Show portrait of a hero one of the unsolved mysteries of history is how custer hurdled the military promotion system and overnight 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 and chums greeted him as general custer thought they were kidding because he always boasted that hed be a general before the war akar 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 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 at the time of the battle of gettysburg he was about 15 miles away his brigade had been ordered along with the rest of the cavalry to wait at big roundtop where jeb stuart and his confederates were expected to attack stuart fooled the yankees by attacking from the opposite direction instead hearing stuarts gunfire custer disobeyed the orders he had received headed straight to ward the sound of the guns and charging four times stopped the confederate forces dead in in their tracks but for custers trigger thinking the union armies would have been routed at gettysburg the bitter irony is that the man who was defeated because of custers coup was fitzhugh lee the divisional commander of the confederate attack lee was the instructor tor who had saved custer from being expelled from west point by reducing his demerits buy defense bonds one of the greatest military wiz wiz ards birds of all time custer was almost expelled from west point for having the worst record of any student there any cadet who gets demerits over a period of six months is automatically tossed out ol of the military academy during his first half year at west point custer piled up demerits he was saved by a sympathetic instructor who reduced them in his studies he wasat was at the bottom of his class and probably thi 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 f fighting an enemy when he saw one without 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 through the window custer rushed up to the window and pushed his fist right through the pane into the guys snoot buy defense bonds custer was a showman who knew how to do things in a manner that hit bit people between the eyes at the end of the civil abar mbar war the army paraded in review before the 1 dent and other dignitaries in front of the white house just as he fisl approached the reviewing stand his horse reared and started to run away with a flourish custer mastered it and onlookers cheered wildly as custer galloped back into his place in line and passed the reviewing stand a second time lie he insisted it was an accident but rivals argued that his horse never acted up before or after that parade buy defense bonds it took a month to make custers austers Ou last stand for the film they died with their boots on historians believe the actual battle have lasted more than from half to three quarters of an hour custers men were so hopelessly outnumbered 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 custers defeat sitting bull returned claiming that he had been in the hills using his power with the indian gods to bring about victory the indians know until after the battle that it was custer they had been fighting buy bay defense bonds in ill the picture this repartee gets a howl the commandant at west point summons custer and threatening to expel him for having a fist fight with a fellow cadet asks him if he has anything to say 1 I know says custer that you could get fired from the army for or fighting buy defense bonds custer was nuts about onions and ate them as though they were apples the last gift he received from his wife before he died was a sack of onions whenever he be was away from fro m his hi wife hed sit up until all hours of the night writing long letters to her during one expedition he wrote e her a letter 80 pages long when custer died at little big horn the indians who killed him paid him a tribute that showed the respect even his enemies had for or him every man killed in that battle was sr scalped albed except custer |