GAC’s appeal to, prf.1, 1.1, 4.1, 9.1, 11.1, 11.2, 15.1
GAC’s relationships with, prf.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2, 10.1, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5
indirect influence of, 11.1, 15.1
limitations on, 13.1, 14.1, 15.1
Native American, 12.1, 13.1, 15.1
non-traditional
Southern
suffrage movement
traditional cultural expectations of, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 7.1, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.2, 11.1, 11.2, 13.1, 15.1
see also specific women
Wood, Fernando
Woodbury, Dwight
Woodhull, Victoria
Worcester v. State of Georgia
Work, Frank
World War II
Wotapio band
Wounded Knee, massacre at
Wright, George, 14.1, 14.2
Wright, Horatio G., 8.1, 9.1, 9.2
Wynkoop, Edward W., 11.1, 11.2, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3
Yankton, Dakota Territory
Yankton Press & Dakotaian
Yankton tribe (Yanktonai), 15.1, 15.2
Yates, Annie Gibson Roberts, 13.1, 13.2, 15.1, epl.1
Yates, George, 4.1, 6.1, 12.1, 13.1, 15.1, 16.1, 16.2, epl.1, epl.2
Yellowstone basin
Yellowstone battles of the:
Aug. 4, 1873, 15.1
Aug. 11, 1873, 15.1
Yellowstone expedition, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.6, 15.7, 15.8, 15.9, 15.10, 16.1, 16.2, epl.1
Yellowstone River (Elk River), 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 16.1, epl.1, epl.2
Yellow Tavern, battle at, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5
York River, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1
Yorktown, Va., 2.1, 2.2, 3.1
Young, P. M. B., 1.1, 1.2, 13.1
Young (soldier)
Young Ladies’ Seminary and Collegiate Institute, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 12.1
Zouaves
A Note About the Author
T. J. Stiles is the author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, which received the Ambassador Book Award and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. An elected member of the Society of American Historians and a member of the board of the Authors Guild, he was a 2011 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a 2004 Gilder Lehrman Fellow in American History at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and a member of the 2014 faculty of the World Economic Forum. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two children.
West Point gave George Armstrong Custer a path out of the poverty of his rural Ohio childhood, and he made the least of it. He befriended Southerners, played pranks, and graduated last in his class in 1861. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
As a junior officer in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, Custer took advantage of the creeping pace of the Union advance to socialize. Here he reclines on the ground with a dog as he relaxes with members of Gen. Fitz-John Porter’s staff. Library of Congress
The crisis that led to the Civil War overshadowed Custer’s years at West Point, and the city of New York loomed large in his life. This engraving depicts uniformed Republican “Wide Awakes” on parade for Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1860, on Park Row, center of the newspaper and publishing trade. Library of Congress
Custer served as a topographical engineer on the Peninsula, scouting enemy lines and drawing maps. He frequently went aloft in this hydrogen-filled observation balloon, developed by Thaddeus Lowe. Library of Congress
Commander of the Army of the Potomac and mastermind of the Peninsula Campaign, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan picked Custer for his staff after the young officer took part in a daring raid on May 24, 1862. Custer idolized McClellan and his wife, Mary Ellen. Library of Congress
In the Battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1, 1862, Union troops captured Lt. James B. Washington, Custer’s fellow cadet at West Point. James F. Gibson photographed the two as they talked after the battle, then included a young “contraband,” or escaped slave. This photo circulated with the title “Both Sides and the Cause.” Library of Congress
On October 3, 1862, after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln visited McClellan and his staff, shown here, with Custer at far right. Custer imbibed McClellan’s rages against the administration and witnessed his intrigue with wealthy Democratic party leaders, and forged his own ties with them after the Civil War. Library of Congress
After Lincoln removed McClellan, Custer (left) found a new patron, Gen. Alfred Pleasonton (right), in the spring of 1863. Known for political maneuvering, Pleasonton took command of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac under Gen. Joseph Hooker. He knew Custer from the Antietam campaign, and named him to his staff. Custer was already growing his hair long. Library of Congress
Custer sought political as well as military patrons. He found one in Isaac Christiancy, a prominent Michigan Republican and state supreme court justice from Monroe. Custer adopted Monroe as his hometown after living there with his older sister after her marriage. Library of Congress
On June 17, 1863, Custer participated in an attack near Aldie, Virginia, by Gen. Judson Kilpatrick, who tried to break through the Confederate cavalry to gather intelligence on the invasion of Pennsylvania. This contemporary sketch of the battle by Edwin Forbes depicts the kind of close-range mounted fighting with sabers and revolvers that Custer frequently engaged in. Library of Congress
Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan wielded great power as a leading Radical Republican, and Custer sought his support as he pursued higher rank. Custer, a Democrat who supported McClellan, misrepresented his views to Chandler and other Radicals, who despised McClellan and his pro-slavery, limited-war philosophy. Library of Congress
With the Confederates invading the North, Pleasonton (right) secured Custer’s promotion to brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers on June 28, 1863. Custer was twenty-three. As seen here, he wore a black velveteen jacket with gold embroidery, the blue collar of a sailor’s shirt tufting out over his shoulders, and a bright red necktie. One witness called him “one of the funniest-looking beings you ever saw” but, like many, admired his “devil-may-care style.” Library of Congress
Custer helped repel a Confederate cavalry assault at Gettysburg by leading mounted charges. He was not foolhardy, though, unlike his division commander, Judson Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick ordered a handful of Custer’s men to charge an enemy fortification at Falling Waters on July 15, 1863, with disastrous results, shown in this sketch by battlefield artist Alfred Waud. Library of Congress
During the first half of the Civil War, the gifted Gen. J. E. B. Stuart led the Confederate cavalry to supremacy over Union horsemen on the battlefield. He affected a dashing cavalier style that Custer shared. Custer’s men killed Stuart in the Battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864. Library of Congress
Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon of Monroe, Michigan, met Custer in 1862 when she was twenty years old, her age when this photograph was taken. She graduated that year as valedictorian from the Young Ladies’ Seminary and Collegiate Institute in Monroe. Custer pursued her despite her father’s disapproval, though he simultaneously courted one of her classmates. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Swygert-Smith Collection
Custer’s promotion to brigadier general helped reconcile Libbie Bacon’s parents to their courtship. They married on February 9, 1864, in Monroe. Custer cut his hair short for the occasion. She moved to Washington, and adroitly lobbied senators and congressmen to maintain his political support. Library of Congress
In July 1863, Custer hired teenager Eliza Brown, an escaped slave, as his cook. Brown “stood supreme as general superintendent” of the household, Libbie Custer wrot
e. The relationship between the two women combined mutual respect and affection with racial tension and a struggle for control. “Her whole soul was in the wrongs, real or fancied, of her race,” Libbie wrote. Libbie thought them largely imaginary. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Elizabeth B. Custer Collection
Dubbed “the Boy General of the Golden Locks” by a reporter, Custer received extensive and glowing attention in the press. This cover of Harper’s Weekly on March 19, 1864, showed him with his freshly cut hair, soon after his wedding—a surprising image for readers familiar with his long blond curls and romantic style. Library of Congress
Named general-in-chief by Lincoln, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant came to Virginia to oversee the Army of the Potomac’s spring campaign in 1864. Unlike Custer, he was laconic and understated. Custer met him soon after Grant arrived, beginning a long and troubled relationship. Library of Congress
Grant put Gen. Philip H. Sheridan in command of the Cavalry Corps. Custer resented the removal of his patron Pleasonton, but soon became Sheridan’s favorite subordinate. This staged photograph shows, left to right, Wesley Merritt, Sheridan, George Crook, James Forsyth, and Custer. Library of Congress
On September 19, 1864, Custer played a key role in Sheridan’s great victory in the third Battle of Winchester (also known as the Battle of Opequon) in the Shenandoah Valley. He timed and led a charge that crushed the enemy flank, a rare instance of cavalry successfully attacking infantry in the war, vividly captured in this Alfred Waud sketch. Library of Congress
In the fall of 1864, Custer took part in the burning of fields and barns in the Shenandoah Valley, illustrated here by Waud. This economic warfare seriously injured the Confederate cause, but en-raged local guerrillas under Col. John S. Mosby, who targeted Custer and his men. Library of Congress
Waud sketched this iconic moment in Custer’s career. Just before Custer led the 3rd Cavalry Division in an attack on October 9, 1864, he spotted an old friend from West Point, Gen. Thomas Rosser, across the battlefield. Custer swept off his hat in a salute to his foe. The gesture captured his romantic appeal to a public exhausted by the war. Library of Congress
At Cedar Creek on October 18, 1864, Sheridan rallied his men after a surprise Confederate attack and crushed the Southern army. Custer’s division played an important role. He went to Washington to present captured flags to the War Department, shown in this sketch by Waud. Custer’s status as a national hero was shared by few other division commanders. Library of Congress
As a cavalry commander, Custer largely avoided the worst horrors of the infantry fighting. Grant’s Overland Campaign of 1864 and the ensuing siege of Petersburg saw tens of thousands of infantrymen killed or wounded. The war disillusioned such intellectuals as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Ambrose Bierce, and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., but not Custer. Here African-American laborers bury Confederate dead en masse at the Cold Harbor battlefield. Library of Congress
In early 1865, Libbie’s father and stepmother, Daniel and Rhoda Bacon, and her cousin Rebecca Richmond visited Custer’s headquarters near Winchester, Virginia, where Libbie also resided over the winter. This photograph shows them and Custer’s staff on the porch of the house he used for his quarters and office. Here Tom Custer sits at left, holding a dog, with Rebecca Richmond seated next to him. Standing directly above Tom is an unknown soldier; to the right, Libbie Custer, Daniel Bacon, George Armstrong Custer, and Rhoda Bacon. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Elizabeth B. Custer Collection
Custer sat for numerous portrait photographs. This one captures his public image as a Civil War general, with his sailor shirt, red tie, and wide-brimmed hat over his long, curly hair. Here he wears the two stars of a major general. He received a promotion to major general of U.S. Volunteers and to brevet, or honorary, major general in the Regular Army at the end of the war. Library of Congress
Custer poses here with Libbie and his brother Tom at the end of the Civil War. He worked hard to bring Tom onto his staff, where Tom won two Medals of Honor. After the war he secured Tom’s appointment as an officer in the Regular Army, in Custer’s own 7th Cavalry Regiment. Library of Congress
Custer and his division played a prominent part in the final campaign that ended in Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Alfred Waud’s sketch shows a Confederate officer approaching Custer with a flag of truce, which led to the surrender negotiations that afternoon. Library of Congress
On May 23, 1865, the 3rd Cavalry Division led the Grand Review, the victory parade in Washington, D.C. Custer rode Don Juan, a famous race horse he had seized after Lee’s surrender. The thoroughbred panicked, but Custer regained control amid applause from the crowd. He hoped to sell the horse for $10,000. Library of Congress
After the Grand Review, Custer took his wife, brother, and Eliza Brown to Louisiana. He led a cavalry division into Texas, where he grappled with the aftermath of emancipation. Here, on the steps of Custer’s Austin headquarters, is Tom Custer, in front of the door at left, and to the right, Armstrong, Eliza Brown standing behind Libbie, Emmanuel Custer (father of Tom and Armstrong) seated with legs crossed, and next to him Custer’s friend and aide Jacob Greene. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Elizabeth B. Custer Collection
Custer returned to Washington, D.C., from Texas in March 1866 and plunged into a bitter political battle over Reconstruction between President Andrew Johnson, shown here, and the Republican Congress. Custer joined Johnson on a national speaking tour, supporting the president as he delivered shocking attacks on his enemies. A lifelong conservative Democrat, Johnson opposed all attempts to expand rights for freed slaves. Library of Congress
A partisan Democrat like his father, Custer supported the National Union Party in the critical midterm election of 1866, attending its national convention as a delegate for Michigan. It was the Democratic Party in all but name, which was intended to immunize against the Democrats’ taint of wartime disloyalty. The gruesome racial tone of the campaign is illustrated by these two posters for Democrat Hiester Clymer in his race for governor of Pennsylvania. Library of Congress
In St. Louis in 1866, the Custers met actor Lawrence Barrett, one of the stars of the stage after the Civil War. Enormous fans of the theater, the Custers developed a close friendship with Barrett over the years. Courtesy of Dr. David S. Shields, Broadway Photographs, http://broadway.cas.sc.edu
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, headquarters for the military Department of the Missouri, 1867. Custer spent many months there during his years in the state. Like most forts on the Great Plains, it was built on an open, rectangular pattern. Library of Congress
Motion, not settlement, caused much of the conflict with the American Indian nations of the high plains in Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska. As illustrated here, railroad construction crews and migrant wagon trains crossing to Denver and points farther west consumed and degraded resources in river valleys that were critical to the survival of nomadic culture. Library of Congress
Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock first met Custer in the Peninsula Campaign. He took command of the Department of the Missouri after the Civil War and led an expedition onto the Great Plains to intimidate the Southern Cheyennes and their allies, sparking a war that led to Custer’s court-martial in 1867. Faced with marital difficulties and a frustrating campaign, Custer abandoned his troops to reconcile with his wife. For that and other offenses he was tried, convicted, and suspended from pay and duty for a year. Library of Congress
Gen. William T. Sherman commanded the vast Division of the Missouri, and attended personally to the war that Hancock ignited in 1867. Grimly unsentimental, he advocated harsh measures to crush indigenous resistance, but despaired at the difficulties in policing the vast West. Library of Congress
The Oglala Lakota leader Pawnee Killer (center) made a fool of Custer in the summer of 1867. Sherman ordered his detention as a hostage, but Custer allowed him to go after Pawnee Kille
r inspected the 7th Cavalry’s camp and talked Custer into giving him supplies. Library of Congress
After Custer allowed Pawnee Killer to escape, he searched the headwaters of the Republican River. Sherman sent him new orders in the care of Lt. Lyman Kidder, a scout, and a ten-man escort. Custer (standing at left) found them all dead, likely at Pawnee Killer’s hands. They were stripped naked, mutilated, and riddled with arrows. Artist Theodore Davis of Harper’s Weekly, a witness to this scene, rendered the dead as skeletons since the gruesome reality was unpublishable. Library of Congress
LEFT: On October 19, 1867, a federal peace commission negotiated with the native nations of the Central and Southern Plains at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Here the Kiowa leader Satanta addresses the council. The result was a treaty that created a new reservation for them in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). Southern Cheyenne anger at the loss of their homeland, along with federal missteps, led to an outbreak of fighting in 1868. Library of Congress RIGHT: Custer received a reprieve and returned to duty in late 1868. Sheridan, now in command of the Department of the Missouri, assigned him to strike the Southern Cheyennes in winter, when snow limited their mobility. Custer wore this buckskin outfit, which was typical of his costume in the West. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Elizabeth B. Custer Collection
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America Page 86