To welcome t. J. Stiles and hes an awardwinning author based out of berkeley, california and hes a native of minnesota and the graduate of carlton college. He went on to do his graduate work in history, not u. S. History, but european history at columbia. He spent time at Oxford University press and i believe the board is here today t. J. Worked with gabor on a number of items and there is gabor in the audience. Items that gabor put together and those speeches were delivered right here at cwi. T. J. And i had a little time yesterday to talk about his work and to talk about the craft of writing and our conversation reminded me of the fact that this that we have of professional academic writing and then there is popular writing. I think the day has come that we can just move away from that and t. J. Stiles, his work testifies to the fact that you can write engaging bog rav we ideas, with argument, with analysis and above all else, original research. T. J. Likes the archives. There are a lot of academic historians that do much of the work, i hate to say. They dont like to get dirty with the manuscripts. T. J. Does just that and he has produced three very, very important books. I will quickly tell you, the first is jesse james, the last rebel of the civil war and the New York Times notable book of the year and first tycoon, the epic life of cornelius vanderbilt. It was the winner of Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and the National Book award in 2009, and most recently his biography of george custer, the 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner. Seriously, t. J. , id call it quits and this is an incredible record that you have achieved in a very short time. We are very, very pleased to have you here. T. J. Stiles will be speaking to us about george custer. [ applause ] [ applause ] thank you very much. Were on cspan live so ill keep my cursing to a minimum. If you could please, though mute your cell phones, id really appreciate it. Im here to talk about somebody nobodys ever heard of, George Armstrong custer, and i decided to write about him because obviously i hate myself. He has been so written about, some people have estimated and i have no idea myself that he may be the secondmost written about figure in American History after Abraham Lincoln and i do not write my book because all of that work was terrible. In fact, lots of it is very good. Rather, i want to understand custer in a new way. Not entirely new but this has been touched on before but to really drill down on something about the man. Now, academics when they write biographies they like to look at representative figures, those who tell us something about the times. The rest of us like to read books about consequential people, people who make a difference and shift the direction of history. And i think custer is a great case of someone who is both. Now hes not the most important person of his times. Hes not the most representative in some ways, hes an exaggerated figure but he tells us a lot about america and he had an impact on the times. Now, for most people, their knowledge of custer begins with lets see if i can do this without messing it up their knowledge of custer begins with a moment in time when he led a charge of an outnumbered group of cavalrymen against a much larger foe, noted warriors who overwhelmed him and surrounded his men. Now, for most americans, that is little bighorn. But, of course, for our very knowledgeable audience here, thats gettysburg. And im going to lead up to the moment at gettysburg and lead out of it to try to understand how custer became famous. This was in his lifetime the defining moment at gettysburg on the third day on the east cavalry field. And we want to understand how that moment defined him in the eyes of americans at the time, what it tells us about his effectiveness and his consequential nature but also we find in that moment and the moments leading up to it the seeds of the disasters and near disasters that would follow him, especially in his life after the civil war. We want to bring together his civil war career and his postcivil war career and see how they are in fact an organically unified part of one life. So lets look at gettysburg leading up to that moment, which ill come back to. The way i look at custer is i see him as a figure on a frontier in time. That very loosely the idea of modernization in american society, in American History, going into the civil war, america has traditional society, its very personal in nature, its not so organizational, its not so technical. Its romantic and sentimental in culture. Coming out of the civil war, you begin to see more and more an organizational society, one that is technical, one in which who you are doesnt matter so much as your qualifications. A world in which realism begins to supplant that romanticism and sentimentality that all the recruits in 1861 went to war with. The interesting thing about custer, living on this frontier in time, the arrival of the modern era is that, its a transitional time, just as the civil war is a transitional war and in some ways he grasps that moment very well and in other ways he disastrously fails to deal with the times that he is helping to make. And, for example, at west point, thats a good example, he graduated in the second class of 1861, they moved up the graduation date and they ended the fiveyear system that came in under secretary of war jefferson davis. At west point he received professional training and historians used to poohpooh the level of military education at west point. Now in looking at it in context of other Training Institutions around the world it really was at the forefront. He received a very thorough technical professional military education at west point. And, again, this is in an era when most americans did not go to college. 1 of White American men went to college before the civil war and he went to not only a college but an excellent engineering and technical military education institution. However he himself was a romantic sentimental figure. He was constantly playing pranks. Custer graduated last in his class but first in demerits. [ laughter ] and when you go to west point and look at that demerit book, heres somebody like one of his classmates not a class ahead but i compare him to delbert ames, graduated fourth in his class. Half a page for four years. Custer youre just turning the pages and the words are boyish trifling. Hes this youthful undisciplined fellow constantly playing pranks and getting into trouble and he gets courtmartialed immediately after graduation because he was he didnt yet have an assignment to regiment so he was the captain of the guard at the summer encampment and two cadets started fighting and instead of arresting them both he told everyone to stand back and have a fair fight. Back then you got courtmartialed for that sort of thing, he was convicted. But lucky for him the civil war was breaking south they needed officers, he received no worse punishment than a letter of reprimand. So he goes off to the civil war and as we all know this is a Mass Mobilization war, it is a peoples and that professional corps of the regular army, about 16,000 men, suddenly is supplemented by the u. S. Volunteers. These organizations that are raised by the states whose colonels are appointed by governors, this is america under arms and it brings in this transitional moment where you have the actually very professional systematic u. S. Army, i think by the 1820s mark wilson said there were at least two dozen standardized forms in the u. S. Army by the 1820s. This is a very modern professional organization. It is the template for the Corporate America thats going to come into being and its also a war fought by popular organizations, these regiments that represent america under arms. Becoming an officer depends on who you know. Its personal politics as well as party politics. As we know at bull run, manassas to you confederates in the audience that this is an untrained volunteer mass that takes time to become professional so custer goes into that war as a professional and he really begins to build his career as a junior officer in the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 and, again, this is a massive professional undertaking that the United States military moved an army that was the side if it had been a city, the army of the potomac would have been the ninth largest city in the United States and it moves it to the peninsula. And its moving thousands of horses, enormous amounts of supplies, just this artillery part gives you an idea, a little hint of the scale and custer is a part of the professional side of that moment. He goes off and hes assigned to the topographical engineers. Again, a Technical Branch of the military because the maps were so terrible, they had to draw new maps. And what did he do in that role . Hes sitting there doing drafting at a table behind the lines no no, he was scouting ahead of the lines and this involved not only a technological innovation. This is a new wave of technology. Its one of the first aerial military observers in human history. And he becomes good at it. I give stories about how he figures out how to estimate Confederate Forces through the tree cover in the warm spring when theyre not lighting fires at night like he would expect them to. Well, what happens is that custer again because as a topographical engineer hes sending a lot of times scouting ahead of union lines and drawing maps. He takes part in a raid at new bridge on the Chickahominy River as mcclellan advances close to richmond. Its a very daring raid, they inflict a large number of casualties, theyre a small force. Mcclellan exaggerates it up to 50 confederate dead, they take prisoners, custer plays a daring role and you can see the hint of whats going to come for custer. That dashing, romantic heroic figure that as a young man he sees himself as. And this is a key moment because on the one hand heres this young man who has professional education, a technical welleducated officer, what we might call in a very unprofessional way, you know, part of the wave of the future. But he also rises and he rises through merit but he also rise us there patronage and a combination of merit and knowledge and ability with oldfashioned patronage who you know whos watching out for you. That combination plays a key role in custers life and his rise during the civil war. So he takes part in the battle of the Peninsula Campaign as right hand man to mcclellan and this involves him in another side of the civil war which doesnt spell mcclellans doom but plays a part in the troubles he faces. And this is the question of the politics, the meaning of the civil war. We see that actually visually after fair oaks, seven pines, pretty much everyone these days when he meets an old friend now on the confederate side, lieutenant james v. Washington and washington has been taken prisoner so the two were chatting and a photographer comes up, i think it was james gibson took this photo and then gibson thought something was missing. So he brought in a young contraband, an escaped slave and put him between the knees of washington and this photo circulated under the title both sides and the cause. Now, there was one biography early biography of custer said it was custers idea. In fact, gibson went around putting this poor boy between the knees of other people as well, as youll see in the lower right. But, again, this actually is very interesting moment because the army of the potomac follows the lead of mcclellan. Its very conservative on emancipation. And custer is a border state fellow. Hes from not Southern Michigan but close to the ohio river, his father is from maryland, hes a part of the border state culture zone in which those southern counties of the old northwest were settled by people from kentucky and tennessee and virginia and maryland so he has close cultural and political afin tease with the south even though hes firmly unionist in that clay tradition of border staters who are unionists. So he very much absorbs and agrees with mcclellans disagreement with the advance towards emancipation but he encounters contrabands again and again. He gets information from them, sees them, he writes letters home in which he voice this is deep sentiment and prejudice against them and yet hes also seeing them aid the union cause. Now what happens is we know the conservative war that mcclellan wanted comes to an end after telling lincoln to his face that he wants a war without emancipation. Lincoln reluctantly allows him to continue because he has no Better Options in the Antietam Campaign and, again, his failure as a to take aggressive action is what brings him down and the aftermath of the Antietam Campaign brings down mcclellan and that leaves custer without a patron and hes floating free and his own future is in doubt because, again of that personal politics of patronage and supplicant. Again, heres antietam. But custer comes back from his own exile long leave in which he met a young lady in monroe, michigan, named libbie bacon and he comes back and he manages to find a second patron. This becomes key in his life because he, again, hes got a lot of merit and hes also somebody who has really put himself out there, again playing that dashing daring role, being able to roam the battlefield as mcclellans right hand man and he spent a lot of time scouting and reporting back to mcclellan with the cavalry. So he becomes close to Alfred Pleasanton and he comes back and pleasanton brings him on to his staff just as pleasanton becomes the commander of the cavalry core of the army of the potomac. So, again, luck, timing, something that custer himself called custer luck comes to his aid. Hes got merit but also key to his rise is who he knows and who likes him. And so when hes with pleasanton, he miss out on the Chancellorsville Campaign but he does take part in the fighting that leads up to and involves lees invasion of the north in 1863 and as a member of the staff of pleasanton he take part in the fighting in which pleasanton is ordered to break through the cavalry screen and get in and find out what lee is up to. Custer takes part in a charge, engages in this close combat that tipified much of the cavalry on cavalry fighting in the civil war and, again, this is when theyre mounted theyre able to close quickly. They engage in close range combat and this brings up Something Else about custer. He is himself a fighter and a very talented one. At a time when of course longranged rifled muskets are were not seeing world war i style warfare yet but its beginning to bring to the fore firepower and its driving the Horse Soldiers to fight more on foot. Fire power is dominating the battlefield but when theyre fighting against other horsemen they often close up quickly and personal skill matters. That custer fought with a saber and he fought with a revolver and his personal skill mattered and he found himself cut off and behind the confederate lines in this confused fighting and had to cut his way out. Again, its a sign of how custer himself is brave and daring and also very skilled with a saber lucky for him, it turns out lee was in fact invading the north, it was a great lucky break for custer because what happened is that hooker, who was getting fed up with pleasanton got sacked, mead replaced him, pleasanton went to mead and got permission to replace some of his Brigade Commanders with his own handpicked men. He picked three officers from his own staff, including custer. Now, custer had tries to get michigan was his adopted home state. He had tried to get an appointment as a colonel of a michigan cavalry regiment and unfortunately being a democrat and having been associated so closely with mcclellan stopped him from getting that appointment. Again the role of politics plays an important part in this career. So what happens is he gets named Brigade Commander, he asks for the michigan brigade so instead of getting one regiment he gets command of four regiments and he wrotes home i outmaneuvered the governor on that. And what happens . He shows up at hanover and this is important because this is not a sketch of hanover but it shows troops deployed in skirmish formation. His very first day in command hes in combat. The second thing is is that contrary to that image of the moment were about to get to of the dashing leader leading a cavalry charge, he, in fact deploys his men on foot in his very first role as a Brigade Commander to make use of the new spencer rifle. They get carbines later but first theyre rifles. He appreciates this. The man who is daring himself who loves a sword fight, loves the charge, he realizes and writes this is the most effective firearm our troops can be equipped with and it gives us a great advantage and he makes use of it. Hes gotten a excellent artillery commander. Pennington, his artillery commander, hes got the three inch rifled a cannons and makes excellent use of firepower so we see custer the professional in this transitional war understanding the rising role of firepower and making use of it. That is his first moment as a Brigade Commander. Not leading the charge but making use of the new firepower and technology of the civil war. But the third day comes around and he supports general greg in defying an order to join his Division Commander, kilpatrick, on the other end of the union line. Because they get word a large confederate Cavalry Force is approaching and he agrees its important to stay so he defies an order stays at the cavalry field and he deploy in skirmish formation he takes part in two key charges and, again, because hes a new commander, bauds hes a subordinate to his temporary superior on the field, gregg, he goes to his troops at key moments to lead a charge and find out the order to charge had been given be basically tells us his judgment was sound, that wasnt out on a limb, that he found out he