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Show U f .j.ns:; l Portrait of a Hero: One of the unsolved mysteries of history is how Custer hurdled the military promotion system and overnight over-night rose from a mere lieutenant to a general ... All anyone knows Is that he returned to headquarters one day after being out on a mission, mis-sion, and chums greeted him as "General" . . . Custer thought they were kidding, because he always boauted that he'd be a general be-fore be-fore the war was over, and he was all set to start punching. One of his friends grabbed him by the arm and took him to his tent where he found an envelope containing his commission addressed to "Brigadier "Briga-dier General George Armstrong Custer" . . . Custer, who was only 23 years old, turned pale and passed out cold. Buy Defense Bonds Custer Is the man who turned the tide of the Civil war by saving the Union army from defeat at Gettysburg. Gettys-burg. At the time of the Battle of Gettysburg he was about 15 miles away. His brigade had been ordered or-dered (along with the rest of the cavalry) to wait at Big Roundtop, where Jeb Stuart and his Confederates Confed-erates were expected to attack . . . Stuart fooled the Yankees by attacking at-tacking from the opposite direction instead . . . Hearing Stuart's gunfire, gun-fire, Custer disobeyed the orders he had received, headed straight toward to-ward the sound of the guns and, charging four times, stopped the Confederate forces dead In their tracks . . . But for Custer's trigger thinking, the Union armies would have been routed at Gettysburg . . . The bitter irony is that the man who was defeated (because of Custer's Cus-ter's coup) was Fitzhugh Lee, the divisional commander of the Confederate Con-federate attack. Lee was the Instructor In-structor who had saved Custer from being expelled from West Point by reducing his demerits. Buy Defense Bonds-One Bonds-One of the greatest military wizards wiz-ards of all time, Custer was almost expelled from West Point "for having hav-ing the worst record" of any student stu-dent there . . . Any cadet who gets 100 demerits (over a period of six months) is automatically tossed out of the military academy. During Dur-ing his first half year at West Point Custer piled up 129 demerits. (He was saved by a sympathetic instructor instruc-tor who reduced them) ... In his studies he was at the bottom of his class, and probably the only reason he was graduated was that the Civil war started and the Union army needed officers. Buy Defense Bonds Custer always believed in fighting an enemy when he saw one, without with-out stopping to consider the cost ... When he was a kid, he once attended a dance and noticed one of his enemies poking fun at him outside by making faces and gestures ges-tures through the window . . . Custer Cus-ter rushed up to the window and pushed his fist right through the pane into the guy's snoot. Buy Defense Bonds Custer was a showman who knew bow to do things in a manner that hit people between the eyes. At the end of the Civil war, the army paraded pa-raded In review before the President Presi-dent and other dignitaries In front of the White House . . . Just as he approached the reviewing stand, his horse reared and started to run away . . With a flourish, Custer mastered it and onlookers cheered S wildly as Custer galloped back into bis place in line and passed the reviewing re-viewing stand a second time . . . He insisted it was an accident, but rivals argued that his horse never acted up befere or after that parade. Buy Defense Bonds It took a month to make Custer's last stand for the film, "They Died With Their Boots On" . . . Historians Histori-ans believe the actual battle couldn't have lasted more than from half to three-quarters of an hour, Custer's men were so hopelessly outnum-bered outnum-bered . . . Although Sitting Bull is usually credited with having been in charge of the massacre, actually he was as far away from the battle as his horse could get him. As soon as he heard of Custer's defeat, Sitting Sit-ting Bull returned, claiming that he had been in the hills using his power with the Indian gods to bring about victory . . . The Indians didn't know until after the battle that it was Custer they had been fighting. Buy Defense Bonds In the picture this repartee gets a howl . . . The commandant at West Point summons Custer and (threatening to expel him for having hav-ing a fist fight with a fellow cadet) asks him if he has anything to say ... "I didn't know," says Custer, "that you could get fired from the army for fighting." Buy Defense Bonds Custer was nuts about onions and ate them as though thsy were apples. ap-ples. The last gift he received from . his wife before he died was a sack of onions . . . Whenever he was away from his wife, he'd sit up until all hours of the night writing long letters to her. During one expedition, expe-dition, he wrote her a letter 80 pages long . . . When Custer died ft Little Big Horn, the Indians who killed him paid hiaa a tribute that showed the respect even his enemies bad v for him. Every man killed in thai battle was calped--xcept Custer |