Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Real Custer 20

Heres the cover. The Second Intelligence Committee Report on torture. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Next, James Robbins counts the life of George Custer including his childhood in formative years as well as time in the field of battle from the civil war to his final defeat at the battle of little bit worn. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] thank you, glenn. I would also like to thank arlene and paulie and all the Hudson Library team. Its great being the sum of human audience. A wonderful busy here. Great to be back home in ohio. It is good to shake off inside the beltway every now and then. You know washington right . As we heard 80 miles south of here arthur grant sherman, one way or another ureter base here. As a friend from mississippi said, you have a lot of bloody from your state. [laughter] i guess it depends what side you are on. Last night but anyway. One question i get about my book, the real custer is why is that the title . Obliges this make you about the real custer . The easiest way to answer that question is to say that is what the publisher wanted. Okay, that is the title. But i think it is really 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 do we know . Little bit corn is so pervasive when you talk about George Custer. If the ad is the whole man, the mistakes he made on that day. That is not the case. He had a whole life in the whole carrot or any disabled person. The book is about trying to get to the root of that question here too was this man . If we can strip away all the things said then. All of the history, Everything Else and talk about the man himself. That is what it is supposed to be about. Little bit corn the famous anheuserbusch advertisement that they commissioned that became most peoples view of what happened on that day. For example one of the most asked about guys in American History probably the most written about battle, this thing gettysburg here at gettysburg where custer also flawed and also played a key role. He has been lionized. Hes been. Hes been heralded. Hes been mocked. He has been mentioned in books articles, and media of all stories, movies. This is a 1926 movie traumatizing that. Hes more famous today. Hes more mentioned today in books and he was at the height of his fame. He is more mentioned today in vaux than he ever was in history. You can look at the statistics. It keeps going up good pastor is immensely famous. Harder but we are going to talk about is what he is famous for. Here he is being portrayed as Ronald Reagan in the historically challenged film santa fe trail. [laughter] were George Custer does a bunch of stuff that he never, ever did. [laughter] but it is a movie. Buddy while . Of course john brown is in this movie, talk about the great collection of john brown material. Heres aeros litmus custer and they died with their boots on. The most noted in terms of the 20th century this is the image of christ are the people most associated with. Capturing both the seriousness but also the boyishness and things like that which will talk about. It became kind of a symbol of that. All of this is great about him. When him. When you race him. Would you rate someone to the level of being a superhero it is pretty easy to then transfer them into being the super villain. In the 60s and 70s for that sort took hold in our culture rather than this custer from little ape man we had Richard Mulligan playing him as this kind of psycho. A selfimportant, chaotic cool random kind of guy who just made bad decisions all the time and wasnt aware of any of this. It became the real custer. He was a blowhard. He had no military ability whatsoever. He was an indian hater, genocidal maniac and things like this. I became a dominant image in the last 30 years or so now we have representation like this from night at the new com of general custer and ben stiller. That is bill hater plain custard. In which he laments, i will always be famous for my biggest failure. In a way for people who like custer this is progress because hes actually one of the good guys. He has this klutzy lovable loser, but at least hes one of the good guys in this movie. A little bit of a different faith. Along the way weve had comments. Weve had the action figure. Theres not a museum at the bottom. We have had custer the playset and innumerable books articles on movies tv every medium possible talking about general custer. So whether he approves of that i dont know. He is not amused. But why . Why George Custer . Why is he so famous quiet icy famous today than in his life . He is not famous for nothing. You can do that these days. This days you can be famous for nothing. Lots of people who are famous for nothing or the corollary to that is something in washington its full of famous people youve never heard of. But he wasnt just that he had long hair or wear hair or where he tied or with an eccentric or acting crazy. He was famous for everything. So we are going to talk about some of it. So lets take it back a few years. There he is. George custer at west point. Pester the goat. Cadet John Montgomery write to us at the wynn pastor was in his third year described him as an indifferent soldier a poor student a racer and reckless cadet always in trouble, always plain submission of a spring and liked by everyone. That was custer at west point. He said his career at west point is an example should be carefully avoided. By future cadets. He would go to its class. He was the last in his class and the title of my other book that is out there. What does that mean . Does that mean he was a dummy. There are actually two types of people in the bottom of a class at west point. This weekend night at the bottom. That is one type of a goat. The other guy who gets to west point and says i can handle this. And i congratulate you care about grades or class rank. So instead of studying, ill just have a good time to the extent that i cant and that the last minute i will cram in squeak through. He was from that type of cadet. Theres been many cadets like this. Another example speaking of people famous for blowing it. So he had spent his time going twopenny hastens tavern near by sort of go enough posts highly illicit activity, going in the middle of the night to enjoy someone slips and have other escapades. He would try to get together with you and visiting debutantes and whoever might be around because at the time west point in the summer was a Tourist Destination and they had hotels on the pose so naturally the cadets were investigating who might be checked in and custer was definitely amongst that group. Playing pranks into another phase and generally getting in trouble. This is what custer did. He had a talent for that. But i think what is more important for understanding custer as he had a talent for getting out of trouble. A lot of guys got in trouble and got expelled. But George Custer, who for whatever reason, charisma or just lucky, you would get out of the trouble he got into. Another thing was he never questioned the institution theirs purpose. When they caught him fine, you caught me. I would take my punishment. If you break the rules you have to take your punishment. So he began racking up a lot of delinquencies. Here is an actual first page of his flank the record of deliverances and demerits that he earned. As he said they worked extraordinary but just in their number. Last night not great offenses but many of them. So he was able to somehow walk the fine line between having just enough time to get getting just enough trouble that he could still graduate and this went right up to the end of this west point career when he was courtmartialed the day before graduation. He went right up to the end. The thing about the goat of the people at the bottom of the class generally and also custer, you get a different type of officer at the bottom of the class. The top of the class guys, mcclellan, robert ely by the book, very methodical thinkers. They know all of the theories of war. They apply them and so forth. The guys at the bottom tend to be a little more freespirited. They tend to be a little bit more outside of the box thinkers, a little bit more unorthodox because that is the kind of west point career they were pursuing and that certainly was true of custer. Another insight from this west point they is his bravery. Because when they caught him they caught him and he was admitted. Cadet writes that his bravery in battle did not surprise anyone who had seen him walking up with calm deliberation to the head of the section room to face the abstract or is that the confession he knew something of the last thing. So he would walk up and take it. Thats the kind of guy he was. He couldve done better at the academy. He was at home. He had gone to the academy in monroe, michigan and performed very well there. He was actually a School Teacher before he went to west point. According to his brother, he was reading books all the time. Not the yucatan from west Point Library records, but nevertheless he read a lot of books. So he wasnt a dummy. He just wouldnt have been custer if you spend all his time studying and then getting courtmartialed and delayed in the war. But the civil war came and this was really the thing that made Custer Custer in my opinion. Its a terrible thing for west point because the band of brothers the cadet or mevacor of cadets had to split between the northerners and southerners. Custer had a lot of friends on the Southern Side who also happened to be lower down on the class. But a lot of them were his friends. He had to go fight them. They still remain friends, but that was the way of us. The word became the perfect arena for him to display his talents. He rushed from west point to the battlefield faster than any graduate of the military academy in history. Within four days, he was delayed. He was busy being courtmartialed. This is in the summer of 1861 when they were getting a little bit hot. Within four days he went from west point to new york, ran into Northern Virginia. Got there in time to run with the rest from bull run back to arlington on the space of four days. With very little sleep. He realized quickly that what he would like to do this work is being paid to higher commanders. Philip kearney was the first person who plot and from a regular command and took msn eight. Pastor realized that in doing this he had a lot of freedom of action which is very important to him to do things that make things happen rather than being but they do that all the time. He would be the eyes and ears of his commander. He would also be at headquarters and things are going to happen. He could volunteer to get involved or in some cases he would go out and just get involved in staff because he knew that he could and no one wouldve checked because he was on some general staff. So if he shows up they will say he was fair because the general sent him there and sometimes that is true. So that gave him flexibility to do things than that very much fit his style of doing things. This is a drawing of custer across in the checkout how many, which is part of the custer myth. If the story isnt true, just print the myth of voyager in the Peninsula Campaign for the union army was phased army was faith that the referent, which is extraordinarily difficult to cross, according to the story, mcclellan and his staff are going up and going up another river trying to find a word across. They didnt know what to do, how deep it was. They were arguing about it. Custer jumped in and said it is 50. Not exactly churn. That is the comical story. The actual story is a lot more dangerous because he did jump in the river. Macleod was a big chief of engineers was. Custer started to to the observation and he did this several times. Not only that but he led an assault across the river once he found a crossing point where they seized guns and prisoners could cause a lot of trouble before retreating. They were showing it could be done. This is what brought him to the attention of mcclellan who then took him and made him his aid so custer had a lot of freedom of action to do a lot of different days. The problem with that was if you attach yourself to a highranking general, you better hope the guy is successful because if he declines come you are likely to go with him and that his success would have been. George mcclellan was for the way lincoln wanted so he lost his command and custer lost his influence, which wasnt so good for him. Along the way shed been having a lot of interesting adventures. So then, he became the aid to general pleasanton shown here which is very lucky for him. He didnt order at the time. Pleasanton had seen him around the time of the battle of nt to doing some great things, charging the battle is being generally heroic and said that kind of guy you want. Because pleasanton had the idea he wanted to reorganize the union county recorder. She didnt have the authority to do it. This is where luck comes in. Luckily for custer, lee invades pennsylvania. The Gettysburg Campaign is happening. Around that time we invades general is on the outs with lincoln, will pleasanton is friends with me here the first guy he meets with when hes elevated to command his pleasanton and says hey, what do we need to do to stop generally . Pleasanton says that the thinking about that. We did to reorganize the caliber record and i want to elevate a bunch of young guys to be general so we can go after judge stuart and fight these guys. So pleasanton had custer of mine to be one of his guys. In fact, he raised three guys to general who were there is. There is custer. There was one farnsworth and wesley merritt. Custer was the youngest at 23. So that is how he got to be the boy general. Various circumstances happen. But they wanted these guys to be leading the caliber Rupert Graves has an offensive arms to go after judge sues rival calgary and fight them one on ones with the rebels have been fighting man. But they needed were people who could just charge into battle and get it done. He had seen merit and farnsworth and custer do this at various points, so those for his guys. So at 23 he is the youngest general officer, Brigadier General the history of the u. S. Army to that time. He was later superseded by caliche of pennypacker. Great name of the 97 and living a. 20 years old said colonel when he led the assault on fort fisher in january 1865 where he was shot to pieces and on his deathbed he was promoted to Brigadier General. Then he lived. Got better. So they bumped him up to major general. Anyway so in addition to having it wasnt just luck. The promotion to general wasnt just love. He earned it. He earned it through the various charges that he died in battles that he thought he frequently just joining units in battles had no business being joined race. He just went out in it. So now he had a whole brigade to fight with them four days later there he is on day three of gettysburg. Im sure you are all with the story of the battle duesberg. The custer was on the right flank. Again, kind of lucky because general greg who was not his commander general kirkpatrick was his commander, doing stuff that the end of the battlefield, but greg needed some people over here and he said we are going this way because something bad is going to happen and i need guys. Custer said okay, no problem. Sure enough, the instincts were right because here comes the confederate calgary swooping around, trying to get around the union right flank of supported tickets charge, which was going on in the center of the battlefield. So that is where custer really reached National Fame with his consecutive charges that gettysburg. The same is on, you will for reasons with his michigan regiments one after another spending each regiment against superior forces with the idea he was going to stop slow down or otherwise confused with the confederates were doing. As it turned out, it worked. He stopped stuarts advance. Its funny because in the after action report said the unions had left the field. They left the field because they beat you. The way he reported it was inaccurate. He was the one who left the field. They left later when you are gone. But after that the boy general with the gold market was famous. Another important thing was he convinced the man he was leading in the michigan or create who are wondering why this 23yearold kid was suddenly the general. Through that battle he convinced them that okay, he has a right to be in command because look at them go. This guy knows how to fight. So what if he is wearing kind of an eccentric uniform. Old ways that i read by in this bluecollar instead. It doesnt matter. He can or all of the gold lacy wants if he can fight like that. So that really cemented custer as someone who at National Fame. Also because he started making friends with reporters, which doesnt hurt. The New York Times was following him around. Why . They knew they were going to get a good story. If you spend your time following someone around, follow the guy whos going to fight them can give you a good story. Again, not famous for nothing. Its not like he had the reporters follow him around and did you than the story. He did and thats why they left. Plus other commanders wouldnt even talk to reporters. Sherborn had one courtmartialed the history of Civil Military relations. Custer however maintained a Good Relationship with pleasanton who is the head of the caliber record. But he had a bad relationship with judson kilpatrick, his commander. It seemed like every time something went wrong in their division kilpatrick was blamed but if something was right custer got the credit cannot begin to wear on kilpatrick. He didnt like the rematch. Ultimately try to sideline and custer and something called the dog regrade he sort of sent custer on a Suicide Mission behind confederate lines. Not really caring if custer came back or not. As it turned out, the main source of debris which he was involved in turned into a tragedy. Kilpatrick didnt get killed. Dahlgren did son of secretary needed. Th