I would like to thank all of the library team and its great meeting some of you in the audience. Its great to be back home in ohio. It is good to shake off inside the beltway every now and then. They all have ohio roots one way or another either born and raised here. As a friend from mississippi said, you have a lot of bloody bastards from your state. [laughter] i guess it depends on what side you are on. One question that i get about my book is why is that the title, what makes your book the real book and the answer to that question is to say that is what the publisher wanted. Okay so thats the title. But i think it is better to view and not as the conclusion like this is the real custard is more like a question. Little big horn its like thats the mistakes that he made on that day. But that isnt the case. She had a whole life and character so the book really is about trying to get to the root of the question. If we could strip away all of the things that have been written since then and just talk about the man himself, so thats what it is really supposed to be about. The famous anheuserbusch advertisement that they commissioned and became most peoples view of what happened on that day. For example, one of the most talked about in American History and probably the most written about battle and gettysburg of course where he also fought and played a key role. He has been lionized, demonized and hes been heralded committee has been mobbed him hes been mentioned in books, articles. This is a 1926 movie. He is more famous today and mentioned them he was at the height of his fame. Hes more he is more mentioned in books than he ever was in history. You can look at the statistics and it just keeps going up plus it is just immensely famous. And a part of what we are going to talk about is what he is famous for. Here he is being portrayed by Ronald Reagan in the historically challenged film the santa fe trail where he does a bunch of stuff that he never ever did. [laughter] but its a movie. What do you want. And john brown is featured in this movie and we talk about the collection of the john brown materials. [inaudible] this is the image most associated with him. They spoke the seriousness and also the boyishness into the prankster and things like that so it really captures that he and becomes the symbol. But then he became kind of a tragic hero and everything was great about him and when you bring someone up to that level of being a superhero, it is pretty easy to then transfer them into being the super villain. So after the 1960s and 70s when that took hold of the culture rather than the heroic custer, we had the custer from Little Big Man or we have had as a kind of psycho. A selfimportant, chaotic random kind of guy that made decisions and wasnt even aware of all of this. So, i mean he became the real one to many people. She had no military ability whatsoever. He was an indian hater, genocidal maniac and things like this. So, that really became a dominant image of custer in the last 30 years or so. Now we have representation like this from the night at the museum of a few seen this movie of general custer and bill playing custer in which he laments i will always be famous for my biggest failure. But in the way for people that like and this is progress because in this of this movie hes actually one of the good guys. And hes this kind of lovable loser but at least hes one of the good guys in this movie. Along the way weve had him comment, weve had custer the action figure. We have had the playset and in the marble books and songs and movies come every medium possible talking about the general. So, whether he approves of that i dont know but he is not amused. So, thats why him, why George Custer, why is he more famous today than ever in his life, he isnt famous for nothing. You can do that these days. These days you can be famous for nothing. There are lots of people that are famous for nothing or the corollary to that is saying it is full of famous people that you have never heard of. But that he had long hair or she wore a tie he was famous for reasons we will talk about some of those. So, lets take him back a few years. There he is. George custer at west point, John Montgomery when he was in his third year described him as an indexer and soldier of a poor student, a reckless cadet always in trouble playing pranks that liked by everyone. That was at west point. He said his career was an example to be carefully avoided. He would go to the class, he was the last in his class and the title of my other book thats out there. What does that mean, does it mean that he was a dummy or that he couldnt hack it . No because there are two types of people that come in. One type to get to west point and its hard they are in over their head, they struggle and they do but they can and they squeak in right at the bottom and that is one type. The other type gets to west point and says i can handle this. I graduate from this. I dont care about the grade or the class rank. So im just going to have a good time to the extent that i can end of the last and at the last minute i will just cram antisqueak through. He was from that type. There had been many like him. George, another example, speaking of people famous for blowing it. So, jeanne was to spend his time going to the tavern nearby, going in the middle of the night to enjoy and have some of their escapades. He would try to get to get there with visiting the piedmont or whoever might be around because at the time west point particularly was a Tourist Destination so naturally they were investigating who might be checked in and custer was definitely among the group. Playing pranks and doing other things and generally getting in trouble this is what he did. He had a talent for that but i think what is more important for understanding customer he had a talent for getting out of trouble. A lot of guys got in trouble and got expelled. But George Custer for whatever reason and his charisma or if he was lucky he would get out of the trouble that he got into and another thing is he never questioned the institution or its purpose. When they caught him, fine. You caught me. I will take my punishment. If you break the rules you have to take your punishment. Since he began racking up a lot of the delay in quincy to the actual first page to the merits that he earned. As he said they were not extraordinary that they were in the number. [laughter] said he was able to somehow walk a fine line between having just enough so he could still graduate and this is right up to the end of his career when he was courtmartialed the day before graduation. So right up to the end. But the thing about the people in the bottom of the class generally and also in particular you get a different type of officer at the bottom of the class. At the top of the class you know, you are mcclellan, robert e. Lee. They are very methodical thinkers. They know all of the theories and apply them and so forth. Those at the bottom tend to be more free spirit, they tend to be more outside the box, a little bit more unorthodox because thats the kind of career that they were pursuing and that certainly was true of custer. Another insight we get is his bravery because when they caught him, they called him and he would admit it and the cadet said that his bravery in the battle didnt surprise anyone that has seen him walking up with calm deliberation to the head of the section to face the instructors with a confession that he knew nothing. So he would just walk up and take it. He could have done better at the academy if you follow the rules. He had gone to the academy in michigan and performed very well when he was younger. He was actually a School Teacher before he went to west point. According to his brother he was reading books all the time. Not that you could tell from the Library Records but nonetheless, he read a lot of books. So he just wouldnt have been custer if he spent all his time studying instead of playing pranks and then getting courtmartialed and delayed joining his fellows at the war. So the civil war came and this was the thing that made him in my opinion. The band of brothers, the court of cadets between the northerners and the southerners. A lot of them are his friends and had to go fight him. They still remain prints but thats the way that it was. The war became the perfect arena for him to display his talent. He brushed from west point to the battlefield probably faster than any graduate of the military Academy Academy in history. Within four days he was the late because his class went on but he was busy being courtmartialed. This was in the summer of 1861 when things were getting a little bit hot. Within four days he went from west point to new york to washington. He got an assignment and he ran up to northern virginia. Got there in time to run with the rest from both on and then back to arlington in four days. And with terrible sleep. He realized quickly that what he would like to do is be an aid to the higher commanders. The Brigadier General was the first person who plucked him from the regular command and was taken 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 to make things happen rather than just being with his unit all the time, he would be like the eyes and ears of his commander and he would also be at the headquarters when things were going to have volunteered to get involved in them or in some cases he would just go out and get involved in stuff just because he knew that he could and no one would object. Not because he was on a gender roles a general staff comes in if you showed up with stress to say he was there because the generals had him there and sometimes that was true. Under the observation of the enemy. And that was highly dangerous. Not only that he went across the river where they see guns and prisoners to cause trouble to show that it could have been done. But this brought him to the attention of mclellan who then took him to make him his eight. But the problem with that is if you equate yourself to the high ranking general you better hope you are successful because if he declines you will go with him in that is what happened. George mcclellan was not fighting the war the way lincoln wanted so pylos his command so custer lost his influence. But along the way he was having interesting adventures. So then he became the a the aid which was very lucky for him although he did not know what at the time. To be generally heroic to think that is what we want. In the a deity read organize the Calgary Court. But luckily for custer with the gettysburg campaign. Around that time we invade general hooker and then the first guy he meets with and says what do we need to do to stop general the . He said we need to reorganize the Calgary Court so we can go after jeb stuart and fight these guys. So they already had custer in mind. So those who were in their twenties there was custer and farnsworth than merit. So that is how he got to be the general because of the various circumstances. But they wanted these guys to leave to the calgary brigade to fight one on one. But what they needed were people who could charge into battle to get it done. They had seen custer do this at various points of those were his guys. So that 23 the youngest general officer in the history of u. S. Army at that time and later superseded by petty packer who was 20 years old as a colonel when he led the assault on fisher when shot to pieces. And on his deathbed to honor him he was promoted to Brigadier General. Then he lived. [laughter] so to bump them up to Major General. [laughter] in addition he earned it but it was the circumstances that led to it that frequently joining in its tin battles. So now he had a whole brigade. But on the right flank and general craig who was is commander and doing things that this and of the battlefield and there was custer. Because something bad will happen. But custer said no problem. So sure enough his instincts were right because here comes the confederate calvary trying to get around to the right flank going on in the center of the battlefield. So that is where he reached a National Fame with his consecutive charges that gettysburg like, my new wolverines to spend each regiment with the idea with what the confederates were doing and as it turned out, it worked. And the union side left my field. He left because they beat you so it was not quite accurate. But he convinced the men the he was leading who wondered why the 23 yearold kid was a general and he has a right to be in command. So bearing the eccentric uniform with their red tie and though bluecollar but it doesnt matter. So that cemented custer. And he started to make friends with reporters. Because they knew they would get a good story. Sova to follow the guy who could fight. Again led sherman had run court martial. With Civil Military reaction relations they had a Good Relationship that was the head of the court and it seemed like every time something went wrong in their division but something went right custer got the credit. And ultimately tried to sideline custer and sent on a Suicide Mission and not really caring but as it turned out the main forces that he was involved in turned into a tragedy. From the secretary of navy. So that was of big fiasco. But custer did a brilliant maneuver and captured prisoners and came swooping about back so he got to meet with the president so it is beautiful for him. And around the same time we have another reorganization where grain is comes in from the west with an unfortunate casualty of the raid that he closed and now sheridan will be the head of the calgary and they hit it off well. Koesterer became his righthand man and a fight the war the wanted to fight. They were fighting the kind of for that linkedin wanted aggressive land offensive to get it done. In the sense it gave him the opportunity to fight in battles. Not that he won every time he always got out of his grapes of but never report i could find of custer stood if you look at little big horn and reports of his death nobody believed it because theres so many reports of him being dead. Even his wife in washington at the time she heard the news foyers pullover windows hearing he was killed and had to deal with that before it was proven that he was alive. So he is the instrument of this war that will destroy the confederacy that the moment fights the enemy at gettysburg of. Here is a sketch of custer and his men scourings the Shenandoah Valley when grant decided the way to do with the confederacy is to destroy the breadbasket so they burned all the forms they could find him in the lower part of the valley where he was elevated to a Division Commander and shortly after a one another one 2. 0 is Thomas Brooks and and here is a sketch from that battle for where he faced off with the west point classmate serge who is a confederate cavalry and they fought each other throughout the war but this battle before the sides were lined up on a creek and on a hill and custer was laid upon the other side and if you go there it is pretty imposing. Before they mounted the attack custer rode out. He could see up on the hill hear we are. Just like the knights of old tuesday d. C. Can . Him do you see this . But that is him being a showoff. That is one way to look at it but meanwhile custer sent three regiments on the flanking maneuver and custer was making sure all eyes were on him while the strike force went around to put them in the flank. This the other side get ready to hit there were hits in the flank and panicked and broke and ran. This is just part of the genius and how he understood battle. That there is a psychology but there is the instinct would get all the battles to have the intuitive sense where to hit the enemy where does it look like theyre too strong . For more battles he fought the better he got. Since he is famous because he got it done as a natural born warrior. He knew how to do it. So looking at april 1865 with a line around petersburg was broken custer played a big part of that thing you have a pursuit where lees army was trying desperately with johnsons army that was driven by sherman and the union forces tried to keep leigh from doing this and it was custer was out in front with the confederates tried to block the roads and bridges and railroads. And directed isnt the fighting for the days on end taking a prisoner at a time and whoever captured it would be a personal bodyguard. So customer would be riding along it is almost medieval. And it is demoralizing as head to see this. In here is custer excepting the flag of truce so that we could meet at the house to negotiate the terms of surrender. So where is he this great historic meeting through west point of north and south to end the national cataclysms . He is joking around with the confederate west point buddy he had not seen in a long time. Rather than be at the historic breeding that is just George Custer. And libby was disappointed it was just a dishtowel. [laughter] but armies of dont carry around a surrender flags and that is probably a bad idea. So there he is. As saying Major General he spent his entire career and spent four years fighting the greatest war of the 19th century with the biggest armies ever in the history of mankind to play a significant role in critical battle that shaped the history of that war. Here he is. Now what . Where do you go after that . He is only 25 when the photo was taken. What do you do . He had options. He could have gone into lowes politics one became the governors of michigan he could have been easy and it was there for the taking. He could have bnai a senator and written his own report no doubt. He was thinking i could have been an ambassador. There was the idea he would fight with the mexican rebels thought that was set up by the french and he was going to go but the secretary of state got in the way back he was ready to go. So he could have went into business but instead he stayed in the army. This is when things start to go wrong. There was still some resistance within the expectations there is more resistance than the government was keeping regiments day in uniform volunteer regiments for those who thought the war was over. So there was a lot of desertions though to be fair this was not good they were hanging people. Du know the expression branded a deserter . Clearly they would brand you. So there were punishments but you cannot do