Glorious War

Glorious War PDF Author: Thom Hatch
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250028507
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book Here

Book Description
From George Armstrong Custer's graduation from West Point to the daring cavalry charges that propelled him to the rank of General and national fame at age twenty-three to an unlikely romance with his eventual wife Libbie Bacon, Custer's exploits are the stuff of legend. Always leading his men from the front with a personal courage seldom seen before or since, he was a key part of nearly every major engagement in the east. Not only did Custer capture the first battle flag taken by the Union Army and receive the white flag of surrender at Appomattox, but his field generalship at Gettysburg against Confederate cavalry General Jeb Stuart had historic implications in changing the course of that pivotal battle. For decades, historians have looked at Custer strictly through the lens of his death on the frontier, casting him as a failure. While the events that took place at the Little Big Horn are illustrative of America's bloody westward expansion, they have unjustly eclipsed Custer's otherwise extraordinarily life and outstanding career. This biography of thundering cannons, pounding hooves, and stunning successes tells the story of one of history's most dynamic and misunderstood figures. Award-winning historian Thom Hatch reexamines Custer's early career to rebalance the scales and show why Custer's epic fall could never have happened without the spectacular rise that made him an American legend.

Glorious War

Glorious War PDF Author: Thom Hatch
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250028507
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book Here

Book Description
From George Armstrong Custer's graduation from West Point to the daring cavalry charges that propelled him to the rank of General and national fame at age twenty-three to an unlikely romance with his eventual wife Libbie Bacon, Custer's exploits are the stuff of legend. Always leading his men from the front with a personal courage seldom seen before or since, he was a key part of nearly every major engagement in the east. Not only did Custer capture the first battle flag taken by the Union Army and receive the white flag of surrender at Appomattox, but his field generalship at Gettysburg against Confederate cavalry General Jeb Stuart had historic implications in changing the course of that pivotal battle. For decades, historians have looked at Custer strictly through the lens of his death on the frontier, casting him as a failure. While the events that took place at the Little Big Horn are illustrative of America's bloody westward expansion, they have unjustly eclipsed Custer's otherwise extraordinarily life and outstanding career. This biography of thundering cannons, pounding hooves, and stunning successes tells the story of one of history's most dynamic and misunderstood figures. Award-winning historian Thom Hatch reexamines Custer's early career to rebalance the scales and show why Custer's epic fall could never have happened without the spectacular rise that made him an American legend.

Custer Victorious

Custer Victorious PDF Author: Gregory J. W. Urwin
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803295568
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Custer found himself in the one dilemma all soldiers most dread—he was outnumbered and completely surrounded. With disaster looming in every quarter and no chance of escape. . . ." So Gregory J. W Urwin pulls the reader into a scene describing not the Battle of the Little Big Horn but a Civil War engagement that George Armstrong Custer and his troop survived, thanks to strategy as much as naked courage. Many books have focused on Custer's Last Stand in 1876, making legend of total defeat. Custer Victorious is the first to examine at length, with attention to primary sources, his brilliant Civil War career. Urwin writes: "None of Custer's exploits against the Plains Indians could compare with those he performed while with the Army of the Potomac." The leader of a brigade called "the Wolverines," Custer was promoted to major general and the helm of the Third Cavalry Division when he was only twenty-four. Urwin describes the Boy General's vital contributions to Union victories from Gettysburg to Appomattox.

Custer's Trials

Custer's Trials PDF Author: T.J. Stiles
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307475948
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 642

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (court-martialed twice in six years) and the new corporate economy, a wartime emancipator who rejected racial equality. Stiles argues that, although Custer was justly noted for his exploits on the western frontier, he also played a central role as both a wide-ranging participant and polarizing public figure in his extraordinary, transformational time—a time of civil war, emancipation, brutality toward Native Americans, and, finally, the Industrial Revolution—even as he became one of its casualties. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation. It casts surprising new light on one of the best-known figures of American history, a subject of seemingly endless fascination.

Custer

Custer PDF Author: Ted Behncke
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612008909
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
An extensive, in-depth biography of Custer that covers his lesser-known personal history as well as his military career. The reader is introduced to a little-known side of Custer—a deeply personal side. George Custer grew up in an expanding young country, and his early influences mirrored the times. Two aspects of this era dominate most works about him: the Civil War, and the war with the Indians, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. When mentioned, if at all, his early life and years as a cadet at West Point are brief, and then only enough to set some background for discussion of the mystery of the Little Bighorn. This is the first Custer biography to focus on these lesser-known parts of his life in great detail. The approach uses all of Custer’s known writings: letters; magazine articles; his book, My Life on the Plains; and his unfinished memoirs of the Civil War; along with materials and books by his wife, Elizabeth Custer; and reflections of others who knew him well. The five chapters are Early Life (growing up and as a West Point cadet), The Civil War, The Indian Fighter, The Little Bighorn, and Conclusion. The theme of the book is not so much new historical information but the depth of his character development and lesser-known influences of his life. Custer draws together these elements in a succinct and accessible read. The book also includes illustrations (primarily from Harper’s Weekly) and photos, such as Matthew Brady’s Civil War collection, to accompany the text. Praise for Custer “Ted Behncke and Gary Bloomfield remain faithful to the facts and enable the reader to better grasp the man as he was and the one he envisioned. Custer’s personalities, beliefs and actions, or lack thereof, weave through each chapter, amid a lively and readable writing style that interlaces quotes and sources within the text.” —Roundup Magazine

The Cavalry Battle That Saved the Union

The Cavalry Battle That Saved the Union PDF Author: Paul D. Walker
Publisher: Pelican Publishing
ISBN: 9781455601950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
Civil War historians have long been puzzled by Pickett’s seemingly suicidal frontal attack on the Union center at Gettysburg. Here, for the first time, Paul D. Walker reveals Robert E. Lee’s true plan for victory at Gettysburg: a simultaneous strike against the Union center from the front and rear—Pickett’s infantry to charge the front, while Stuart’s cavalry struck the rear. The frontal assault by Pickett went off as scheduled, but as Stuart’s forces approached from the rear, they encountered a Union cavalry contingent. As the forces joined, the Union cavalry leader was quickly killed, and command fell to one of the most dynamic figures in American history—George Armstrong Custer. What followed was America’s greatest cavalry battle: 7,500 Confederate horsemen ranged against 5,000 Union cavalry, Jeb Stuart against George Custer, with the outcome of the Civil War at stake.

Custer

Custer PDF Author: Edward G. Longacre
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510733205
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
The name George Armstrong Custer looms large in American history, specifically for his leadership in the American Indian Wars and unfortunate fall at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But before his time in the West, Custer began his career fighting for the Union in the Civil War. In Custer: The Making of a Young General, legendary Civil War historian Edward G. Longacre provides fascinating insight into this often-overlooked period in Custer's life. In 1863, under the patronage of General Alfred Pleasonton, commander of the Army of the Potomac's horsemen, a young but promising twenty-three-year-old Custer rose to the unprecedented rank of brigadier general and was placed in charge of the untried Michigan Calvary Brigade. Although over time Custer would bring out excellence in his charges, eventually leading the Wolverines to prominence, his first test came just days later at Hanover, then Hunterstown, and finally Gettysburg. In these campaigns and subsequent ones, Custer's reputation for surging ahead regardless of the odds (almost always with successful results that appeared to validate his calculating recklessness) was firmly established. More than just a history book, Custer: The Making of a Young General is a study of Custer's formative years, his character and personality; his attitudes toward leadership; his tactical preferences, especially for the mounted charge; his trademark brashness and fearlessness; his relations with his subordinates; and his attitudes toward the enemy with whom he clashed repeatedly in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Custer goes into greater depth and detail than any other study of Custer's Civil War career, while firmly refuting many of the myths and misconceptions regarding his personal life and military service. Fascinating and insightful, it belongs on the shelf of every history buff.

Custerology

Custerology PDF Author: Michael A. Elliott
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226201481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its 400 men, and every soldier under Custer’s direct command was killed. It’s easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer’s life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, and introduces us to Native American activists, Park Service rangers, and devoted history buffs along the way. Elliott shows how Custer and the Indian Wars continue to be both a powerful symbol of America’s bloody past and a crucial key to understanding the nation’s multicultural present. “[Elliott] is an approachable guide as he takes readers to battlefields where Custer fought American Indians . . . to the Michigan town of Monroe that Custer called home after he moved there at age 10 . . . to the Black Hills of South Dakota where Custer led an expedition that gave birth to a gold rush."—Steve Weinberg, Atlanta Journal-Constitution “By ‘Custerology,’ Elliott means the historical interpretation and commemoration of Custer and the Indian Wars in which he fought not only by those who honor Custer but by those who celebrate the Native American resistance that defeated him. The purpose of this book is to show how Custer and the Little Bighorn can be and have been commemorated for such contradictory purposes.”—Library Journal “Michael Elliott’s Custerology is vivid, trenchant, engrossing, and important. The American soldier George Armstrong Custer has been the subject of very nearly incessant debate for almost a century and a half, and the debate is multicultural, multinational, and multimedia. Mr. Elliott's book provides by far the best overview, and no one interested in the long-haired soldier whom the Indians called Son of the Morning Star can afford to miss it.”—Larry McMurtry

The Real Custer

The Real Custer PDF Author: James S. Robbins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621572366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Real Custer takes a good hard look at the life and storied military career of George Armstrong Custer—from cutting his teeth at Bull Run in the Civil War, to his famous and untimely death at Little Bighorn in the Indian Wars. Author James Robbins demonstrates that Custer, having graduated last in his class at West Point, went on to prove himself again and again as an extremely skilled cavalry leader. Robbins argues that Custer's undoing was his bold and cocky attitude, which caused the Army's bloodiest defeat in the Indian Wars. Robbins also dives into Custer’s personal life, exploring his letters and other personal documents to reveal who he was as a person, underneath the military leader. The Real Custer is an exciting and valuable contribution to the legend and history of Custer that will delight Custer fans as well as readers new to the legend.

Under Custer's Command

Under Custer's Command PDF Author: Karla Jean Husby
Publisher: Potomac Books
ISBN: 9781574884081
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
Avery fought in the legendary Michigan Cavalry Brigade, commanded by George Armstrong Custer * Avery's battles included Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Yellow Tavern, Haws Shop, Tom's Brook, Cedar Creek, and Trevilian Station George Armstrong Custer's fabled Fifth Regiment fought with great distinction throughout the war and suffered the third highest total of men killed in the entire Union cavalry. A twenty-four-year-old farmer and new father from Hopkins, Michigan, named James Henry Avery was one of Custer's feared Wolverines. Besides eloquently describing his personal experiences, Sergeant Avery's wartime journals and postwar reminiscences provide uniquely detailed descriptions of Civil War cavalry movements and the only known account that addresses the escape of elements of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry on the first day of the Battle of Trevilian Station.

The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer

The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer PDF Author: Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292789610
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of private writings by General Custer’s wife offers an intimate look at their lives before and during the Civil War. In her first year of marriage (1864–1865) to General George Armstrong Custer, Libbie Custer witnessed the Civil War firsthand. Her experiences of danger, hardship, and excitement made ideal material for a book, one that she worked on later in life yet never published. In this volume, Arlene Reynolds presents a readable narrative of Libbie Custer's life during the war years by painstakingly reconstructing Libbie’s original, unpublished notes and diaries found in the archives of the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument. In these reminiscences, Libbie Custer vividly describes her life both in camp and in Washington. She tells of incidents such as fording a swollen river sidesaddle on horseback, dancing at the Inaugural Ball near President Lincoln, and watching the massive review of the Army of the Potomac after the surrender. The resulting narrative tells the fascinating story of a sheltered girl's maturation into a courageous woman in the crucible of war. It also offers an intimate glimpse into the youth, West Point years, and early military service of General Custer.