[applause] thank you, glenn. Id also like to thank carlene and pauline, all the Hudson Library team. Its been great meeting some of you in the audience too. Ive had a really wonderful visit here. Its great to be back home in ohio, you know its good to shake off inside the beltway every now and then. You know . Washington right . As we heard George Custer was from 80 miles south of here. If you have a chance, you can go visit him. Also grant Sherman Sheridan all have ohio roots one way or another, either born or 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 youre on, but [laughter] anyway. One question i get about my book the real custer, is why is that the title . What makes your book the real custer . There are a lot of custer books. I think the easiest way to answer that question is to say thats what the publisher wanted. [laughter] so okay, thats the title. But i think its really better to view it not as a conclusion like this is the real custer, but rather more like a question; who is the real custer . What do we know about this guy . Little bighorn is so pervasive when you talk about George Custer. Its like thats the whole man just the mistakes that he made on that day. But thats not the case. He had a whole life and a whole character, and he was a whole person. So really the book is about trying to get to the root of that question. Who was this man . If we can strip away all of the things that have been written since then all of the history, Everything Else and just really talk about the man himself. So thats really what its supposed to be about. Little bighorn, the famous anheuserbusch advertisement that they commissioned that became most peoples view of what happened on that day. For example, one of the most talkedabout guys in American History, probably the most writtenabout battle, this and gettysburg. Gettysburg, of course, where custer also fought and played a key role. Hes been lionized hes been demonized, hes been heralded hes been mocked hes been mentioned in books, articles, media of all sorts movies. This is a 1926 movie, you know, dramatizing that. Hes more famous today hes more mentioned today in books than he was at the height of his fame. Hes more mentioned today in books than he ever was ever in history. You can look up the statistics. It just keeps going up. Custers just immensely famous. And part of what were going to talk about is what hes famous for. Here he is being portrayed by Ronald Reagan in the historicallychallenged film santa fe trail. [laughter] where George Custer does a bunch of stuff that he never, ever did. [laughter] but, you know, its a movie what do you want . And, of course, john brown is featured in this movie, and we talk about the great collection here of john brown materials. Heres errol flynn as custer in they died with their boots on. Probably the most noted in terms of the 20th century, at least in the middle 20th century, this was the image of custer that people most associated with him. Errol flynn captured kind of the seriousness and also the boyishness and custer the prankster and things like that, which well talk about. So he really captured that custer and became kind of symbol of that. But then as the custer myth grew, he became kind of this tragic and blemished hero that you know everything was great about him. And when you raise someone up to that level of being a superhero its pretty easy to then transfer them into being the supervillain. And so after the 1960s and into the ooh 70s when 70s when that sort of thing took hold many our culture in our culture, then rather the heroic custer we had this custer from Little Big Man where we have Richard Mulligan playing him as this kind of psycho [laughter] well, you know a selfimportant chaotic cruel, random kind of guy who just made bad decisions all the time and wasnt even aware of any of this. So, i mean, that custer became, became the real custer to many people. He was a blow hard, he had no military ability whatsoever, he was an indian hater, genocidal main yak and things like this maniac and things like this. So that really became a dominant image of custer in the last 30 years or so 30 or 40 yearsment now we have representation years. Now we have representation like this from night at the museum, i dont know if youve seen this movie [laughter] of general custer and ben stiller. Thats bill hater playing custer hader playing custer. In which he laments, ill always be famous for my biggest failure. But in a way for people who like custer, this is progress because in this movie hes actually one of the good guys. Sure hes this, you know, klutzy lovable loser, but at least hes one of the good guys in this movie. So a little bit of a different thing. And along the way weve had custer comics, we have had custer the action figure theres night at the museum at the bottom. Weve had custer, the play set. And innumerable books, articles, songs, movies tv every medium possible talking about general custer. So whether he approves of that, i dont know. [laughter] because hes not amused. So, but why him, why George Custer . Why is he so famous . Why is he more famous today than ever in his life . Hes not famous for nothing. I mean, you can do that these days. [laughter] these days you can be famous for nothing, you know . [laughter] there are lots of people who are famous for nothing. Or the corollary to that is something you say in washington its full of famous people that youve never heard of. [laughter] but it wasnt just that he had long hour or that he wore a tie or long hair or that he wore a tie or that he was eccentric or acted crazy. He was famous for reasons and so were going to talk about some of those. So lets take him back a few years. There he is. George custer. Cadet custer at west point. Custer the goat. Cadet John Montgomery wright who was a plebe when custer was in his third year described him as an indifferent soldier, a poor student, a royceering reckless cadet always in trouble, always playing some mischievous pranks and liked by everyone. That was custer at west point. He said his career at west point was an example to be carefully avoided by future cadets. Now, he was goat of his class he was the last in his class, and, you know, the title of my other book thats out there, and what does that mean . Does that mean that he was a dummy, that he, you know, that he couldnt hack it . Well no, because there are actually two types of people who come in at the bottom of the class at west point. One type are the people who they get to west point, its really hard, theyre in over their head they struggle, they do what they can they study all the time and they just, they squeak in right at the bottom. Thats 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 dont care about grades, i dont care about class rank. So instead of studying, im just going to have a good time to the extent that i can, and then at the last minute ill just cram, and ill just squeak through. And that was cadet custer. He was from that type of cadet. There have been many cadets like that. George pickett another example example speaking of people famous for blowing it. [laughter] so he would spend his time going to benny havens tavern nearby, you know, sort of going off post highly illicit activity, going in the middle of the night to enjoy some rum flips and have other escapades. He would try to get together with, you know visiting debutantes or whoever might be around because at the time west point, particularly in the summer, was a tourist destination, and they had hotels on the post. So naturally, the cadets were investigating who might be checked in. And custer was definitely amongst that group. And playing pranks and doing other things devilments and generally getting in trouble this is what custer did. He had a talent for that. But i i think whats 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. But George Custer for whatever reason whether his charisma or he was just lucky he would get out of the trouble that he got into. And another thing was he never questioned the institution or its purpose. He never, you know, 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. And so he began racking up a lot of delinquencies. His actual first page of his listening think record of lengthy record of delinquencies and demerits that he earned. As he said, they werent extraordinary in what they were but just in their number. [laughter] you know, not great offenses but many of them. So he was able, he was able to mow walk that fine line to somehow walk that fine line. He could get in just enough trouble that he could still graduate, and this went right up to the end of his west point career when he was courtmartialed the day before graduation. So, you know, he ran it right up to the end. But the thing about the goats and the people at the bottom of the class generally and also in particular custer you get a different type of officer at the bottom of the class. I mean the topoftheclass guys, your robert e. Lees theyre by the book, theyre very methodical thinkers, they know all of the theories of war they apply them and so forth. The guys at the bottom they tend to be a little more freespirited, they tend to be a little bit more outsidethebox thinkers a little bit more unorthodox because thats the kind of west point career they were pursuing. And that certainly was true of custer. And another insight into him that we get from his west point days is his bravery. Because when they caught him, they caught him, and he would admit it. Cadet wright said 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 instructors with the confession he knew nothing of the lesson. So he would just walk up and take it. Thats the kind of guy he is. Now, he could have done better at the academy if he followed the rules. He wasnt dumb. He had gone to Stephens Academy in Monroe Michigan and performed well when he was younger. He was actually a School Teacher before he went to west point. And he, according to his brother, he was reading books all the time. Not that you could tell from west Point Library records but nevertheless, he read a lot of books. So he budget a dummy he wasnt a dummy he just wouldnt have been custer if he spent all his time studying. And then getting courtmartialed and delaying his fellows at the war. When the civil war came and this was really the thing that made Custer Custer in my opinion. It was a terrible thing for west point because the band of brothers, you know, the cadets, the corps of cadets had to split between the northerners and the southerners. And custer had a lot of friends on the Southern Side who also happened to be lower down in the class. But a lot of them were his friends. And he had to go fight them. They still remained friends but that was the way it was. But the war became the perfect arena for him to display his talents. He rushed from west point to the battlefield probably faster than any graduate of the military academy in history. Within four days he was delayed. His class went on. 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 he ran up into Northern Virginia got there in time, as he said, to run with the rest from bull run and then back to arlington all in the space of four days. So and with very little sleep. He realized quickly that what he would like to do in this war was be an aide to higher commanders. And Brigadier General kearney was the first person who took him as an aide. And custer realized that this doing this he had a lot of freedom of action which was very important to him to be able to sort of do things and make things happen. Rather than just being with his unit all the time, he would be like the eyes and ears of his commander. He would also be at headquarters when things were going to happen. He could volunteer to get involved in them. Or in some cases he would just go out and like, get involved in stuff just because he knew that he could, and no one would object, you know, because he was on some generals staff. If he shows up, hell just say he was there because the general sent him there. And sometimes that was true. [laughter] so that gave him, like are, flexibility to do things and that very much fit his style of doing things. This is, this is a drawing of custer crossing the river which is part of the custer myth of, you know, if the story isnt true, just print the myth of where during the Peninsula Campaign when the union army was faced with the river which is extraordinarily difficult to cross, according to the story mcclellan and his staff were kind of going up and down the river trying to figure out where to cross, they didnt know what to do. They didnt know how deep it was, they were arguing about it and custer just jumped in and said its this deep. [laughter] you know . Not exactly true. Thats kind of the comical story. The actual story is a lot more dangerous because he did jump in the river. Mcclellan wasnt there. The chief of engineers was there. And custer just got in the river and started doing a reconnaissance of where to find the fords under the observation of the enemy and he did this several times, so it was highly dangerous. Not only that, but then he led an assault across the river once he found a crossing point where they seized some guns and prisoners and, you know, caused a lot of trouble before retreating. They were just showing that it could be done. But this is what brought him to the attention of mcclellan and who then took him and made him his aide. And so custer had a lot of freedom of action then to do a lot of different things. The problem with that though was if you attach yourself to a high ranking general, you better hope the guy is successful. Because if he declines, you are likely to go with him and thats exactly what happened. George mcclellan wasnt fighting the war the way lincoln wanted, so he lost his command, and then custer lost his influence which, you know, wasnt so good for him. But along the way he had been having a lot of interesting adventures. So then he became the aide to general pleasantton shown here, which was very lucky for him. He didnt know it at the time. Pleasantton had seen him around the time of the battle of antitam doing some brave things, charging into battle, being generally heroic and thought okay, thats the kind of guy i want. Because pleasantton had this idea that he wanted to reorganize the Union Cavalry corps, but he didnt have the authority to do it. Well, this is where luck comes in. Luckily for custer, lee invades pennsylvania, right . The Gettysburg Campaign is happening. So around that time lee invades general hooker whos sort of on the outs with lincoln, so hes fired, and general mead is elevated. Well pleasantton is friends with mead. The first guy mead meets with when hes elevated to command is pleasantton and says, hey, what do we need to do to stop general lee . Pleasantton says well, ive been thinking about that. What we need to do is reorganize the cavalry corps, and what i want to do is elevate a bunch of young guys to be generals so we can build this thing so we can go after jeb stewart and we can fight these guys. And so pleasantton already had custer in mind to be one of his guys. In fact, he raised three guys to general who were in their 20s. There was custer, there was farnsworth and merit. Custer was the youngest of the bunch at 23. So thats how he got to be the boy general. Its because, you know this various circumstances happened. But they wanted these guys to be leading the cavalry brigades as an offensive arm to be able to go after jeb stewarts rebel cavalry and fight them oneonone the way the rebels had been fighting them. And according to pleasantton, what they needed were people who could just, you know, charge into battle and get it done. And he had seen meritt and farnsworth and custer do this at various points so those were his guys. So at 23 the youngest general officer, Brigadier General in the history of the u. S. Army to that time. He was later superseded by pennypacker great name of the 97 pennsylvania regiment. 20 years old when he, as a colonel, when he led the assault on fort fisher in january of 1865 where he was shot to pieces. And on his death bed to honor him, he was promoted to Brigadier General. Then he lived. [laughter] he got better. So they bumped him up to major general. Anyway so in addition to having and it wasnt just lucky. I dont want to downplay his promotion to general. It wasnt just luck, he earned it. But luck was the circumstances that led to it, but he earned it through the various charges that he led and battles that he fought frequently just joining units in battle that he had no business being joined with. He just went out and did it. So now he had a whole brigade to fight with. And four days later there he is on day three of gettysburg. And im sure youre all familiar with the story of the battle of gettysburg, but custer was on the right flank. And, again, because kind of luck e key because general gregg who was not his commander general kilpatrick was his commander, kilpatrick was doing stuff at this end of battlefield, but gregg needed some people over here, and there was custer. And he said, okay, were going the this way because something bad is going to happen and i need guys. Custer said, okay, no problem. And sure enough greggs instincts were right because here comes the confederate cavalry swooping around trying to get around the union right flank in support of picketts charge which was going on, you know, in the center of the battlefield. So thats where custer really reached National Fame with his consecutive charges at gettysburg. You know the famous come on you wolverines, with his michigan regiments one after another spending e