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INTRODUCTION
    I have so much to be thankful for in my life. God grant that I may always prove as deserving as I am grateful to Him for what He has given me. In years long numbered with the past, when I was merging upon manhood, my every thought was ambitious—not to be wealthy, not to be learned, but to be great. I desired to link my name with acts and men, and in such a manner as to be a mark of honor, not only to the present, but to future generations.
    â€”GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER

    W hen you mention the name George Custer, most people first think of his Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. His was a tragic death, some even argue a foolish or needless one. Others see him as the Civil War–era “Boy General with the Golden Locks,” at twenty-three the youngest general officer to that point in American history. From Gettysburg to Appomattox, Custer led every charge, as Abraham Lincoln said, “with a whoop and a shout.” Or maybe Custer’s fight with the Cheyenne on the Washita River comes to mind, which some called a significant battlefield victory, while others saw only a senseless massacre.
    Custer is talked about, written about, debated, loved, and hated. His name has come to symbolize tragedy, recklessness, valor, and disaster. He has been lionized and demonized, admired and mocked. Much of his history has been denounced as myth, but his celebrity is rooted firmlyin reality. Custer became a legend for good reason. But whether elevated to heroic perfection or denounced as a fiend, Custer the symbol has overcome Custer the man.
    The real Custer is more complex and interesting than the one-dimensional caricatures he has often been reduced to in popular culture. Custer was a polarizing figure even in his day, with strong supporters and detractors. Biographers have grappled with this duality from the start. Frederick Whittaker’s influential though embellished account of Custer’s life came out the year George died, but even Whittaker felt it necessary to address the Custer legend that had grown up during his lifetime. “The popular idea of Custer as a soldier,” Whittaker wrote, “is that of a brave, reckless, dashing trooper, always ready to charge any odds, without knowing or caring what was the strength of his enemy, and trusting to luck to get out of his scrapes.” But he argued that “the real Custer” was “a remarkably quiet, thoughtful man, when any work was on hand, one who never became flurried and excited in the hottest battle.” He also claimed Custer had never been caught by surprise, which was not true, and was “equal to any emergency of whatever kind,” which may have been true until it wasn’t. 1
    As for trusting to luck, throughout the Army the expression “Custer’s luck” meant having the good fortune to get out of trouble—until it came to mean the opposite. “‘Custer’s luck’ will no longer be so much envied by his brother soldiers,” journalist and Civil War veteran George Edward Pound wrote four months after Little Bighorn. But Pound admired Custer and said he “would not have so praised his luck had he not confided more in his courage,” and that his fortune was not in the stars “but in his own soul—the born spirit of the cavalryman that flowered into exploits.” 2
    What is it about Custer that makes him one of the most talked about figures in American history? 3 Even in his day, Custer was a magnet for attention. With his striking presence and unconventional uniforms, heattracted comment wherever he went. But what he did once he had that attention is what made him memorable. He was talked about, but that was because he gave people something worth talking about. He cultivated an eccentric image, but he was more than simply the nineteenth-century equivalent of tabloid fodder.
    At base, Custer was a hardened warrior. In the Vietnam War film We Were Soldiers ,