The Real Custer by James S Robbins Page A

Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, wonders aloud, “What was going through Custer’s mind when he realized that he’d led his men into a slaughter?” Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, played by Sam Elliott, growls, “Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain’t.” The expression soon appeared on bumper stickers and t-shirts. But even if Plumley said it, which is doubtful, it is far from the truth. Custer was physically brave and morally courageous. As his bugler Joseph Fought said, “He was always in the fight, no matter where it was.” As a junior officer, he went out of his way to place himself in danger. As a commanding officer, he led from the front. To paraphrase the real Hal Moore, the only thing he had in the Ia Drang Valley that Custer didn’t at Little Bighorn was air support.
    Custer has been portrayed frequently in movies and television, in characters from the heroic to the absurd. He was a well-meaning fool in 2009’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian who lamented, “I will always be famous for my biggest failure.” Richard Mulligan played him as a volatile, arrogant clown in Little Big Man in 1970. Ronald Reagan, a self-described Custer buff, portrayed him in the historically challenged 1940 feature, Santa Fe Trail . “His image has been blurred and distorted over time,” the Gipper wrote, “but in truth he was a brilliant officer and not at all the boastful show-off his detractors would have us believe.” 4 Errol Flynn’s interpretation of Custer in They Died with Their Boots On in 1941 also took some liberties with history but was a popular and critical success. Flynn best captured George’s boyish spirit and charm, and the movie shaped perceptions of Custer for decades.
    The continuing fascination with Custer stems partly from his contradictions. He was a good friend who inspired loyalty, but his outsized personality could provoke bitter rivalries. He was a devoted husband whose natural flirtatiousness opened him to rumors of infidelity. He didn’t go to church, but he prayed before every battle. He was a lifelong Democrat who had to downplay his political views to placate radical Republicans. He was the scourge of the Confederacy but a close friend to many rebels. He was Sitting Bull’s foe but said that if he had been born an Indian, he also would have abandoned the reservations to ride free on the Plains.
    Custer lives strongest in the American memory as an Indian fighter, and while he criticized aspects of Native American culture, he also found much to admire. He took to the field against bands the government deemed hostile, but he said there was nothing better than living side by side with tribes at peace. He studied and attempted to understand the people of the Plains and was sometimes compared to them—the officer with the “heart of an Indian” who “charged like a Sioux chieftain.” Custer was as willing to smoke the peace pipe as he was prepared to fight. But as a soldier, he followed orders, and his primary concern was achieving victory. He killed Indians in battle, just as he killed Confederates in the Civil War, and in greater numbers. He burned Native American lodges, just as he scoured the Shenandoah Valley. Whether in the West or the East, he said he preferred peace. But when the sword was drawn, he was determined to make war his way until the enemy was vanquished.
    Custer did not do it all alone. His wife, Elizabeth, was his lifelong love and constant focus of his thoughts. He was very close to his family, and his brother Tom served by his side to the end. There were also the men he led into battle, his officers and staff who helped translate his orders into action, and especially his superiors, most notably Generals George McClellan, Alfred Pleasonton, and Philip Sheridan. These senior officers possessed the insight to understand how to use Custer’s talents,how much