighting a delaying action ( under Keogh), while the other (under Yates), headed for the area with Custer's body where the monument is located at Last Stand Hill.
After the battle the indians shot many of the soldiers in the head, which would explain why Custer had a wound in this (left?) temple. Also, in many cases it was the women who mutilated the dead. Custer supposedly had had an affair with a Cheyenne women some years previous, and she was at the battle and recognised the body and protected it from mutilation.
Again, I'm not sure the book can be called history, but it was very enjoyable and I'll probably read it again when I get into another LBH mood.

As far as Custer being an American Hero, maybe during the age he lived in, but under modern scrutiny, no.
 
He still has a nice statue in Monroe Michigan. He is still shown in the Michigan Historical Museum. I would say many people in Michigan see Custer as a major hero.
 
I always liked that photo of Lincoln at the Grove Farm in Sharpsburg, standing there lined up with all the generals in front of the tents and the roof of the house in the background, and there's that one clown by himself on the far right, staring at the camera - Custer, a lowly captain, making sure he gets looked at in the photo.
 
I always liked that photo of Lincoln at the Grove Farm in Sharpsburg, standing there lined up with all the generals in front of the tents and the roof of the house in the background, and there's that one clown by himself on the far right, staring at the camera - Custer, a lowly captain, making sure he gets looked at in the photo.

Custer could work the camera, he understood how to make himself stand out. It doesn't matter how many times I look at this picture my eye is always drawn to Custer.

Lincoln_and_generals_at_Antietam2.jpg
 

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Last month I read "Custard's Fall" by David Miller. In the mid 30's Miller interviewed 70 some Native Americans about their role in the fight at LBH. I thoroughly enjoyed the book as I like to read about the battle from the Indians point of view in order to get a better understanding of what happened. I'm not sure if the book could be called history, as the author has been criticized for a lack of footnotes, not releasing his notes regarding his interviews with the natives, and not publishing his book until after all of his sorces had died (published in the 1950's). However, it was an enjoyable read.
One of interesting things the author brings up that I have never read about in any other books on the battle, is that according to the Indians he interviewed, Custer was shot in the heart as he was leading a charge down Medicine Tail Coulee and fell into the LBH river. This effectively halted the charge as troopers dismounted to haul his body back onto his horse just as the Indians who had been fighting Reno, began massing at the Ford. The command then broke into two parts, one group fighting a delaying action ( under Keogh), while the other (under Yates), headed for the area with Custer's body where the monument is located at Last Stand Hill.
After the battle the indians shot many of the soldiers in the head, which would explain why Custer had a wound in this (left?) temple. Also, in many cases it was the women who mutilated the dead. Custer supposedly had had an affair with a Cheyenne women some years previous, and she was at the battle and recognised the body and protected it from mutilation.
Again, I'm not sure the book can be called history, but it was very enjoyable and I'll probably read it again when I get into another LBH mood.

As far as Custer being an American Hero, maybe during the age he lived in, but under modern scrutiny, no.

So many conflicting stories about the state of his body, I read that Custer was probably mutilated to some degree, there was a report of peculiar mutilation to the genitals and there was a report of a finger taken off, along with a long slash to the thighs. I also read and that an awl was used to pierce his ears so that he couldn't hear in the afterlife.
 
So many conflicting stories about the state of his body, I read that Custer was probably mutilated to some degree, ..... I also read and that an awl was used to pierce his ears so that he couldn't hear in the afterlife.

I understood his ears were pierced so he could hear better in the afterlife. I'm not remembering this correctly, but Custer was smoking a pipe with the Cheyennes and they told him if he ever attacked them again he would be killed. So his ears were pierced so he would hear them better in the afterlife. But talk about mutilation, his brother Tom was so badly mutilated as to be almost unidentifiable (someone recognised a tattoo on his body). The thought was that Tom was so mutilated because he had mistreated an Indian (Rain in the face?) while in captivity.
 
I understood his ears were pierced so he could hear better in the afterlife. I'm not remembering this correctly, but Custer was smoking a pipe with the Cheyennes and they told him if he ever attacked them again he would be killed. So his ears were pierced so he would hear them better in the afterlife. But talk about mutilation, his brother Tom was so badly mutilated as to be almost unidentifiable (someone recognised a tattoo on his body). The thought was that Tom was so mutilated because he had mistreated an Indian (Rain in the face?) while in captivity.
I just came across an article that described Tom's tattoos, he had the Goddess of Liberty and an initialed American flag on his arm. Rain in the face had threatened to cut out Tom's heart and eat it, I'm guessing that he was a man of his word.

There is a poem called 'THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE'

THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE

In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.



In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside The Indian village stood;

The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing a of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.


In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,

In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!


Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair

And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.

But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight

Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.


Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,

With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.
 
Seems to me that people are still capable of underestimating the abilities of the Plains people. The British did it in Africa with the Zulu as did the French and the Boer. Custer wasn't an idiot he understood that he would be facing a highly motivated and well organised enemy force, hence the plan to capture women and children.

The following from page 102 of Peter Cozzens; “The Earth is Weeping”

Although the officers of the Seventh Cavalry were bitterly divided over Custer’s handling of Elliott’s disappearance, they did agree on one thing: the desirability of their female Cheyenne captives. While the Osages held a boisterous scalp dance within view of the terrified women the night after the battle (of Washita), Cheyenne survivors said Custer and his officers appeared among them to select bedmates. Custer, the captives said,. chose the beautiful nineteen-year-old Monahsetah, daughter of Chief Little Rock, killed with his friend Black Kettle. As other Cheyenne drifted in to surrender, the officers of the Seventh Cavalry picked out more sexual partners. The Cheyenne accounts are plausible. Custer’s unbridled sexual appetite was well established, and a company commander ** boasted in a letter to his brother that the officers had ninety Cheyenne females from which to choose; “some of them,” he added, “are very pretty.” As for himself, “I have one that is quite intelligent. It is usual for officers to have two or three lounging around.”

** Captain Miles Keogh Quoted in Hutton, Sheridan and His Army, 389-90; Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:696.

Why anyone would consider Custer as a hero is beyond me. In MHO LBH was a well deserved defeat that can be laid at the feet of Custer. Never like him and in a real and just world he should have been thrown out of West Point.

The more I read “The Earth is Weeping” the more I see that both sides are to blame. But I put the bigger blame on the United States government and especially the corrupt government officials who were telling the Indian tribes one thing and then telling their bosses in Washington D.C. something else.
 
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Custer did serve his nation in the military almost all of his adult life. This alone should allow us to call him a patriot. Now was he a hero? He did make an error at LBH, but that does not make him less of a patriot or less of a hero? Can one make a military misjudgment and still be a hero and patriot? I have to say yes, Custer was a patriotic American hero.
 
As much as I enjoy taking shots at Custer I do think he was a very bold young man. He reminds me a bit of Hood. A " point and click" type of leader. Very good as long as you don't allow them much chance to think.

Which probably made him good for the ACW where he fought large battles in large formations under more experienced commanders. And horrible for a war of independent small actions and detachments.
 
Custer did serve his nation in the military almost all of his adult life. This alone should allow us to call him a patriot. Now was he a hero? He did make an error at LBH, but that does not make him less of a patriot or less of a hero? Can one make a military misjudgment and still be a hero and patriot? I have to say yes, Custer was a patriotic American hero.

Well, getting yourself and your command wiped out just before the 100th anniversary of your nation tends to demolish the pedestal you were going to stand on! Yes, I think I'd agree he was a patriotic American but not too much a hero.

One problem was that the Indians would often claim to "own" a massive tract of land but were only actually using a small portion of that land.

Just curious...to what use should a massive tract of land be put?
 
Just curious...to what use should a massive tract of land be put?

Dam buff. If they had just given up their shifty ways, so much of this coulda been avoided!
 
Well if the Michigan groups could have just found a way to grow corn, harvest maple sap, harvest wild rice, catch fish, dig fresh water clams and hunt all on a few acres of land, well then all would have been fine. Without being able to do all this on a few acres, a wide tract of land would be a plus.
 
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