Free The Real Custer by James S Robbins Page B

initiative to let him have, and what risks he could reasonably take. The Custer they knew was a gifted tactician who had the ability quickly to sum up the shifting situation he faced and use the forces at his disposal swiftly and effectively. They set the stage for him, and he did his part to win their battles. And when necessary, they helped keep their adventurous protégé out of trouble.
    Custer had a talent for getting into scrapes. As a cadet at West Point, he believed that rules were made to be broken. He was the merry prankster of the Corps of Cadets, the lovable rogue who did things his way, witty, charismatic, and popular. And while there were others like him who courted the retribution of the authorities, Custer had an uncanny ability to get himself out of trouble as artfully as he got into it. He racked up demerits but stayed just below the line that brought expulsion. He submitted to periodic punishments as the price of playing the game. Whether it was due to his charm, good fortune, or intuition, he managed to live the life of the cadet bon vivant and still graduate, albeit at the bottom of his class, and facing a court-martial the day before graduation.
    Custer’s West Point exploits give insights into his combat leadership. He was a creative thinker and dynamic problem-solver. The sense of adventure that led him to blow post in the middle of the night for the forbidden pleasures of Benny Havens’s saloon was the same spirit that led him to volunteer for dangerous wartime scouting missions or lead dramatic charges against difficult odds. He could have done much better at the Academy if he had followed more rules, studied more lessons, avoided demerits, and played fewer pranks; but then he would not have been Custer.
    Custer made things happen. He came from a humble background and got ahead on ability and pluck. He was a risk taker who traded on his accomplishments, not his background or birth. He would rather shape events than be shaped by them. He was at his best in situations where dash and quick decisions were needed. He was comfortable onthe knife-edge of reality, where will, idea, and circumstance merge in an onrushing wave. He arrived on the national scene at the right time, a natural warfighter thrust into the greatest conflict of the nineteenth century. He wound up in situations where he could give full expression to his instinctive genius for war and was rewarded with rank, fame, and influence. But when the Civil War ended, Custer had trouble adapting. There were fewer battles to be fought, less opportunity to give expression to his spirit. He had to reinvent himself while staying true to his character. It was a challenge he faced for the rest of his life.
    John M. Bulkley recalled Custer as the “genial, warm-hearted friend” from his childhood, and wrote that “under the garb of the soldier, and the sometimes austere exterior, there beat the warmest of hearts, and existed the most affectionate of natures.” Bulkley believed that the Custer he knew would long be remembered. “The gallant bravery, the spirit, and the patriotism of Custer commended him to public favor,” he wrote, “and it is not in the heart of the American people soon to forget those whose blood has been shed in their name.” 5 Custer has not been forgotten, but he is commonly misremembered. This book explores the real Custer.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

    S ome of the primary sources used in The Real Custer are found in the United States Military Academy Special Collections. They include, inter alia , the George Armstrong Custer papers and papers of other graduates as cited, particularly documents in the files compiled by George W. Cullum for his Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 3 vols., 1891), also known as the “Cullum files”; the “x-files” of cadets who did not graduate; the Annual Reports of the USMA Association of