An Aide To Custer

In August 1862, nineteen-year-old Edward G. Granger joined the 5th Michigan Cavalry Regiment as a second lieutenant. On August 20, 1863, the newly promoted Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer appointed Granger as one of his aides, a position Granger would hold until his death in August 1864. Many of the forty-four letters the young lieutenant wrote home during those two years, introduced and annotated here by leading Custer scholar Sandy Barnard, provide a unique look into the words and actions of his legendary commander. At the same time, Granger’s correspondence offers an intimate picture of life on the picket lines of the Army of the Potomac and a staff officer’s experiences in the field. As Custer’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Granger was in an ideal position to record the inner workings of the Michigan Brigade’s command echelon. Riding at Custer’s side, he could closely observe one of America’s most celebrated and controversial military figures during the very days that cemented his fame. With a keen eye and occasional humor, Granger describes the brigade’s operations, including numerous battles and skirmishes. His letters also show the evolution of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps from the laughingstock of the Eastern Theater to an increasingly potent, well-led force. By the time of Granger’s death at the Battle of Crooked Run, he and his comrades were on the verge of wresting mounted supremacy from their Confederate opponents. Amply illustrated with maps and photographs, An Aide to Custer gives readers an unprecedented view of the Civil War and one of its most important commanders, and unusual insight into the experience of a staff officer who served alongside him.

“A mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.” —Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times bestselling author of The Generals George Armstrong Custer is famous for his fatal defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876, but Custer’s baptism of fire came during the Civil War. His true rise to prominence began at Gettysburg in 1863. On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, Custer received promotion to brigadier general and command—his first direct field command—of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, the “Wolverines.” Custer did not disappoint his superiors, who promoted him in a search for more aggressive cavalry officers. At approximately noon on July 3, 1863, the melee that was East Cavalry Field at Gettysburg began. An hour or two into the battle, after many of his cavalrymen had been reduced to hand-to-hand infantry-style fighting, Custer ordered a charge of one of his regiments and led it into action himself, screaming one of the battle’s most famous lines: “Come on, you Wolverines!” Around three o’clock, the Confederates led by Stuart mounted a final charge, which mowed down Union cavalry—until it ran into Custer’s Wolverines, who stood firm, breaking the Confederates’ last attack. In a book combining two popular subjects, Tucker recounts the story of Custer at Gettysburg with verve, shows how the Custer legend was born on the fields of the war’s most famous battle, and offers eye-opening new perspectives on Gettysburg’s overlooked cavalry battle. “A thoughtful and challenging new look at the great assault at Gettysburg . . . Tucker is fresh and bold in his analysis and use of sources.” —William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command

"The Custer literature is voluminous and most of it is highly controversial. Through the tangle of charges and countercharges Jay Monaghan cuts a clear path in his fresh account of Custer's whole career. Where possible, Monaghan relies on original sources, and he appraises them with the sound judgment of the practiced historian he is. He is sympathetic with Custer but does not hesitate to show the man's foibles and failures. He presents no attorney's brief and yet he disproves a number of ill-founded accusations. . . ."

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (court-martialed twice in six years) and the new corporate economy, a wartime emancipator who rejected racial equality. Stiles argues that, although Custer was justly noted for his exploits on the western frontier, he also played a central role as both a wide-ranging participant and polarizing public figure in his extraordinary, transformational time—a time of civil war, emancipation, brutality toward Native Americans, and, finally, the Industrial Revolution—even as he became one of its casualties. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation. It casts surprising new light on one of the best-known figures of American history, a subject of seemingly endless fascination.

This is the first major illustrated book to examine the life and death of General Custer.

For nearly a century and a half most historians of the Civil War have accepted the claim by Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby that George Armstrong Custer bears all of the guilt associated with the summary executions of six of Mosby’s Rangers at Front Royal, Virginia on September 23, 1864. This book challenges that view through a comprehensive look at the events of the day and a history of the persons involved, contending that Custer was not responsible for these executions, being neither present on the scene nor the initiating officer.

The Real Custer takes a good hard look at the life and storied military career of George Armstrong Custer—from cutting his teeth at Bull Run in the Civil War, to his famous and untimely death at Little Bighorn in the Indian Wars. Author James Robbins demonstrates that Custer, having graduated last in his class at West Point, went on to prove himself again and again as an extremely skilled cavalry leader. Robbins argues that Custer's undoing was his bold and cocky attitude, which caused the Army's bloodiest defeat in the Indian Wars. Robbins also dives into Custer’s personal life, exploring his letters and other personal documents to reveal who he was as a person, underneath the military leader. The Real Custer is an exciting and valuable contribution to the legend and history of Custer that will delight Custer fans as well as readers new to the legend.

"Custer found himself in the one dilemma all soldiers most dread—he was outnumbered and completely surrounded. With disaster looming in every quarter and no chance of escape. . . ." So Gregory J. W Urwin pulls the reader into a scene describing not the Battle of the Little Big Horn but a Civil War engagement that George Armstrong Custer and his troop survived, thanks to strategy as much as naked courage. Many books have focused on Custer's Last Stand in 1876, making legend of total defeat. Custer Victorious is the first to examine at length, with attention to primary sources, his brilliant Civil War career. Urwin writes: "None of Custer's exploits against the Plains Indians could compare with those he performed while with the Army of the Potomac." The leader of a brigade called "the Wolverines," Custer was promoted to major general and the helm of the Third Cavalry Division when he was only twenty-four. Urwin describes the Boy General's vital contributions to Union victories from Gettysburg to Appomattox.