[indistinct conversation] >> if you could take your seats. all right, imp carmichael, a member of the history department at the gettysburg college. it is my pleasure to welcome t.j. stiles to cwi. he is an award-winning author based out of berkeley, california. he is a native out of minnesota, a graduate of carleton college who went on to do his graduate work in european history at columbia. he spent some time at oxford university press. he worked with gabor. many volumes that gabor put together, those features were delivered just speeches were delivered right here. tj have a little bit of time yesterday to talk about his work and talk about the craft of writing, and the conversation reminded me of the fact that there is professional academic writing and there is positive writing. i think the day has come that we can move away from that, and t.j. stiles has worked to testify to the fact that you can write engaging biography with ideas, with argument, with analysis, and above all else, original research. tj likes the archives. there are a lot of academic historians who do a lot of their work, i hate to say, on the internet. they do not like to get dirty with the manuscripts and tj does that. he has produced three very important books. james: thes "jesse last rebel of the civil war," and "the epic life of cornelius vanderbilt." and the national book award in 2009. most recently has biography of george custer, the 2016 pulitzer prize winner. . would call it quits two pulitzer prizes, and national book award, this is an incredible record that you have received in a very short time. we are very pleased to have you here. t.j. stiles will be speaking to us about george custer. [applause] t.j.: thank you very much. we are on c-span live so i will keep my cursing to a minimum. youru could please mute cell phones i would really appreciate it. i am here to talk about somebody nobody has ever heard of, george armstrong custer. i decided to write about him because obviously i hate myself. he has been so written about, some people have estimated that he may be the second most written about figure in american history after abraham lincoln. i did not write my book because all of that work was terrible. lots of it is very good. rather, i want to understand custer in a new way, not entirely new but this is been touched on before, but to really drill down on something about the man. people who are 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 who make a difference and shift the direction of history, and i think custer is a great case of someone who is both. he is not the most important person of his times. he is not the most representative in some ways. he is an exaggerated figure but he tells us a lot about america and had an impact on the times. for most people, their knowledge of custer begins with, let's 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 cavalry notedt a much larger foe, warriors who overwhelmed him and surrounded his men. for most americans that is little bighorn but for our very knowledgeable audience here, that is gettysburg. im going to lead up to the moment at gettysburg and laid out of it to try and understand how custer became -- lead out of it to try and understand how custer became famous. this was his defining moment. 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 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. hisant to bring together civil war career and post civil war career and see how there are in fact an organic unified part of when life. the way i look at custer is i see him as a figure on a frontier in time. loosely, the idea of modernization in american society, in american history. going into the civil war, america has many traits of an earlier, more traditional society. it is more personal in nature, not so organizational or technical, it is romantic and sentimental in culture. coming out of the civil war you began to see more and more and organizational society, one that is technical, in which who you are does not matter so much as your qualifications, a world in which realism begins to supplant the romanticism and sentimentality that all the recruits in 1861 went to war with. desktoping thing in custer, living in this frontier in time is that it is a transitional time just as the civil war is a transitional war. in some ways he grasps that moment very well and in some ways he disastrously fails to deal with the times he is helping to make. at west point, that is a good example. he graduated in the second class of 1861. they moved up the graduation date and ended the five-year system that came in undersecretary jefferson davis. -- under secretary jefferson davis. it in context of other training institutions around the world, west point was at the forefront. he received a thorough technical education at west point. this was in an era where most americans did not go to college. 1% of white american men went to college before the civil war. he went to not only a college, but in engineering and technical military education institution, however he himself was a romantic, sentimental figure. he was constantly playing pranks. it is famous he graduated last in his class but first in demerits. [laughter] when you go to west point and look at that demerit book, here is something one of his a classes -- actually ahead of him, there is a half a page for four years. for custer, it is four pages. the words are boyish, trifling. boy that is constantly getting into trouble and is court-martialed after graduation because he did not yet have an assignment to regiment, so he was captain of the guard at the summer encampment, and two cadet started fighting. instead of arresting them both he told everyone to stand back and let them have a fair fight. back then, you got court-martialed by that sort of thing but lucky for him the civil war was breaking out so he received no worst punishment than a letter of reprimand. the civil war, this is a mass mobilization war, a people's war , and that professional core of the regular army, 16,000 men, suddenly is supplemented by the u.s. volunteers. these organizations raised by the states, kernels are appointed by governor's. this is america under arms and it brings in this transitional moment when you have the actual professional, systematic u.s. army. i think by the 1820's mark wilson said there were at least two dozen standardized forms. this is a very modern professional organization. it is the template for the corporate america that will calm into being, and also a war being fought by a popular -- popular organizations, regiments that regular -- represent americans under arms. it is personal politics as well as party politics. at bull run, manasses to you confederates in the audience, this is an untrained volunteer mass that takes time to become professional. so custer comes into that war is a professional and begins to build his career as a junior officer in the peninsula campaign in 1862. this is a massive professional undertaking, that the united states military moved an army that was the size -- if it had been a city, the army of the potomac would've been the ninth largest city in the united states -- and it moves it to the peninsula, and it is moving thousands of horses, enormous amounts of supplies. this artillery park gives you a hint of the scale. custer goes off and is assigned to the topographical engineers, a technical branch of the wereary because the maps so terrible they had to draw new maps. what did he do in that role? drafting atg there a table behind the lines? no, he was scouting the head of the lines, and this involved not only scouting on foot but also going up in an observation booth. again, a technological innovation. this is a new wave of technology that is coming into being. he is one of the first aerial military observers in human history and he becomes quite good at it and takes two would quite well. i could go on. in the book i give some stories about how he figures out how to estimate confederate forces through the tree cover in the warm spring when they are not lighting fires at night, like he would expect them to. what happens is that custer, again as a topographical engineer, is spouting -- spending a lot of time scouting. raid in part in a newbridge on the chickahominy river. it is a very daring raid. they inflict a large number of casualties for a small force. mcclellan exaggerates it up to 50 confederate dead. custer plays a very gearing role and you see the hand of what will conference him, the dashing, romantic, heroic character that he sees himself as being. mcclellan appoint him to his staff, and this was a key moment because on one hand, here is this young man who has a professional education, is a technical, well educated officer, what we might call in a very unprofessional way part of the wave of the future, but he also rises through merit but also through patronage. a combination of nature it -- knowledge along with patronage, that combination plays a key role in custer's life and his rise during the civil war. the battle ofin the peninsula campaign as right hand to mcclellan, and this begins to involve him in another side of the civil war which, it does not spell mcclellan's doom but plays a part in the troubles he faces, and that is the question of the politics, the meaning of the civil war. we see that visually after fair times, pretty much everyone these days, when he meets an old friend now on the confederate side, lieutenant james washington. washington has been taken prisoner and so the two were chatting and a photographer comes up. , tookk it is james gibson this photo, and gibson thought something was missing so he brought in a young contraband, and escaped slave, and put him beneath the knees of washington. this photo circulated under the title "both sides and the cause." gibson went around putting this poor boy between the knees of other people as well, as you will see in the lower right. again, this actually is a very interesting moment because the army of the potomac follows the lead of mcclellan. it is very conservative on the issue of emancipation and custer is from a democratic family, basically a border state fellow. he is from close to the ohio river, his father is from maryland and he is part of that border state culture zone in which the southern counties of the old northwest were settled by people from kentucky and tennessee and virginia and maryland. has close cultural and political affinities in the south even though he is firmly unionist. so he very much absorbs and agrees with mcclellan's disagreement with the advance toward emancipation. he personally encounters contraband again and again, he gets information from them, he writes letters home in which he voices this deep prejudice against them, and yet he is seeing them aid the union cause. course we knowf the conservative war that mcclellan wanted comes to an end after telling link it 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 to take aggressive action is what brings him down. the aftermath of the antietam campaign brings down mcclellan, and that leaves custer without a patron. he is floating free and his own future is in doubt because again, of that personal politics of patronage and supplicant. again, pardon me, here is antietam. custer comes back from his own exile, long leave in which he met a lady in monroe michigan bacon.ivy -- libbie he comes back and manages to find a second patron. this is key in his life because again, he has got a lot of merit and he is also somebody who has really put himself out there, playing that dashing, daring role, being able to roam the battlefield as mcclellan's right-hand man. he spends a lot of his time scouting and reporting back to mcclellan with the cavalry. so he ends up becoming close to alfred pleasanton and he comes back and pleasanton brings him onto his staff just as he becomes the commander of the cavalry corps of the army of the potomac. again, luck, timing, something that custer himself called custer luck came to his aid. he has got merit that key to his rise is who he knows and who likes him. when he is with pleasanton, he misses out on the chancellorsville campaign, but he does take part in the fighting that leads up to and invasion of the north in 1863. he takes part in the fighting at all the in which pleasant tea's order to break through the pleasanton'sn -- order to go through the calvary screen and find out what he is up to. combatgage in this close which typifies most of the calvary on calvary fighting in the civil war. again, when they are mounted they are able to close quickly, they engage in close range contact, and this brings up something else about custer. he is himself a fighter and very talented one. at a time when of course long-range must -- long-range rivals, muskets, we are not seeing one style of warfare yet but it is bringing to the forefront firepower and riding the horse soldiers to fight more on foot. firepower is dominating the battlefield, but when they are 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, and he had to cut his way out. how custern of himself is brave and daring and skilled with the saber. lucky for him, it turns out that lee was invading the north. it was a lucky break for custer because what happened was hooker, who was getting fed up with pleasanton, replaced him. he went to meet and got them with to replace his own handpicked men, including custer. custer tried to get -- michigan was his adopted home state -- he tried to get an appointment as a calvaryof a michigan regiment but 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 his career. he gets named brigade commander. instead of getting one regimen he asked for another michigan regiment. what happens, he shows up at hanover and this is really important, because again, this is not actually a sketch of hanover but it shows the troops deployed and the skirmish foreign -- formation. his very first day in command he is in combat. the second thing is that contrary to that image of the moment we are about to get to, of the dashing leader leading a calvary charge, he in fact deploys his men on foot in his very first role as a brigade somender, to make use as of his troops have the new spencer rifle. a man whoates this, is staring himself, loves to sword fight, loves the charge, he realizes and rights, this is the most effective firearm our troops can be provided and he makes use of it. an excellent artillery commander, pennington, and he makes excellent use of firepower. 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 a charge but making use of the new firepower and technology of the civil war. the third day comes around and he actually supports general tog in defining in order join his division commander kilpatrick from the other end of the union line because they get word that a large confederate calvary force is approaching, and he agrees it is important to stay so he actually defies in order, stays at what is now the east calvary field, and again, day with most of that his troops deployed on foot in skirmish formation, making use of their magazine loaded repeating rifles. he does take part in two key charges, and again, because he is a new commander and subordinate to his temporary superior on the field, he goes to his troops at key moments to lead a charge and find out the order to charge had already been given, it's basically tells us that his judgment had been sound , he was not out on a limb and found out he was in agreement with his commander. he leads charges that are basically counter country. once the concentric -- confederates launch an attack, he countercharges. the largest attack attempting to break through and custer takes his last reserve force, leads a force, cuts his way through the confederate formation famously shouting to his men, hold the reins. and again, custer fighting in the forefront with a saber. it is important to remember that some of the aspects of custer which robin commented upon reflect his flamboyant, youthful personality. here we see his uniform that is black velveteen with all that gold braid winding up from his cuff to his elbow. his blue taelor shirt -- sailor shirt and the red tie which troops begin to imitate, this is a very dramatic and visible costume more than a uniform. one staff officer sees him in battle and says, he looks like a circus rider gone mad. again, in that civil war battlefield, long-range firepower is beginning to hold sway but you still have fairly dense formations in which command and control is being exerted by sight and sound. they are listening for bugles, listening for the band, looking for the flags for following direction and rallying, and looking for their commanders on the field. this is both a statement of his desire to be looked at, but also it has a practical effect. his troops see him in combat. , and inspiring organizational device with a can see where he is going and follow him, and a statement of his own courage because the confederates can see him also and will target him, and if he was going to lead retreats, they would notice that also. he is not leaving retreats, he is leaving attacks. some of the most outrageous sides of custer, there is in that time and place a reason. it is a transitional moment. the figure is more napoleonic. there were generals that dress like him, most were confederate. he knows the world that he is living in a knows it quite well. custer asay on someone who was aggressive but surprisingly, actually the more i learned about him what surprised me in writing about him, he was not foolish and rash and reckless. he took part in the intense fighting the mounted arm took part in, in the aftermath of gettysburg, chasing after the confederates. he was ordered by his division camera -- commander who was often foolishly aggressive and reckless, kilpatrick, nicknamed kill cavalry, he actually took part in this attack on the last confederate infantry division holding the north bank of the river as the rest of the army went south in fortifications. they had only one regimen on and as they made contact kilpatrick ordered an attack and says, no, i want to charge. 100 men went in against this division that was fortified. it was so foolish that confederates let the troops in because they assumed they were confederate troops coming in because it was such a ridiculous attack. once they realized their mistake, they cut them to pieces and custer had to help rectify things. flicking --d we have to think about this. he is a cultural figure. book, it talks about the impact of all of this death on americans and the troops as well. not is an era that does kill off the sentimental idea in america, but it challenges it. you can see writers who are more realistic, even cynical such as ambrose bierce and those who did not take part in the fighting such as mark twain. they come out of the civil war with a much darker view of the world. custer represented it to americans that he is keeping the flame alive for heroism, for individual heroics. this image that he consciously creates, yes there is vanity involved. absolutely. he becomes a household name around the time of gettysburg because he is both successful and he represents something americans felt slipping away at the time. they write about him in these terms. the press loved tim, not just because he was good press. this is the individual hero that every soldier thought they would he. mostlyting on horseback against other horsemen in clashes that involved lower numbers of troops and at lower levels of firepower, you've got horse soldiers that reduce the force with less artillery involved and when they fight in mounted formations, they close up quickly. that actually matters. his ability to fight well inspires his troops and actually has an effect in his success. slice of the civil war which he is not seen men dying so randomly as ambrose bierce did and other soldiers are. he is fighting in a slice of the civil war that is in keeping of an older ideal of romantic warfare. custer himself never becomes disillusioned. that's a really important thing to remember. rising rapidly through the regained command and he is fighting battles and much more in keeping with the ideal, he himself has this old romantic idea that is reinforced. he is more romantic and sentimental after the civil war. the way the culture is beginning to change, he is going in the other direction. that helped some. the other thing is that custer takes part in a very personal way in the great impact of the civil war on the greatest -- slavery andution of the breakdown of southern society as the war begins to erode slavery. when he went into virginia in the aftermath of gettysburg, he went to a contraband camp. as a self-indulgent young man, he wanted a personal cook did he hires a young teenager. she comes into his headquarters as his cook it -- cook. we know about her because custer's wife wrote about her extensively. she got her memories for a memoir. eliza brown was not just some cook. she had grown up in a world without any security, in which she had to seize every opportunity to carve out safety and advantage for herself. as the cook to a brigade commander, she makes the most of the opportunity. into hisforms herself household manager. she begins to trade information with couriers from other commands. she always has big treats ready when someone comes. she pumps them for information. she becomes the intercede or for the men with custer. they go to her first when they need a favor. she builds her own patronage network with other contraband, distributing food. that irritates custer after the war. she is someone who is this formidable person, who is living with custer. she becomes a part of his life. the reality of slavery and the weight it has been broken down is something that is personal and real. he was very conservative for the war. he is now dealing with the reality of it on a personal level. ie comes during the winter, she comes to virginia and finds this other woman is already in the household running things. she is a very well-educated young woman. shegoes along with him, but resents the limitations placed on women. she doesn't like it. the once feared that she has is she has isne sphere to run the household did -- household. the next five years, they struggled for power in the household. brown, theliza tension grows because she can never outmaneuver her. allies of brown keeps the upper hand until 1869. i want to leave money of time for questions. politics plays a key role in his life did his appointment as brigadier general has not unconfirmed by the senate and -- not been confirmed by the senate. a firm whiteet republicans in the senate. most effective political weapon to washington. that is his wife. she is very intelligent. she reads the senators for what they are. she plays it up. she goes to the dances on capitol hill, she has drunken senators leering over her. she is building her influence. she says of kellogg that everyone says he is corrupt, i don't care. he is nice to me. she is very realistic and helpful. his marriage to her had been up in the air because there was talk that he would not be confirmed by the senate because he was a democrat and he had ties to mcclellan. herhusband did not want marrying this guy. in the end, she married him and he was confirmed. commander, irigade looked into the way in which he operated as a manager. he is an administrator. he spent much of his time not leading troops into combat, but running a large organization of up to 2000 men. this occupies a lot of his time. he also has repeated problems with the chain of command. problems inostwar the way in which he does things like call truces and goes to the other side so he can chat with his pals on the confederate side. he gets reprimanded by kilpatrick. they are the enemy. you can't fraternize with them. is a seminal fellow, -- sentimental fellow, he is spending time on the other side. he actually has to go to great pains to distance himself from his old patron, mcclellan, a man he still loves and admires immensely. you get to see some of the uglier side of custer's personality, he goes out of his way to distance himself from mcclellan because for all of his conservative political views, he wants to win the war. this is one of the big differences. had problems with the way the war was going. he did not like the hard war that was emerging. customer wants to -- custer once to win at all cost. if it were up to me, the war would never end. i would love to have a battle every day of my life did he does not want an armistice. he does not want a truce. he wants to win the war and fight the war. to save himself, he alienates his own father for a while. he writes publicly to the press saying he is going to vote for lincoln and that he supports emancipation. we get to 1864. i'm not going to go into detail about his career. starting at third winchester, he becomes a household name and becomes the favorite of his new , the new commander of the cavalry corps which is philip sheridan. sheridan really takes a shine to custer. theeally wants to use mounted arm in a decisive way in battle. it was much more effective. when he goes to the valley in 1864, he brings custer with him. custer plays a key role at third winchester when the battle was dragging on and when there was a flanking attack that still had not wrote in the confederate line and custer had fought his way around on the right flank and run up against infantrymen behind a stone wall. he pulled his troops back. he received orders to lead a charge because it was late in the day and shared it wanted decisive action -- sheridan wanted decisive action. know there were infantrymen behind a stone wall. it was suicide to attack. it led to disaster in the civil war. they were to effective against mounted troops. redeploying the troops to the main battlefront. i think they are probably going to redeploy. let me time the charge. he gets permission to time the union charge. once he see this confederate troops start to move, that's when he charges. they only have time to fire one ball each. this is why he is loved by his men. he is aiming his rifle and customer pulls back on the reins and the horse goes up and the horse -- he comes down with a saber. saidonfederate officer it's the only time it seen amount to charge effective in a general engagement with infantry. he follows it up again with an effective role helping to cause panic and cedar creek. he has a stunning role in the shenandoah valley. he has a major role in the appomattox campaign as well. finally at upper medics has these, sheridan table at which grant had written out his terms for $20. he gives it to libby custer. he said no man has done more to bring about this result than your husband. sheridan loves him. he has played a key division -- is --e and he has role. it is hard to find a division level commander who is more famous than custer's. the question is what happens? he goes off after the civil war and runs into trouble almost literally the moment the grant -- the review of the armies begins. going to take a few minutes so we have time for questions. if you've read my book or read the excerpts on the smithsonian, you know about it. he goes to texas. he gets involved with complications with the local slaveholders and planters who want to support. he takes part in a case of the murder of an eight-year-old african-american girl, who had been slave -- held in slavery after juneteenth. he struggles with it. the girl's murder because she had gone to join her mother. decidest the boy and the military should not be running things, even though martial law is prevailing. it's a hint of where he will go politically after the war. he has trouble with his troops. where he inspired intense loyalty in combat, when he is with new troops would never seen him in combat, his insecurity comes to the front. he retaliates against the most minor infractions outrageously. he has troops flawed, which is illegal. he has their heads shaved. the army has done a terrible job with just ask. -- logistics. treats troops harshly. he sees the piece coming. he does come around and be -- believe slavery is evil. other than that, he wants conservative restoration. he gets involved with andrew johnson when he goes on his swing around the circle in 1866. that is probably the most midterm american election in history. when he goes against the republican reconstruction, he brings along a few officers including grant and custer. black assigned to the ninth cavalry. first blackof the enlisted regiments in the u.s. army. the army has to take lack troops and custer goes over grants had an says he wants to serve with white troops only. conservative a union without slavery. grant gets dragged into the swing around the circle. he stays out of public view and leaves early. custer is out on the hot form campaign. -- what form campaigning. -- platform campaigning. many of the press castigates him. when he goes west in 1866 to fort riley and take command of the seventh cavalry, he gets his reward. he is the field commander. he is under a cloud. he is under pressure. all of the attention he loved is now contaminated by his own actions. program downe himself by getting involved in politics. he was a ladies man, even though he had a beautiful wife. whether he was having an affair or just very dangerous flirtations is hard to say. he's got all of these problems. he goes off on his first campaign. he shoots his own horse. he is lucky to get rescued. he is hoodwinked by the indians again and again. sketch by an artist who was on the scene for harpers of the kidder massacre. finally gives up. he leaves his men and rides hundreds of miles to see his wife so he can at least save his marriage and he does. he gets court-martialed. on a number of charges he gets convicted. it's a very interesting moment because now we see custer is no longer the hero. war, he is not a leader so much as a manager. percentage of the commissioned in 1865 in the regular army continue. they are commissioned within two years of the civil war. this is an army that is subtly shrinking, that has very little pitched combat. they are deserting in double digits every year. managementes real and personnel skills, which custer does not have. at the same time, he wants attention, he dressed in costume. fans, but the army as an institution sees him as a loose cannon. that's an ongoing theme in his life after the civil war. real problems with the way the institution of the army sees him. saves himself again and again because he is still a good combat commander. takes part in the winter campaign against the southern cheyenne. he fights a controversial battle with the watch a top. -- controversial battle. it is a controversial battle because women and children get killed. any men that fell into their hands did not survive. up aes on to build frontiersman image. he reinvents himself and americanize as a great indian fighter and frontiersman. as a great eyes indian fighter and frontiersman. area --to wall street street area he -- street. he tries to get investors in a silver mine. he is interested in the new corporate and financial world. a series of articles in which he very seriously looks at the west and rights and adventure tale of his early days in the west. newants to take part in mass media. he fails on wall street. not henry adams. everyadams said strikeout unnecessary word. custer never saw an adjective he didn't like. antebellum, the first sentence of his memoir seems like it must've started before the war. some of it is fun to read. it is still a romantic, old-fashioned sensibility. he is not fully of the new world. , he saves himself from other problems. he has two battles with the sioux indians. he still knows how to fight. in 1874, the democrats when the house of representatives and he hates reconstruction. like grants administration as president. he gets involved. he goes to capitol hill and rights anonymous articles criticizing grant. he testifies in congress. today soy officer openly allied himself with the political opposition to the commander-in-chief, his or her career would be over immediately. grant is upset. custer's life is nearly saved because grant pull some off command of the seventh cavalry. -- pulls him off command of the seventh cavalry. asksepartmental commander for him. sheridan is fed up with him. sherman is his last patron. he writes this letter, tell custer it makes it difficult for his friends to help them. don't take any reporters. don't talk to the press. he gets this fatherly advice. he has one last chance and it leads to disaster. ways, for historians and biographers, it has given us someone who has played this fascinating role, very revealing role in america going through these great transformations. it took somebody who would have otherwise been another. madead, little bighorn icon, into a national someone everyone has an opinion about. we have to remember that he was famous going into the battle. as a friend of mine said, if another officer of his rank in had gone to the same disaster, instead of being a national monument, it would probably be a state arc area -- park. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] i am very happy to answer questions. think custer had political ambitions beyond what he was trying to achieve in the army? >> this is a very interesting question. stephen ambrose said that custer wanted to be president. he was hoping to stampede the democratic convention. scenario,ms with that one is politics did not work that way. a lot of the democratic leaders are men who were close to vanderbilt. i looked through their papers very closely. kingmakers were already talking about custer. that is something that did not happen. even a dark horse like abraham lincoln had an organization. he had a plan. he was a player. libbie hated his involvement in politics. she put the cabal shown that. i think she would've kept him out of politics. i was wondering, why you didn't draw parallels from some , betweenher battles them and little bighorn? was she to would turned into his last stand. one writer suggested that what custer was trying to do at little bighorn was repeat his success. tj: i think this is an interesting question. custer made some mistakes going into that. there is a book about it. he talks about how the union command didn't really understand there was a large confederate force there. custer had an early clash and i don't think he properly reported. -- reported it. he showed his cool. he showed his valor and luck. he was being hit i spent bullets. this is somebody who should've died long before little bighorn. a bigttle bighorn is topic. it's an extraordinary circumstance. he was in a similar circumstance. he had the time and space to be able to collect his troops and he had a very clever tactic to get out of that situation. they swarmed around him. they were fighting around the edges. custer was in real peril. they withdrew to protect him and then he escaped. little bighorn was an extraordinary circumstance. i think he was carrying out a force. he did not have the element of surprise. hint gotten a telegram before he left. -- he had gotten a telegram before he left. no one in the army thought he had too few troops. out, theyfigured it went to attack from two sides. credit.to give we have to give credit to the lakota's. custer made mistakes or he would not have been wiped out. they were not only in huge were competent with their success. they had excellent leadership. they fought really well and really hard. instead of doing what everyone expected, they stood and fought and acted in ways no one expected. they earned that victory. if we spend too much time running down custer, we take away from the scope of their victory. point, inack to west the years he was at west point, i know kids that's were moved down a year for academic deficiency and discipline reasons. class, why do's you think he wasn't moved down even though he had more demerits and worse academic standing than some of the cadets that were moved down. it's hard to know. at one point, he failed a test that should have gotten him failed a number of cadets. somehow he lucked out. there is a certain degree, i wish i had an answer. it's terrible to say nobody knows. maybe it was his charm? he had that ability. even as a junior officer, his commanders really liked him. he was a great staff officer. maybe there was something about him that translates personally that got him some slack? god knows he took every bit of slack he could get. i'm not sure. that's my guess. i don't have any documentary evidence of that. about him, herote is too clever for his own good. nobody thought he could survive, but he did. there is a mystery surrounding that. it could be his personal charisma showed over his antics. he was a good writer. he was a good thinker. with some of his thoughts in politics, he disagreed with a lot of people who created civil rights in america. he was a smart guy. he got some slack. maybe someday somebody will come up with a debtor answer. that's the best i can do right new. thank you very much. i appreciate it. 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