The Events Behind Custer’s Last Stand May Have Unfolded Totally Differently
It was a summer’s day when Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer — and the 210 troopers of the 7th Cavalry he led — met their fate. Their nemesis was a mixed band of Cheyenne and Sioux warriors, Native Americans of the Great Plains. The legendary events at the Battle of Little Bighorn that day came to represent one of America’s great legends: the story of an outstandingly brave cavalry officer and his men up against overwhelming odds.
Myth or fact?
But how much of the story is a myth and how much fact? Was Custer really a hero? Or was his leadership of his men on that June day questionable, even entirely incompetent? Over the years history has come to see the events at Little Bighorn in a different light. Many now reject the idea of brave U.S. Cavalry troopers ranged against ruthless, even cruel, Native Americans.
Two questions
One way of looking at the events at Little Bighorn, called the Battle of Greasy Grass by the Native Americans who fought in it, is to search for the answer to two questions. Firstly, what motivated the Cheyenne and Sioux warriors in 1876 in their determination to fight the U.S. Army? And secondly, to what extent did Lieutenant Colonel Custer’s background and character make his disastrous last stand an inevitability?
Last in the class
Let’s start by finding out more about George Armstrong Custer. He was born in 1839 in New Rumley, Ohio, and he had earned a teacher’s certificate by the end of his schooling. But Custer never taught in a classroom, since in 1857 he started as a cadet at the West Point Military Academy. His time there was not an unqualified success. He did manage to graduate in 1861 — but only at the very bottom of his class.
Civil War
After this conspicuously inauspicious start, Custer’s military career did pick up. The Civil War broke out in the very year that he graduated from West Point, and he seems to have had no hesitation in throwing in his lot with the Union Army as a cavalry officer. He fought with distinction in various engagements, including at Gettysburg and at the First Battle of Bull Run.
