The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer

by Thom Hatch

  This audacious act demonstrates the determination that would be Custer’s lifelong hallmark. The odds that a son of an outspoken Democrat such as Emanuel could gain political patronage from a Republican were beyond comprehension.

  Many stories have been written about why Armstrong Custer was even considered for such a prestigious appointment from a man whose politics were contrary to those of the staunchly Democratic Custer family. Bingham later related—after Custer had become famous—that the “honesty” of the young man’s letter “captivated” him. Perhaps that was true, but another story appears to have gained more credibility. Historians have speculated that the father of a girl with whom Custer was romantically involved used his influence with the congressman in order to remove Custer from his daughter’s life.

  While teaching at Beech Point, the seventeen-year-old Custer had boarded at the home of a prosperous local farmer and fallen in love with his daughter, Mary Holland. The couple traded correspondence—he even wrote her a poem that began: “I’ve seen and kissed that crimson lip”—but Mary’s father was not thrilled in the least about having this happy-go-lucky amateur poet as a family member and likely set out to remove Custer from his daughter’s life.

  Regardless of the circumstances, in January 1857 seventeen-year-old George Armstrong Custer received notification that he had been awarded an appointment to West Point that would take effect in June. Emanuel mortgaged his farm in order to raise the two hundred dollars necessary to pay for his son’s expenses and admission fee.

  On July 1, 1857, Armstrong Custer and sixty-seven other plebes reported for duty as the class of 1862 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

  The blue-eyed Armstrong Custer stood nearly six feet tall, weighed about 170 pounds, and was called Fanny by his classmates due to his wavy, blond hair and fair complexion. Students were organized into sections according to their academic abilities, and Armstrong found himself for the most part among the Southerners and Westerners, who were generally academically inferior to the New Englanders.

  Therefore, Custer’s closest friends were those with Southern roots—Kentuckians William Dunlop and George Watts, Mississippian John “Gimlet” Lea, Georgian Pierce M. B. Young, and Lafayette “Lafe” Lane, a Southern sympathizer from Oregon. Custer’s best friend was Virginia-born Texan Thomas L. Rosser, who roomed next door.

  Custer’s fun-loving nature was immediately at odds with the strict Academy code of conduct, which was calculated by a system of demerits—called skins by the cadets—issued for various offenses. One hundred skins in a six-month period would be grounds for dismissal from the Academy.

  At the end of his first year, Fanny Custer ranked fifty-second in mathematics and fifty-seventh in English—in a class of sixty-two. His placement was due in part to the fact that he had accumulated 151 demerits, the highest number in his class. His less-than-glowing academic record was not the result of a lack of intelligence on his part, rather his propensity for pranks and devil-may-care attitude. Fellow cadet Peter Michie wrote: “Custer was always in trouble with the authorities. He had more fun, gave his friends more anxiety, walked more tours of extra guard, and came nearer to being dismissed more often than any other cadet I have ever known.”

  Although his “boyish, but harmless frolics kept him in constant hot water,” one area in which Custer excelled was popularity and leadership. “He was beyond a doubt,” one cadet wrote, “the most popular man in his class.” Another reported: “West Point has had many a character to deal with, but it may be a question whether it ever had a cadet so exuberant, one who cared so little for its serious attempts to elevate and burnish, or one on whom its tactical officers kept their eyes so constantly and unsympathetically searching as upon Custer. And yet how we all loved him.”

  Custer, however, was disciplined enough when his total of demerits would reach levels of dismissal to behave for long periods of time or choose to work off minor infractions by walking extra guard duty. Also to his credit, he was never assessed a skin for fighting or for an altercation with another cadet throughout his West Point career.

  A check of his four-year record reveals, among others, offenses for making a boisterous noise in his sink, talking and laughing in class, throwing snowballs outside, throwing bread in the mess hall, being late for parade, swinging his arms in formation, not keeping his eyes to the front, throwing stones on post, not properly carrying his musket during drill, having cooking utensils in the chimney, and gazing about in ranks.

  Armstrong’s second year showed little improvement over the first. He accumulated 192 demerits—only 8 short of the 200 that would have resulted in his dismissal. His class standing was fifty-sixth out of sixty. He did, however, prove his skill as a horseman by, according to tradition, executing the highest jump of a hurdle ever at the Academy while slashing at a dummy with his saber.

  Custer’s third year at West Point was another poor performance. He earned 191 demerits, 1 fewer than the preceding year, and ranked at the bottom of his class.

  For the 1860–61 academic year at the Academy, Congress voted to reduce the school term from five to four years. The reason for this change was the threat of war between the North and the South, as new officers might be required to fight to preserve the Union. And, indeed, the Southern cadets vowed to resign from West Point when their states seceded. “You cannot imagine,” Custer wrote to sister Ann Reed, “how sorry I will be to see this happen as the majority of my friends and all my roommates except one have been from the South.”

  The formation of the Confederate States of America in February 1861 had a profound effect on the cadets. This separation of loyalties became evident at the Academy with impromptu good-natured contests of regional pride. As winter turned into spring, however, these rivalries more often than not escalated into arguments that resulted in blows being exchanged.

  On April 12, when Southern artillery opened up on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, thirty-seven cadets, including Custer’s best friend, Tom Rosser, departed from the Academy to offer their services to the Confederacy. In spite of his friendship with Southern classmates, Custer vowed to honor the oath of allegiance to which he had sworn upon entering West Point and offer his services to the governor of Ohio.

  The class of 1861 was graduated early on May 6. Custer’s class, which was subjected to an abbreviated curriculum that would supplant the final year of studies, was scheduled to graduate on June 24.

  Perhaps amazingly to many instructors and fellow cadets, Fanny Custer had satisfactorily completed his studies and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He had racked up an additional 192 demerits during the year, which gave him an impressive four-year total of 726. Nevertheless, the class clown who excelled in horsemanship and athletic prowess but lagged behind in academics had overcome his own outrageous antics to qualify for graduation from West Point.

  Perhaps predictably, Custer’s military career was in trouble before the ink had dried on his diploma. On June 29, he was Officer of the Guard when a fistfight broke out between two cadets. Inexplicably, Custer disregarded his duty to break up the fight and instead told the assembled crowd to “stand back, boys; let’s have a fair fight.”

  The Officer of the Day, First Lieutenant William B. Hazen, a West Point instructor and future Custer critic, happened along and placed Custer under arrest. While his classmates departed from the Academy and proceeded to Washington for further orders, Custer was detained to await a court-martial, which would convene on July 5.

  On that date, nine officers listened to evidence pertaining to charges of neglect of duty and “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” Custer was found guilty on both counts. His punishment, however, was the ruling that he only be “reprimanded in orders.” In other words, a black mark would be listed in his service record book, but he would suffer no other penalty.

  Under normal circumstances, Custer probably would have been dismissed from the service. “Custer’s Luck,” the term tha
t Custer and others would employ to characterize the favorable events that occurred to him throughout his life, had saved his military career. He was now free to apply the lessons that he had learned at the Academy on the battlefields of the Civil War.

  And now, as Custer impatiently whiled away his time in the Oval Office anteroom that May 1876 day, he was certainly disappointed in his treatment by Grant. Custer may even have experienced a twinge of bitterness or resentment that the president had apparently dismissed him as being less than a significant and irreplaceable cavalry commander.

  Aside from Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan, few active officers serving in the Army of the Potomac had more to do with bringing that war to a conclusion than George Armstrong Custer. He had risked his life on countless occasions and met every seemingly impossible challenge with heroic actions meant to secure victory for the Union. The Civil War had defined him as a leader of men and made him a national hero, and now Grant threatened to tarnish that stellar reputation over an honest testimony. Custer would not have even tendered the notion of speaking out against the president, however. He would be the loyal army officer no matter the cost.

  For the time being, however, George Armstrong Custer could only cool his heels and hope that the president would take into consideration that service in the Civil War that had propelled him from an ordinary soldier to a genuine American hero.

  Two

  Glorious War

  In his time, George Armstrong Custer was not a symbol of defeat but a national hero on a grand scale due to his amazing achievements in the Civil War. He captured the first enemy battle flag taken by the Union army and accepted the Confederate white flag of surrender at Appomattox. In between those notable events exists a series of intrepid acts of almost unbelievable proportion as he personally led electrifying cavalry charges that earned the flamboyant general the admiration of his men and captured the fancy of newspaper reporters and the public.

  Custer’s active military career, however, had a somewhat inauspicious beginning. Nevertheless his ambition and flair for being in the thick of the fight was always evident. On July 21, 1861, just three days out of West Point, Second Lieutenant Custer rode out to join G Company, Second Cavalry, at Bull Run. In his only action of the battle, he was cited for bravery when he turned an every-man-for-himself retreat, which had blocked a bridge across Cub Run, into an orderly formation.

  Due to his West Point education Custer was subsequently assigned to the staffs of several minor generals while new army commander Major General George B. McClellan attempted to mold raw recruits into a capable fighting force. Although serving as an aide-de-camp, Custer constantly sought out opportunities to see action.

  In early May 1862, during the Siege of Yorktown, Custer served as a military observer from a hot-air balloon. He would ascend with field glasses, map, and notebook and count enemy campfires while sketching the locations of gun emplacements and tent positions.

  On May 5, he was serving on the staff of General Winfield Scott Hancock, whose troops were engaged with Confederate soldiers at Williamsburg. The Union soldiers had been formed on a skirmisher line, and when the Rebels came within striking distance a bayonet charge was ordered. Hancock’s troops hesitated—until Custer spurred his horse and burst from their midst. The Union soldiers obediently followed this gallant one-man charge, which resulted in routing the Confederates into retreat. Custer returned to friendly lines after single-handedly capturing an enemy officer, five enlisted men, and—the real trophy—the first Confederate battle flag taken in the war by the Army of the Potomac.

  Armstrong Custer maintained unswerving loyalty to the Union but at times during the war demonstrated great compassion and generosity toward Southerners—especially his former West Point classmates who had chosen to join the Army of Northern Virginia.

  In one instance, one of the Confederate prisoners taken at Williamsburg in May 1862 was Armstrong Custer’s former classmate and friend Captain John “Gimlet” Lea, who had been badly wounded in the leg. Upon seeing Custer, Lea cried and hugged him. The two young men then exchanged information about classmates on both sides of the conflict. Custer received permission to remain with Lea and care for him for two days. Upon leaving, Custer gave Gimlet much-needed stockings and some money. Lea reciprocated by writing in Custer’s notebook that, if captured, Armstrong should be afforded good treatment by the Southerners.

  Later that month, Custer participated in a daring daylight reconnaissance along the Chickahominy River by guiding a raiding party to its objective. According to the official report “he was the first to cross the stream, the first to open fire, and one of the last to leave the field.”

  His heroic actions came to the attention of General McClellan, who requested Custer’s presence. At that time, Custer accepted a prestigious position on McClellan’s staff as aide-de-camp with the brevet rank of captain effective June 5.

  McClellan would come to greatly depend on the adventurous nature of Custer, who was already a McClellan admirer, and their relationship flourished. “His head was always clear in danger,” McClellan later wrote, “and he always brought me clear and intelligible reports.”

  When Custer arrived in Williamsburg in August 1862 with McClellan’s staff, he learned that his Confederate friend Gimlet Lea was on parole and recuperating in that town. Lea was about to marry a young woman who had nursed him back to health in her family’s home. Custer, dressed in his blue uniform, served as groomsman during the ceremony and proudly stood beside his gray-clad friend.

  Soon after, McClellan, a known critic of the policies established by the Lincoln administration, was removed from his role as army commander on November 7, 1862.

  Custer, who was devastated by the move, returned to Monroe, Michigan, to await further orders. This respite from the war, however, provided him the opportunity to become acquainted with Monroe resident Elizabeth Clift “Libbie” Bacon, with whom he would fall in love.

  If first impressions were lasting impressions, Libbie Bacon, the beautiful and intelligent daughter of Judge Daniel Bacon, a leading citizen of Monroe, Michigan, certainly would never have become involved with George Armstrong Custer. She and her father had witnessed an episode in October 1861 when Custer and an army companion, both drunk and boisterous, had staggered past their house. And although Custer and Miss Bacon had not been acquainted at that time, “that awful day,” as she called it, would indeed affect their future relationship.

  Armstrong had been on leave, staying at the Reed home. He was greeted as a local war hero and enthusiastically immersed himself in the social scene. The popular officer could be found on most nights romancing an adoring young lady or carousing with friends and other soldiers on furlough at any one of the establishments that served alcohol and the merriment of music.

  On one particular occasion Custer had imbibed to excess at a local tavern. He and an army companion staggered through the streets of Monroe on their merry way to Armstrong’s half sister’s house. The soldiers created quite a ruckus as they loudly laughed and sang without regard for the delicate ears of those within listening distance of the boisterous serenade.

  The two revelers happened to pass the Bacon residence, where they were observed by Judge Daniel Bacon and his nineteen-year-old daughter, Libbie. Custer was unaware of it at the time, but Libbie Bacon would later in the year become the object of his affections and this drunken episode would not be forgotten by Libbie or her father.

  Ann Reed, a woman of deep religious convictions, was appalled by her half brother’s condition. Once home, Ann—with her Bible in hand—took Armstrong into her bedroom and delivered what must have been a temperance lecture for the ages. She made him promise before God that he would never touch another drop of intoxicating beverage. Her efforts were successful. From that day forth, Custer never again touched alcohol, not even wine at formal dinner parties.

  Elizabeth Clift “Libbie” Bacon was born in Monroe, Michigan, on April 8, 1842. Her father, Daniel Sta
nton Bacon, was a descendent of the Plymouth colony and at one time or another had been a farmer, a schoolteacher, a member of the Territorial Legislature, a losing candidate for Michigan lieutenant governor in 1837, a probate judge, and a director of a bank and railroad. In September 1837, at the age of thirty-eight, Judge Bacon married twenty-three-year-old Eleanor Sophia Page of Grand Rapids by way of Rutland, Vermont, the daughter of a nursery owner who had been educated in one of the finest seminaries in the East.

  Daniel and Sophia, as she was known, would have four children—two girls, Harriet and Sophia, died in infancy and a boy, Edward, died of a childhood disease at the age of eight. That left little Libbie to be doted upon. She was raised in an idyllic traditional American setting—living in an imposing white house with green shutters surrounded by a well-kept lawn, guarded by a white picket fence, and towered over by stately elm trees.

  When Libbie was twelve, however, her mother passed away from a disease that, according to Judge Bacon, the “physicians were unacquainted with.” The judge had promised his wife on her deathbed that he would properly care for their daughter. To that end, he enrolled Libbie in the Young Ladies’ Seminary and Collegiate Institute—commonly known as “Boyd’s Seminary” after its founder, Reverend Erasmus J. Boyd. Libbie graduated in the spring of 1862, the valedictorian of her class. At this time she was a willowy 5 feet 4 inches tall with chestnut-brown hair and light blue-gray eyes—and was regarded as the prettiest girl in Monroe, Michigan.

  Armstrong Custer had been an occasional resident of Monroe, but due to their differing social levels the refined Miss Bacon and the son of the town smithy had not met as children. Their formal meeting came at an 1862 Thanksgiving party at Boyd’s Seminary. Custer was instantly smitten with Libbie—claiming he dreamed about her that night and that it was love at first sight. He courted her relentlessly—like a frontal assault cavalry charge.