Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf James Robbins The R

As a friend from mississippi said, you have a lot of pastors a lot of bloody bastards from your state. [laughter] james one question i get about my book the real custer is why is that the title. What makes your book the real custer . The easiest way to answer that question is to say that is what the publisher wanted. That is the title. I think it is better to view it not as a conclusion, like this is the real custer, but more like a question. Who was the real custer . What we know about this guy. Little bighorn is so pervasive when we talk about George Custer, the whole man is the mistakes he made on that day. That is not the case. Yet a whole life and a whole character and he was a whole person. The book is about trying to get to the root of that question. If we can strip away all the things that have been written since then, all of the history, Everything Else and just talk about the man himself. That is what it is supposed to be about. Bighorn, the famous anheuserbusch advertisement they commissioned that became most peoples bu of what happened on that day. View of whates happened on that day. Probably the most written about battle this and gettysburg. Gettysburg where George Custer also fought and also played a key role. Hasas been lionized, he been demonized, he has been heralded, he has been mocked, he has been mentioned in books, articles, media of all sorts. Movies. This is a 1926 movie dramatizing that. He is more famous today, more mentioned today in books that he was at the height of his fame. Inis more mentioned today books than he ever was, ever in history. You can look up the statistics. It keeps going up. Custer is immensely famous. Part of what we are going to talk about is what he is famous for. Is being perre he trade by Ronald Reagan in the historically challenged film, santa fe trail. George custer does a bunch of stuff he never, ever did [laughter]. James it is a movie, what you want. John brown is featured in the movie and we are talking about the great collection of john brown materials. Here is errol flynn as custer in they died with their boots on. Probably one of the most noted in the middle of the 20th century, this is the image of custer most People Associated with him. Errol flynn captured the seriousness but also the boyish nests of custer the prankster which we will talk about. He captured that custer and became a symbol of that. As the custer myth grew, he became this tragic hero. Everything was great about him. When you raise someone up to that level of being a superhero, them easy to transfer them to being the super villain. The 1960s and 1970s when that took hold in our culture, rather than the harar custer, then we had rather than the harar custer rather than the we had thisr, custer from little big man. A selfimportant, chaotic, random, cruel guy who made that decisions all the time. That custer became the real custer too many people. He was a blowhard, he had no anitary ability, he was indian hater, a genocidal maniac and things like this. A dominant image of custer in the last 30 years or so, 30 or 40 years. Now we have representation like this from night at the museum. I do not know if you have seen this museum this movie. General custer and ben stiller. That is bill hader playing custer in which he laments i will always be famous for my biggest failure. Who likefor people custer this is progress because he is actually one of the good guys. Lovable loser,s but at least he is one of the good guys in this movie. A little bit of a different thing. Along the way, we have had custer comics, custer the action figure. There is night of the there is night at the museum. We have had custer the playset , articles,ral books songs, movies, tv, every medium possible talking about general custer. Whether he approves of that, i do not know. He is not amused. , why George Custer, why is he so famous . Why is he more famous today than ever in his life. He is not famous for nothing. You can do that these days. [laughter] james these days you can be famous for nothing. There are lots of people who are famous for nothing. Is corollary to that something you say in washington, it is full of famous people you have never heard of. He had longust that hair or wore a tie or was an eccentric. You was famous for a reason. Were going to talk about some of those. Lets take him back a few years. The areas. George custer there he is. Custer at west point. Cadet john mcardle rate cadet John Montgomery described him as an indifferent soldier, a poor reckless cadet, always in trouble, always playing some mischievous prank, and liked by everyone. That was George Custer at west point. He said his career at west point was an example to be carefully avoided by future cadets. He was goat of his class, the last of his class. The title of my other book that is out there. What does that mean . Does that mean he cannot hack it . There are actually two types of people who, in at the bottom of the class. Who get is the people to west point and it is hard and they are in over their head, they struggle, they do what they can, they study all the time and they squeak in at the bottom. That is one type of goat. The other type is the guy who gets to west point and says i can handle this, i know i can graduate from this place, i do not care about grades, i do not care about class rank. Instead of studying i am going to have a good time and then at the last minute i will cram and i will squeak through. That was cadet custer. He was that type of cadet. There been many cadets like that. George pickett is another example, speaking of people famous for blowing it. Time going to the nearby, going off post, highly illicit activity. Going in the middle of the night to enjoy rom flips and have other escapades. He would try to get together with visiting debutantes or whoever might be around. At the time, west point was a Tourist Destination and they had hotels. The cadets were investigating who might be checked in. Custer was definitely amongst that group. Playing pranks and doing other things and generally getting in trouble. This is what custer did. He had a talent for that. What is more important for understanding custer is he had a talent for getting out of trouble. A lot of guys got in trouble and they got expelled. , whether through his charisma or he was just lucky, he would get out of the trouble he got into. Another thing was he never questioned the institution or its purpose. When they caught him, fine, you caught me. I will take my punishment. He said if you break the rules you have to take your punishment. The actual first page of his lengthy record of delinquencies ,nd the merits that he earned he said they were not extraordinary and what they were but in their number. [laughter] james not great offenses, but many of them. He was able to walk that fine line between having just enough fun, he could get in just enough trouble he could still graduate. Up until the end of his west point career when he was courtmartialed the day before graduation. He ran it right up to the end. Andthing about the goats the people at the bottom of the class, and also in particular George Custer, you get a different type of officer at the bottom of the class. The top of the class guys, your mcclellan, your robert e. Lee, they are by the book, they are methodical thinkers, they know all of the theories of war, they apply them. The guys at the bottom tend to be more freespirited, they tend to be more outside the box thinkers, they tend to be more unorthodox because that is the kind of west point career they were pursuing. That is certainly true of custer. Another insight into him we get from his west point days is his bravery. When they caught him, they caught him and he would admit it. Cadet wright said his bravery and battle did not surprise anyone who saw him walking up with calm deliberation to face the instructors with the concession he knew nothing of the lesson. He would just walk up and take it. That is the kind of guy he was. He could have done better if he followed the rules. He was not dumb. He had gone to the academy in monroe, michigan and performed well there. He was a schoolteacher before he went to west point and according to his brother he was reading books all the time. Thethat you could tell by west Point Library records, but nevertheless he read a lot of books. He was not a dummy, he would just not have been custer if he spent all his time studying instead of playing pranks and then getting courtmartialed. The civil war came, and this was the thing that made custer custer. It was a terrible thing for west point because the band of brothers, the corps of cadets had to split between the northerners and the southerners. Friends ona lot of the Southern Side who happen to be lower down in the class. A lot of them were his friends. He had to go fight them. They remained friends, but that was the way it was. The war became the perfect arena for him to display his talents. He rushed from west point to the than anyld faster graduate of the military academy in history. Within four days he was delayed because his class went on, he was busy being courtmartialed in the summer of 1861 when things were getting hot. Within four days he went from west point to new york to washington, he got an assignment and went into Northern Virginia and got there in time to run with the rest from bull run and then back to arlington all in the space of four days. Very little sleep. Quickly that what he would like to do in the war is be and aid to higher commanders. General Philip Kearney was the first person who plucked him from a regular command and took him as an aid. Custer realized that in doing this he had a lot of freedom of action which was important to him, to be able to do things and make them happen. Rather than being with his unit all the time, he would be the eyes and ears of his commander. He would also be at headquarters when things would happen. He could volunteer to get involved and in some cases he would just go out and get involved in stuff because he knew that he could and no one would object. Because he was on some general staff, so if he shows up you will just say he was there because the genital because the general sent them there. That gave him flexibility to do things and that fit his style of doing things. This is a trawling of custer crossing the chickahominy which is part of the custer myth. If the story is not true, just print the myth. During the Peninsular Campaign when the union army was faced with the Chickahominy River which is extraordinarily according tooss, the story George Mcclellan and his staff were going up and down the river trying to find out where the cloth where to cross and were arguing a lot about it and custer just jumped in and said it is this deep. [laughter] james not exactly true. The actual story is a lot more dangerous because he did jump in the river. Theellan was not there, chief of engineers was there and custer just got in the river and started doing a reconnaissance under the observation of the enemy. It was highly dangerous. He led an assault across the river once he found a crossing point where they seized some guns and prisoners and caused a lot of trouble before retreating. This is what brought him to the attention of George Mcclellan. Aidellan then made him his and custer had a lot of freedom of action than to do a lot of different things. The problem with that was if you attach yourself to a highranking general, you better hope the guys successful, because if he declines, you are likely to go with him and that is exactly what happens. George mcclellan was not fighting the war the way lincoln wanted so he lost his command and then custer lost his influence which was not so good for him. Along the way he had been having a lot of adventures. Aid to became the general wasnt in to general here. Ton, shown this was lucky for him. The general had seen him around the time of the battle of antietam doing some brave things. He thought that is the kind of guy i want. The general had this idea that he wanted to reorganize the Union Cavalry corps, but he did not have the authority to do it. Luckily for custer, lee invades pennsylvania. The gettysburg campaign. , lee invades,me general harper is on the outs with lincoln. Pleasonton says what we need to do is reorganize the cap a record. He wants to to reorganize the cavalry corps. Pleasonton already had custer in mind to be one of his guys. He raised three guys to general who were in their 20s. There was custer, and two others. Custer was the youngest of the bunch at 23. That is how he got to be the boy general is because various circumstances happened. They wanted these guys to be leading the calvary but grade as an offensive arm to be able to rebeler jeb stuarts calvary and fight them oneonone the way the rebels have been fighting them. According to pleasonton what they needed was people who can charge into battle and get it done. Andad seen farnsworth custer this at various points. Those were his guys. At 23, he is the youngest general officer in the history of the u. S. Army to that time. By as later superseded soldier of the 97th pennsylvania regiment, 20 years old when he led the assault on fort fisher in january of 1865, where he was shot to pieces. On his deathbed, to honor him he was promoted to brigadier general. Then he lived. [laughter] james he got better. So they bumped him up to major general. Addition it was not just lucky, i do not want to downplay his promotion to general. He earned it. Luck was the circumstances. He earned it through the various charges he led and battles he fought. Frequently joining units he had no business being joined with. He just went out and did it. Now he had a whole prograde to fight with now you had a whole brigade to fight with. There he is on day three of gettysburg. I am sure you are familiar with the battle of gettysburg. Custer was on the right flank, and it was lucky because general craig who was not his commander, general kilpatrick was his commander, kilpatrick was doing stuff at this indie of the battlefield but craig needed people over here. There was custer. He said we are going this way because something bad is going to happen. Custer said no problem. Instinctsh, gregs were right because here comes the confederate calvary trying to get around the union right flank in support of its charge which was in support of was goingcharge which on in the center of the battlefield. That is where custer reached National Fame with his consecutive charges at gettysburg. The famous , on you will greens with his the famous come on wolverines with his michigan regiment. The idea that he was going to stop, slowdown down, or confuse what the confederates were doing. He stopped the advance. In jeb stuarts after action report he says that the union side left the field. Yes, they left the field because they beat you. Theas the one who left field. They left it later, when you are gone. After that, the boy general with the golden locks, he was famous. He convinced the men he was leading in the michigan brigade who are wondering why this 23yearold kid was suddenly their general, through that battle he convinced them he has a right to be in command because look at him go. This guy knows how to fight. So what if he is wearing an eccentric uniform with gold lace and a red tide and this bluecollar. It does not matter, as one of his men said he can wear all the gold lace he wants if he can fight like that. That cemented custer as someone who had National Fame. He also started making friends with reporters which does not hurt. The New York Times was following him around. Why . They knew they were going to get a good story. If youre going to spend your time following someone, follow the guy who is going to fight and can give you a good story. Not famous for nothing. Yet the reporters follow him around and did not give them a story. He did, and that is why they loved him. Other commanders were not even talk to reporters. Courtmartialed because he did not like him. The history of civilmilitary relations. Custer maintained a Good Relationship with pleasonton who was the head of the Calvary Court but he had a bad relationship with kirkpatrick, his commander. It seems like every time something went wrong kill patrick was blamed but if something went right custer got the credit. That began to wear until patrick. He ultimately try to sideline custer in a raid. He sent custer on a Suicide Mission behind confederate lines, not caring if custer came back or not. The main force of the rate, which he was involved in, turned into a tragedy. Killedick did not get but the son of the secretary of the navy did. It was a big fiasco, this raid on richmond and it kind of career inpatricks the east. Custer did this brilliant maneuver and came swooping back, did not take any casualties, saved the day. He got to meet with the president , he was meeting with members of congress, it was beautiful for him. Kilpatrick blew it. Around the same time we have another reorganization where grant comes in from the west, he brings sheraton along. Pleasonton is a casualty of the raid and is set west. Sheridan comes in and now sheridan is going to be the head of the calvary. Custer and sheridan hit it off well. Custer became sheridans righthand man. He could fight the war they wanted to fight. Grant, ran sheridan, sheridan had custer. They were fighting the kind of war that lincoln wanted and aggressive, offensive, get it done kind of thing. This was good for custer. In the sense it gave him the opportunity to fight in many battles, which is what he wanted to do and to excel in that. It is not that he won every time. Got an pretty tough scrapes, but he always got out of them. In the books i found every report i found of custer being reported killed. When you look at little bighorn, and the first reports of his death no one believed it because there were so many reports of him being dead. Poor elizabeth custer, his wife who was in washington, heard , extra, custer killed and had to deal with that before it was proved he was alive. Ofbecomes the instrument this new style of aggressive war that is going to destroy the confederacy. Here is the statue of him in monroe, which is at the moment citing the enemy at gettysburg where he is trying to figure out what he is going to do about all this. Here is a sketch of custer and his men scouring the George Custer<\/a>, the whole man is the mistakes he made on that day. That is not the case. Yet a whole life and a whole character and he was a whole person. The book is about trying to get to the root of that question. If we can strip away all the things that have been written since then, all of the history, Everything Else<\/a> and just talk about the man himself. That is what it is supposed to be about. Bighorn, the famous anheuserbusch advertisement they commissioned that became most peoples bu of what happened on that day. View of whates happened on that day. Probably the most written about battle this and gettysburg. Gettysburg where George Custer<\/a> also fought and also played a key role. Hasas been lionized, he been demonized, he has been heralded, he has been mocked, he has been mentioned in books, articles, media of all sorts. Movies. This is a 1926 movie dramatizing that. He is more famous today, more mentioned today in books that he was at the height of his fame. Inis more mentioned today books than he ever was, ever in history. You can look up the statistics. It keeps going up. Custer is immensely famous. Part of what we are going to talk about is what he is famous for. Is being perre he trade by Ronald Reagan<\/a> in the historically challenged film, santa fe trail. George custer does a bunch of stuff he never, ever did [laughter]. James it is a movie, what you want. John brown is featured in the movie and we are talking about the great collection of john brown materials. Here is errol flynn as custer in they died with their boots on. Probably one of the most noted in the middle of the 20th century, this is the image of custer most People Associated<\/a> with him. Errol flynn captured the seriousness but also the boyish nests of custer the prankster which we will talk about. He captured that custer and became a symbol of that. As the custer myth grew, he became this tragic hero. Everything was great about him. When you raise someone up to that level of being a superhero, them easy to transfer them to being the super villain. The 1960s and 1970s when that took hold in our culture, rather than the harar custer, then we had rather than the harar custer rather than the we had thisr, custer from little big man. A selfimportant, chaotic, random, cruel guy who made that decisions all the time. That custer became the real custer too many people. He was a blowhard, he had no anitary ability, he was indian hater, a genocidal maniac and things like this. A dominant image of custer in the last 30 years or so, 30 or 40 years. Now we have representation like this from night at the museum. I do not know if you have seen this museum this movie. General custer and ben stiller. That is bill hader playing custer in which he laments i will always be famous for my biggest failure. Who likefor people custer this is progress because he is actually one of the good guys. Lovable loser,s but at least he is one of the good guys in this movie. A little bit of a different thing. Along the way, we have had custer comics, custer the action figure. There is night of the there is night at the museum. We have had custer the playset , articles,ral books songs, movies, tv, every medium possible talking about general custer. Whether he approves of that, i do not know. He is not amused. , why George Custer<\/a>, why is he so famous . Why is he more famous today than ever in his life. He is not famous for nothing. You can do that these days. [laughter] james these days you can be famous for nothing. There are lots of people who are famous for nothing. Is corollary to that something you say in washington, it is full of famous people you have never heard of. He had longust that hair or wore a tie or was an eccentric. You was famous for a reason. Were going to talk about some of those. Lets take him back a few years. The areas. George custer there he is. Custer at west point. Cadet john mcardle rate cadet John Montgomery<\/a> described him as an indifferent soldier, a poor reckless cadet, always in trouble, always playing some mischievous prank, and liked by everyone. That was George Custer<\/a> at west point. He said his career at west point was an example to be carefully avoided by future cadets. He was goat of his class, the last of his class. The title of my other book that is out there. What does that mean . Does that mean he cannot hack it . There are actually two types of people who, in at the bottom of the class. Who get is the people to west point and it is hard and they are in over their head, they struggle, they do what they can, they study all the time and they squeak in at the bottom. That is one type of goat. The other type is the guy who gets to west point and says i can handle this, i know i can graduate from this place, i do not care about grades, i do not care about class rank. Instead of studying i am going to have a good time and then at the last minute i will cram and i will squeak through. That was cadet custer. He was that type of cadet. There been many cadets like that. George pickett is another example, speaking of people famous for blowing it. Time going to the nearby, going off post, highly illicit activity. Going in the middle of the night to enjoy rom flips and have other escapades. He would try to get together with visiting debutantes or whoever might be around. At the time, west point was a Tourist Destination<\/a> and they had hotels. The cadets were investigating who might be checked in. Custer was definitely amongst that group. Playing pranks and doing other things and generally getting in trouble. This is what custer did. He had a talent for that. What is more important for understanding custer is he had a talent for getting out of trouble. A lot of guys got in trouble and they got expelled. , whether through his charisma or he was just lucky, he would get out of the trouble he got into. Another thing was he never questioned the institution or its purpose. When they caught him, fine, you caught me. I will take my punishment. He said if you break the rules you have to take your punishment. The actual first page of his lengthy record of delinquencies ,nd the merits that he earned he said they were not extraordinary and what they were but in their number. [laughter] james not great offenses, but many of them. He was able to walk that fine line between having just enough fun, he could get in just enough trouble he could still graduate. Up until the end of his west point career when he was courtmartialed the day before graduation. He ran it right up to the end. Andthing about the goats the people at the bottom of the class, and also in particular George Custer<\/a>, you get a different type of officer at the bottom of the class. The top of the class guys, your mcclellan, your robert e. Lee, they are by the book, they are methodical thinkers, they know all of the theories of war, they apply them. The guys at the bottom tend to be more freespirited, they tend to be more outside the box thinkers, they tend to be more unorthodox because that is the kind of west point career they were pursuing. That is certainly true of custer. Another insight into him we get from his west point days is his bravery. When they caught him, they caught him and he would admit it. Cadet wright said his bravery and battle did not surprise anyone who saw him walking up with calm deliberation to face the instructors with the concession he knew nothing of the lesson. He would just walk up and take it. That is the kind of guy he was. He could have done better if he followed the rules. He was not dumb. He had gone to the academy in monroe, michigan and performed well there. He was a schoolteacher before he went to west point and according to his brother he was reading books all the time. Thethat you could tell by west Point Library<\/a> records, but nevertheless he read a lot of books. He was not a dummy, he would just not have been custer if he spent all his time studying instead of playing pranks and then getting courtmartialed. The civil war came, and this was the thing that made custer custer. It was a terrible thing for west point because the band of brothers, the corps of cadets had to split between the northerners and the southerners. Friends ona lot of the Southern Side<\/a> who happen to be lower down in the class. A lot of them were his friends. He had to go fight them. They remained friends, but that was the way it was. The war became the perfect arena for him to display his talents. He rushed from west point to the than anyld faster graduate of the military academy in history. Within four days he was delayed because his class went on, he was busy being courtmartialed in the summer of 1861 when things were getting hot. Within four days he went from west point to new york to washington, he got an assignment and went into Northern Virginia<\/a> and got there in time to run with the rest from bull run and then back to arlington all in the space of four days. Very little sleep. Quickly that what he would like to do in the war is be and aid to higher commanders. General Philip Kearney<\/a> was the first person who plucked him from a regular command and took him as an aid. Custer realized that in doing this he had a lot of freedom of action which was important to him, to be able to do things and make them happen. Rather than being with his unit all the time, he would be the eyes and ears of his commander. He would also be at headquarters when things would happen. He could volunteer to get involved and in some cases he would just go out and get involved in stuff because he knew that he could and no one would object. Because he was on some general staff, so if he shows up you will just say he was there because the genital because the general sent them there. That gave him flexibility to do things and that fit his style of doing things. This is a trawling of custer crossing the chickahominy which is part of the custer myth. If the story is not true, just print the myth. During the Peninsular Campaign<\/a> when the union army was faced with the Chickahominy River<\/a> which is extraordinarily according tooss, the story George Mcclellan<\/a> and his staff were going up and down the river trying to find out where the cloth where to cross and were arguing a lot about it and custer just jumped in and said it is this deep. [laughter] james not exactly true. The actual story is a lot more dangerous because he did jump in the river. Theellan was not there, chief of engineers was there and custer just got in the river and started doing a reconnaissance under the observation of the enemy. It was highly dangerous. He led an assault across the river once he found a crossing point where they seized some guns and prisoners and caused a lot of trouble before retreating. This is what brought him to the attention of George Mcclellan<\/a>. Aidellan then made him his and custer had a lot of freedom of action than to do a lot of different things. The problem with that was if you attach yourself to a highranking general, you better hope the guys successful, because if he declines, you are likely to go with him and that is exactly what happens. George mcclellan was not fighting the war the way lincoln wanted so he lost his command and then custer lost his influence which was not so good for him. Along the way he had been having a lot of adventures. Aid to became the general wasnt in to general here. Ton, shown this was lucky for him. The general had seen him around the time of the battle of antietam doing some brave things. He thought that is the kind of guy i want. The general had this idea that he wanted to reorganize the Union Cavalry<\/a> corps, but he did not have the authority to do it. Luckily for custer, lee invades pennsylvania. The gettysburg campaign. , lee invades,me general harper is on the outs with lincoln. Pleasonton says what we need to do is reorganize the cap a record. He wants to to reorganize the cavalry corps. Pleasonton already had custer in mind to be one of his guys. He raised three guys to general who were in their 20s. There was custer, and two others. Custer was the youngest of the bunch at 23. That is how he got to be the boy general is because various circumstances happened. They wanted these guys to be leading the calvary but grade as an offensive arm to be able to rebeler jeb stuarts calvary and fight them oneonone the way the rebels have been fighting them. According to pleasonton what they needed was people who can charge into battle and get it done. Andad seen farnsworth custer this at various points. Those were his guys. At 23, he is the youngest general officer in the history of the u. S. Army to that time. By as later superseded soldier of the 97th pennsylvania regiment, 20 years old when he led the assault on fort fisher in january of 1865, where he was shot to pieces. On his deathbed, to honor him he was promoted to brigadier general. Then he lived. [laughter] james he got better. So they bumped him up to major general. Addition it was not just lucky, i do not want to downplay his promotion to general. He earned it. Luck was the circumstances. He earned it through the various charges he led and battles he fought. Frequently joining units he had no business being joined with. He just went out and did it. Now he had a whole prograde to fight with now you had a whole brigade to fight with. There he is on day three of gettysburg. I am sure you are familiar with the battle of gettysburg. Custer was on the right flank, and it was lucky because general craig who was not his commander, general kilpatrick was his commander, kilpatrick was doing stuff at this indie of the battlefield but craig needed people over here. There was custer. He said we are going this way because something bad is going to happen. Custer said no problem. Instinctsh, gregs were right because here comes the confederate calvary trying to get around the union right flank in support of its charge which was in support of was goingcharge which on in the center of the battlefield. That is where custer reached National Fame<\/a> with his consecutive charges at gettysburg. The famous , on you will greens with his the famous come on wolverines with his michigan regiment. The idea that he was going to stop, slowdown down, or confuse what the confederates were doing. He stopped the advance. In jeb stuarts after action report he says that the union side left the field. Yes, they left the field because they beat you. Theas the one who left field. They left it later, when you are gone. After that, the boy general with the golden locks, he was famous. He convinced the men he was leading in the michigan brigade who are wondering why this 23yearold kid was suddenly their general, through that battle he convinced them he has a right to be in command because look at him go. This guy knows how to fight. So what if he is wearing an eccentric uniform with gold lace and a red tide and this bluecollar. It does not matter, as one of his men said he can wear all the gold lace he wants if he can fight like that. That cemented custer as someone who had National Fame<\/a>. He also started making friends with reporters which does not hurt. The New York Times<\/a> was following him around. Why . They knew they were going to get a good story. If youre going to spend your time following someone, follow the guy who is going to fight and can give you a good story. Not famous for nothing. Yet the reporters follow him around and did not give them a story. He did, and that is why they loved him. Other commanders were not even talk to reporters. Courtmartialed because he did not like him. The history of civilmilitary relations. Custer maintained a Good Relationship<\/a> with pleasonton who was the head of the Calvary Court<\/a> but he had a bad relationship with kirkpatrick, his commander. It seems like every time something went wrong kill patrick was blamed but if something went right custer got the credit. That began to wear until patrick. He ultimately try to sideline custer in a raid. He sent custer on a Suicide Mission<\/a> behind confederate lines, not caring if custer came back or not. The main force of the rate, which he was involved in, turned into a tragedy. Killedick did not get but the son of the secretary of the navy did. It was a big fiasco, this raid on richmond and it kind of career inpatricks the east. Custer did this brilliant maneuver and came swooping back, did not take any casualties, saved the day. He got to meet with the president , he was meeting with members of congress, it was beautiful for him. Kilpatrick blew it. Around the same time we have another reorganization where grant comes in from the west, he brings sheraton along. Pleasonton is a casualty of the raid and is set west. Sheridan comes in and now sheridan is going to be the head of the calvary. Custer and sheridan hit it off well. Custer became sheridans righthand man. He could fight the war they wanted to fight. Grant, ran sheridan, sheridan had custer. They were fighting the kind of war that lincoln wanted and aggressive, offensive, get it done kind of thing. This was good for custer. In the sense it gave him the opportunity to fight in many battles, which is what he wanted to do and to excel in that. It is not that he won every time. Got an pretty tough scrapes, but he always got out of them. In the books i found every report i found of custer being reported killed. When you look at little bighorn, and the first reports of his death no one believed it because there were so many reports of him being dead. Poor elizabeth custer, his wife who was in washington, heard , extra, custer killed and had to deal with that before it was proved he was alive. Ofbecomes the instrument this new style of aggressive war that is going to destroy the confederacy. Here is the statue of him in monroe, which is at the moment citing the enemy at gettysburg where he is trying to figure out what he is going to do about all this. Here is a sketch of custer and his men scouring the Shenandoah Valley<\/a> in the summer of 1864 when grant decided the way to deal with the confederacy was to destroy their breadbasket. They went and burned all the farms they could find in the lower part of the valley. Custer was one of the guys who did that. It was during this he was elevated to Division Commander<\/a> and shortly after this he was made a major general. Won some significant victories during that period. He played a big role in cedar creek. Another one i would like to point out is toms brook. Heres a sketch from that battle , also known as the woodstock races, in which he faced off with one of his west point classmates. A confederate calvary men. They fight each other throughout the war. The sidesttle, before were lined up, the confederates were in this really strong position behind a creek and on a hill, dug in and ready to receive the union attack. Custer was lined up on the other side on a hill, having to go down over this broken terrain, it is pretty imposing terrain, down over this creek and up and attack them. Before they mounted the attack, custer rode out in front of the doffed hiscap, cap. He could see his friend on the hill. Like the nights of old, like the knights of old. Friend was energized by this and saying custer, this is going to we are going to give him a whopping. You can say this is part of custer being a showboat. Custer had sent three regiments on a flanking maneuver, using terrain to sneak around the flag and custer was making sure that all eyes were , them while this unit strikeforce was going around and getting ready to hit them in the flank. When he made his charge across this background and the other side was getting ready to hit him, they got hit in the flank, they panicked, they broke and ran. That is what really happened. It was not custer showing off, this was just part of the genius he had. This was how he understood battle. Battle is not just to add the most guns, there is a psychology to battle. Custer has this instinct. When you look at all the battles he fought, he just had this debt he just had this intuitive sense of where to send his forces, when to hit the enemy, when did it look like they were breaking, when did it look like they were too strong. He was just good at it. The more battles he fought, the better he got. Famous foris nothing, no, he is famous because he got it done. He was a natural born warrior and knew how to do it. This, and when you look at the april of 1865, when the confederate line around richmond and petersburg was broken, custer played a big role in that at the battle of five forex. Forks. He battle of five then you have this pursuit for a week to appomattox where lees army was trying to swing south and link up with johnstons army which was being pursued by sherman. The union forces were trying to keep lee from doing this. It was custer who was leading all this. He was way out in front trying to block the different sessions, block the roads, block the bridges, block the railroads. Just magnificently fighting for days on end with men with little rest, taking whole regiments prisoner at a time. He subverted a confederate regiment, he would take their banner and whoever captured it he would put it behind him in this personal bodyguard he had. Be riding along followed by 20 guys with confederate banners showing these are the people we have defeated. It is almost medieval when you think about it. Demoralizing as heck to the confederates to see this. Guysly, it was custers who blocked lee at appomattox, backed him into appomattox courthouse and forced the surrender of lees army. Accepting the flag of truce that suspended the fighting so that lee and grant could meet and negotiate the terms of surrender. Typical custer, where is he as history is being made, this great historic meeting, one of the greatest meetings in american history, these two west pointers from north and south are coming to end this national cataclysm. Off joking around with some confederate west pointer buddy of his he had not seen in a long time, rather than be at this historic meeting he is off screwing around. That is George Custer<\/a>. That is the kind of guy he was. By the way, with respect to the surrender flag, he had it sent to liddy and she was disappointed it was just a dishtowel. , armies do about it not really carry around beautiful surrender flags. It is probably a bad idea to carry those around in any case. There he is in april of 1865. He is a major general. He is 25. He has spent his entire career, he went to requiem from west point to the war and then he spent four years fighting the of the 19th century with the biggest armies. Playing fighting in but a significant role in critical battles that shaped the history of that war. Here he is. Now what . Where do you go after that . Where do you go in your career, what you do after that . He is only 25 when this photo is taken. What you do . He had options. He could have gone into politics. One of his regimental commanders became the governor of michigan, for example. Custer could have been governor of michigan, easy. He couldve been in congress, he could have been a senator. He couldve written his own ticket in politics. He could have looked at a diplomatic post he was thinking maybe i could be an ambassador. Would go to idea he mexico and fight with the mexican rebels who were fighting against a puppet government that had been set up by the french. He was going to go the secretary of state got the way and said it might be a diplomatic incident. He could have maybe he could have gone into business although he did not have a head for that. Ho knows reppo he could have he could have done many things but instead he stays in the army. This is when things start to go wrong. Goes downthing is, he to louisiana and texas because, guess what, the war is still going on. There is still some resistance. Then there was an expectation there would be more resistance and through an abundance of caution the government was keeping regiments in uniform. Volunteer regiments from states of people who thought the war was over and wanted to go home. There was a lot of desertion. In order to deter this, custer had guys whipped. This was not so good. There are things you can do during the war they were hanging people. You know the expression branded a deserter . Take it literally. That is what they did. They would brand you. There were punishments. You cannot do this in peacetime. Even though technically the war was still going on, in fact, most people thought it was over. This got him some very bad press. He went from the golden haired hero to the hero of the lash. Iowa, thely in regiment where the guys were whipped, the Legislature Passed<\/a> a condemnation of custer. That was bad. The postwar drawdown affected him because once the war was over we do not need generals. He reverted to his regular army rank of captain. Captain, fine, but he just did all the aerobic stuff, cant he get Something Better<\/a> . They bumped him up to Lieutenant Colonel<\/a> and made him Deputy Commander<\/a> of the seventh calvary. Custer did not think that was so great. He helped win the war. You helped ushim win the war. No. Youre going to be a regimental Deputy Commander<\/a>. Ok, he will take it, but he was not happy. In order to try to improve his station, he got linked in with supporting president johnson. He got involved in politics, trying to promote the idea of this new centrist coalition. No one knew what was going to happen after the war politically. Everyone knew what was going on before the war, you are the northern democrats, southern democrats, republicans, and assorted others. The Republican Party<\/a> had been an abolitionist party. Slavery had gone. The southern democrats had been for slavery. It was gone. How is it going to sort out . One theory was there will be northern democrats and ex disaffected people from the Republican Party<\/a> and form a centrist thing and that will be the new force. Custer got involved in that kind of politics. Bad move. What happened is the republicans took over. Even without abolitionism as an issue, it did not matter. They had a new issue. They had won the war. That is a much stronger issue. All of the relationships that were made during the war became political relationships after the war. To the great benefit of ohio, i might add. If you look at all the ohio president s that followed the civil war, all veterans, mostly they fought in the same unit. Big miscalculation on his part. Ever since he had been on mcclellan staff, he had ducked the idea that his reputation of being a mcclellan man who was antilincoln and a democrat. With republicans in charge he had to put distance between those ideas, which were true, by the way. He was a mcclellan man, he loved mcclellan, and he was a democrat all his life. The drawdown, the stuff in texas , itlouisiana, bad politics was not good for custer. Then he had another problem. Frontier duty. He was not a frontier warrior. He had never been out there. He did not know anything about that. He was a conventional warrior in the classical sense, he fought in the civil war. Horse on horse battle. He faced the same problems we faced in vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq. What do you do about counterinsurgency . That is the kind of warfare we fought against the indians. It was not Like Fighting<\/a> the confederacy. The confederacy would stand up and fight you. The indians would run away and then ambush you later when you are all strung out. They had their own way of fighting. It was totally different. Well adapted to their environment. Custer had a taste of this chasing mosby in Northern Virginia<\/a> during the war. It cannot work then, either. He cannot find him and its not work out well it did not work out well. John gibbons said glory on the plains meant being shot by an indian from behind a rock and having your name spelled wrong in the newspapers. [laughter] james it is a different kind of war. Not what custer was used to. The thing about that is he fought fewer battles in his next 10 years than he did in the last year of the civil war. They were mostly small battles. When you look at the scale of combat of custer on the planes, totally different. Little bighorn was the big one. Even little bighorn, if you look at the number of casualties, a couple hundred, compare that to antietam. Nothing. A very small engagement by civil war standards. That is what custer was used to at the time. All of this added up here he is on the planes talking to pawnee killer, an indian chief who was causing him difficulties during an 1867 campaign. Here he is later, wondering about life. He was courtmartialed at the end of that campaign. Some people say he was a scapegoat because general hancock, who had run the campaign ended a bad job and they needed somebody to blame it on and they blamed it on custer, on the other hand custer did abandon some of his guys in the field and he had some deserters shot and did some other things that got him courtmartialed. You be the judge, you can read the records. It is in the book, too. Custer thought he was framed and he was being scapegoated. Itridan agreed with them but did not matter, he was still courtmartialed and suspended for a year. Just two years after the civil war when he was a hero, now he is suspended from duty and has to take one year off. A bad time for custer. He did not let it show, he spent time hunting, fishing, that kind of thing. It was not good. Then he was resurrected. The problem with the indian wars was you cannot find the enemy. It is the same problem today. When you can find the guerrillas , the taliban or the islamic state, whoever it happens to be, if you can find them, you know what to do. The problem is finding them. Someone came up with the idea, later credited to sheridan, what about Winter Operations<\/a> . Get them in the winter when they cant move around a lot. Isnt that going to be hard for the army to do . Yes, but it is going to be more hard for the indians. They need someone who is going to test this concept, so who are you going to call . They get custer and bring him back. That is where we get this, the. Amous battle custer led this operation against black kettle, a cheyenne chief who previously figured in something called the sand creek massacre where his people were attacked. I feel sorry for black kettle, he keeps getting into these things, not after this, because he got killed. Back becausecuster from the armys point of view in the public point of view, this particular attack validated the concept of Winter Operations<\/a> and showed that the indians could be defeated. Was an attack, it on a peaceful village of people who are minding their own business and then the cavalry came in and slaughtered everybody. The actual number of People Killed<\/a> is disputed, the number of women and children killed is disputed, there are a lot of disputes about this. The important thing to note number one, there is an argument, number two, it is what brought custer back. In the eyes of his superiors, he did a great job. After this, he reinvents himself as a frontiersman. Heres a picture taken in the studio in kansas city. He becomes a great buffalo hunter. Here is an illustration of his first buffalo hunt where he managed to kill his own horse. [laughter] james i have heard people say he did not know what he was doing, like he is not a good horseman . He was a brilliant horseman. He made a mistake. , laying his horse there, which was also libbys favorite mount, captured from custis lee. We know this because custer wrote about it. He came out alone on the plains trying to gun down this buffalo with the pistol, and he wrote about it. He admitted this mistake, that is a pretty good mistake to admit. If youre an arrogant guy, to hold yourself up to that kind of mockery, i think that is characteristic of custer that he would admit his foibles. He could laugh at himself, which is not something you usually hear about him. I think it is true. His wife libby by his side throughout this, his childhood crush. He says she didnt notice him when they were younger. He noticed her and then won her hand over the objections of her father who finally relented when he became a general because a general is good enough for my daughter. A good way to look at it. Outwardly, an amazing romance. They were together whenever possible. There are terrific stories regarding their marriage and their romance. My favorite one is that when the confederacy collapsed and left richmond, she was on a congressional tour that went down there soon after. She got into richmond before he did. He was coming back from appomattox and met her there, she was staying in jefferson daviss bedroom and that was where they were reunited. Can you imagine that life . And in their 20s . It is really something. Tremendous circumstances that they lived in. There is a story about custer being a ladies man. That is not libby, by the way, that he is kissing. I love the expression of the matron behind them, who is shocked. This was at a reception he and president grant and sherman were at where the rating where the ladies just started kissing the generals. A comical circumstance, but it did make the papers. There is this idea that custer was having various relations and allegedly somewhere someone says there is a list i have never seen this. Supposedly in the secret papers of libby that no one has ever seen there is a list of all the paper all the women George Custer<\/a> was sitting on the side. Not know what was going on, but i do know this. A lot of what we know about custer and other women comes from letters that george wrote to libby. There isk about one when he is in new york on a business trip and he says there is this 19yearold blonde that keeps walking by the hotel. I went out and talk to her. Gentlemen, why would you write this to your wife . Seriously. This is going to help promote good feelings at home . I dont think so. Or an Indian Princess<\/a> they captured, the made in with the dancing eyes who was supposedly very beautiful. How do we know this . He wrote to libby all about her. She is beautiful, she laughs at all my jokes. Libby got out to where he was quickly. She packed up and got out to him. Why would he do this . Maybe he was a ladies man or maybe he was just communicating to live a that he was a popular guy and maybe she should pay more attention to him. Who can say . Another date at custer, probably the one you hear the most is that he was a genocidal indian hater. He would kill indians at the drop of a hat. That was his thing in life. This is not true. That is not true. It is a much more nuanced picture. He was a man of his times, no doubt. He said he wrote about the indians. He lived near them. The ones who lived near the forts and he dealt with them. He said there was Nothing Better<\/a> than living sidebyside with them in peace. You could witness their culture and see their customs, he thought it was fascinating. He observed them objectively. He wrote positive things, he wrote negative things. He wrote about the reservation system and how he thought it was killing their spirit. He said the spirit of the indian is to be free and when they go on the reservation, they lose their culture, they start drinking. George did not drink. He gave up drink, he did not smoke, either. It ruined them. He was a severe critic of this. He thought the indians were much better when they were living their own lives in their old in their own culture. There were indian scouts who loved him, one said he had the heart of an indian. He wrote if he were one of them, he would not be someone on a reservation. He would be one of the dissenters riding free across the plains, the crazy horses and the setting bowls. They were hanging on to what made them and the sitting bulls. They were hanging on to what made them what they were. It sounds like he really tried to reach an understanding of who those people were and he found things in them to admire. The things he most admired where the things he saw in himself that he liked. That is my take on custer and the indians. You can say hes on them and he killed them. Why did he do that . He is a soldier and the hostile bands were enemies. He went after the enemy. He burned indian villages, yes, sometimes. He also burned the Shenandoah Valley<\/a>. Body count,to do a add up the number of probable indian deaths he was responsible for against the number of confederates. He killed a lot more confederates than he ever did indians. It is a superficial argument, saying he fought them. That was his job. General sherman tells them to do something. I dont know general sherman, if we live in peace and harmony it would be much better. Thats true, it would be much better. But you have the enemy, and youre going to fight them. That is what he did. I would say, with respect to this issue, keep it in perspective. Bad things happen, no doubt, bad things happen in every war, but custer was not some kind of genocidal killer. You as a soldier he was a soldier. He spent a lot of time on the frontier, in kentucky, not fight a lot of battles. It was not like they were ranging around fighting all the time. It and can float. Sometimes the seventh cap it ebbed aand flowed. Sometimes the seventh calvary was not even involved. He went on the yellowstone expedition to chart a route for a railroad. There was some fighting their. s fought some of sitting bull guys. He learned lessons about the indians that probably informed him when he was fighting at little bighorn, probably informed him wrong. He did understand some other things about them. Indians were the better armed than our guys because the calvary had been facing budget cutbacks and had inferior weapons, where the indians were buying off the black market and Getting Better<\/a> weapons. Turn the yellowstone expedition he realized there was a problem. The yellowstone expedition he realized there was a problem. Of eventsed the chain that changed things was the 1874 black kills expedition which custer led and which discovered gold in the black hills. There is argument over how much gold was found or if it was orugh to start a gold rush whether custer was a cheerleader for the gold rush or if he was in the pay of the railroads, there are a lot of theories. The gold rush happened. That, the black hills were supposed to be offlimits. They were supposed to be part of the reservation, part of the sacred ground for indians, it was not to be messed with. You cannot keep out people who are pursuing gold during the gold rush, particularly when you have an economic downturn which was happening at the time. There was the idea the government would buy the black hills from the indians. The indians were not interested in that. Some of the indians this was the point at which sitting bull and others sentries trees are worthless with you guys. Youre breaking your word with us, youre trying to get us to be complicit in that i offering us paltry sums. We are not staying on the reservation. We are going to live the traditional way and youre going to have to deal with it. That chain of events started rolling and that is what leads you to the battle of little bighorn. Little bighorn happened after the interior Department Gave<\/a> an and them to the sioux cheyenne and the others who are off the reservation, saying if you do not get back we will send out the army, and they did. That is how that happened. Before we get to there, you have to have the washington angle. Everything is really about washington. Here is president grant. I think that custer had a little resentment for grant. Custer it is now 10 years after the war is over. He is still a Lieutenant Colonel<\/a>, he is still the Deputy Commander<\/a> of the seventh cavalry, which has gone through two kernels. Which has gone through two colonels. It went to older guys. Custer said i want to be the commandant of cadets at west point, the returning goat being the commandant, the second ranking die at west point. That would have been fantastic. He did not get that. Out, no onehelp him pulled strings. He thought about quitting, my career is going nowhere, everything is stagnant, forget it. Then the election of 1874, in november, the democrats seized control of the house for the First Time Since<\/a> before the war you had a democratic house. People custer can work with, his friends, the democratic party. Custer gets involved in 1876 corruptions inn the grant administration, in particular testifying against the secretary of war. You have a serving lieutenant giving on the hill testimony that is taking down the secretary of war, who had to resign and was impeached after he resigned, that is how mad they were at him. He was not convicted. Custer was implicating others in the grant administration, including the president s brother. You can guess the president was thrilled by these developments of a sitting officer, particularly someone he had known and worked with during the war. They knew he was a loose cannon, but, on. Youre going to do that to the president of the United States<\/a> . Sherman is trying to help custer out, first he is telling him you have to shut up, but also i will try to work something out with grant. Grant says the heck with it, youre not going on the sioux expedition. I am taking you off the expedition because you interrupted your preparations for that to come to washington and jam me up. This was not so good. Custer tries to get meetings with grant to plead his case. Sherman tells them to sit tight, we will work it out. Does custer sit tight . No. He leaves. He says he is going back to his command at fort lincoln. At chicago he is arrested and told you are in big trouble. Finally, through the andrvention of sheridan others, not to mention george pleading on his knees for clemency, he is finally allowed to go on the sioux expedition with two stipulations. One, he would not be in command, he would just be in command of his regiment, and two, no reporters. You cannot take along any reporters to talk about how great you do. Custer immediately blew those two stipulations off. As soon as he could get free, he did his own thing. Of course he brought reporters along. That is what he does. That is the political background to this. It put a chip on his shoulder that he had something to prove when he went to little bighorn. When he went on the expedition, he did not know it was going to end up there. Bighorn,et to little we can talk a lot about this battle. It is one of the most written about battles in american history. This and gettysburg. There is a lot to say about it. And very strong opinions on this battle. People really take into their positions on what happened. It overshadows all of his life. This became the defining moment for him, even though he did all this stuff before hand that made him famous. This becomes the thing. The battle was famous because of custer. Otherwise it would have just been a battle. Because he died there, the immortal custer who cannot be killed, this flamboyant famous guy. Fighting a battle against people who had no business winning battles. No one thought the indians could win a battle that day. It seemed inconceivable. How could this possibly have happened. Central to everything regarding the story. Think about it. Where all ofkers the bodies were found of the men who fell. Markers where they were found. What other battle do you know of where theyve marked the location of all the men on one side who died . Incredible. The myth that surrounds this battle. There are also markers for native americans, where they think they might have been. So, when you look at the custer mademade mistakes. Preparation of the battlefield, meaning he did not find out before hand what he was going into. He should have done more scouting. He did not. Enemy estimation of morale. He thought they would run, but they did not. Inferior weapons. Not his fault, but he should have been aware of what he was going into. Importantly, dividing his forces and not properly coordinating them. He lost track of where his men were, and ended up isolated at last stand hill. That was a problem. Mistake,his biggest going so far down that ridge. Battle, at one point either some of his men or all of his men went down to the river. But they kept going further, where they could be surrounded. That is what killed him. Are we okay . That went out . Sorry. When he was isolated and could renoegroup because major was just not a good guy, did not show Proper Initiative<\/a> and did not like custer anyway. Bentine showed more initiative but not enough. Custers command was surrounded. Here is the final order from custer telling bentine to come on quick. Its up at west point at the museum. But no, he did not come on quick. But it was a big village. It was too big. So again, you could debate i summarizing what i think was custers biggest mistake. About it i like best was sitting bulls account of how custer died. That he was the last man surrounding standing. He fired the final shot from his revolver and he laughed. The person who is interviewing sitting bull said, oh, you mean he cried out. No, he said. He laughed. Body, hethey found his was laying there with a smile on his face. If he is going to go out and of glory, that was the way to do it. Him innted hen in fame forever. So here is a statue of him erected at west point, which later disappeared. So if you see anything like that at a yard sale [laughter] the top of the statue, libby did not like it. Theres a whole story that, like i said, its missing. Nobody knows where it is. Must be hard to hide, but it is somewhere. So if i could sum up custer, you know, we talked about extremes. He is either unblemished or a fiend or an idiot. All of these things are said about him. I dont believe any of them. He might have had extremes, but none of those. Who wentkid from ohio on to do all of these amazing things. He achieved it through his own ability and maybe through lock luck. Man. S a braxve he would charge into the teeth of enemy fire. He had the same mo. Move and go into it. He never asked his men to do something he wouldnt do. He knew how to operate his forces on the battlefield. It is probably one of the reasons why we are talking about him, no doubt. But i do not think it is the only reason. And he got what he wanted. He said earlier in his life that he craved admiration and renown. Custer got its, too soon. 25 at the peak of his power. Then it went away. He had career stagnation. Did not have kids. He lived a good life with libby, but it was not what it was. Of it at 25. E he was there. A part of it. He was helping to shape world events. But then it was gone, and he never got it back. Maybe that feeling was what he tailhasing down medicine at little big horn. Anyway, thank you for coming out tonight. Ill take any of your questions. [applause] please keep your questions brief and to the point. Please also remember we are going to the rotunda for a book signing. You can have an extensive conversation with him afterwards. I would be interested to know how you came to this subject matter. Was it when you were a child . James it developed later on, actually. When i was younger and studying military history, i was mainly eight world war ii buff because my father served. It was more interesting to me than the civil war. That came later when i was working as a professor at marine quantico. Ersity in i had to get interested in it because it was my job. I developed more of an interest in it at that time. This book grew out of the first book. Gettysburg. Me from whoere talking about guys were last in their class. Custer was last in his class. Fought ath heath gettysburg. Were six people in gettysburg who were last in their class. That book led to this book. James george patton. No doubt. Similar west point experience. He had his back turned to the library or a reason. [laughter] when you look at patterns early career where he did some off the cuff things, people do not know the story of the young george patton. It was much more interesting than his later stuff. But i would say that patton and custer are similar guys. They say custer had it coming. They attribute that to the arrogance, and like you said, he was not prepared for battle. But his Technical Skills<\/a> on the plains were maybe a done of what he had earlier. Do you feel he sealed his doom . That this would happen sooner or later . James not necessarily. Survived little bighorn right up until the end. Battalion ands support,of realistic instead of going north, he had gone south act up the way he came. Even if he had been tracking more closely what his other battalions were doing, that was his failing. He should have kept better track of that. He should have seen that movement and responded to it. The only reason i can think of that he would keep going would with generalcolumn pinceraking a sort of movement. But terry was far away. To me, it was the final move. Werese reno and bentine going to survive. If those two battalions could make it, then three could. So i dont think it was inevitable or that he had it coming. He had made mistakes and enumerated them. But the fatal one was his final move. But again, that is where you get the debates. Was he even alive at that point . There was a theory that he was killed by the river. Another very that only a few guys went down to the river and the rest kept going. Those debates are endless. In my opinion, if it is true that they all went down to the river, then they should have known where reno was not where he shouldve been and they should have pulled back. Hello. I noticed there was supposed to be a three pronged attack. Cook hadd no idea that met todays earlier with cheap crazy horse. Two days earlier. They thought they were proceeding upwards. And i think, to me, it surprised me that he didnt want anybody knowing he was at that pike. James crook blew it. Not only did he fail at his battle and decide to stop. And he spent the next few weeks fishing, according to one of his aides. He sent word back to the fort and over to chicago, then it had to come back up to fort lincoln and back to the field. Everything was over before anyone knew his guys were out of the fight. I do not know why he does not get more criticism. He knew they were coming. Why did he not send out scouts . Come on. They are scouts. They make it there. At least give it a shot. Anyway, great point. Time, io the pressing am going to end questions and ask that you join us to the drinks, butcookies, thank you for coming. Thank you to our friends at cspan. [applause] on history bookshelf, here known history writers every saturday at 4 00 eastern. You can watch any of our programs when you visit cspan. Org history. You are watching history weekend, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. Survivorholocaust discusses hisdel survival of the holocaust. And his family were eventually transported to bergenbelsen, where anne frank died. This is about 40 minutes. Our moderator is barry steelman. 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