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    Custer: The Making of a Young General
    Unavailable
    Custer: The Making of a Young General
    Unavailable
    Custer: The Making of a Young General
    Ebook476 pages6 hours

    Custer: The Making of a Young General

    By Edward G. Longacre

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    About this ebook

    This illuminating biography of the famous general’s Civil War years makes an “excellent contribution to the literature on George Custer” (The Civil War Monitor).

    The name George Armstrong Custer looms large in American history, specifically for his leadership in the American Indian Wars and his dramatic fall at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But before his time in the West, Custer began his career fighting for the Union in the Civil War. In Custer, noted Civil War historian Edward G. Longacre provides fascinating insight into this often-overlooked period in Custer's life.

    In 1863, under the patronage of General Alfred Pleasonton, a young but promising twenty-three-year-old Custer made an unprecedented rise to the rank of brigadier general and was placed in charge of the untried Michigan Calvary Brigade. Custer would eventually lead the Wolverines to prominence after facing early tests at Hanover, Hunterstown, and Gettysburg. In these campaigns and subsequent ones, Custer's reputation for surging ahead regardless of the odds was firmly established—with results that appeared to validate his calculating recklessness.

    Custer is a study of a military man’s formative years: his character and personality; his attitudes toward leadership; his tactical preferences; his trademark brashness; his relations with subordinates; and his attitudes toward the enemy. Longacre goes into great depth and detail, firmly refuting many of the myths and misconceptions regarding Custer’s personal life and military service.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 14, 2018
    ISBN9781510733206
    Unavailable
    Custer: The Making of a Young General
    Author

    Edward G. Longacre

    Edward G. Longacre is a retired historian for the Department of Defense. He is the recipient of a Ph.D. from Temple University and taught military history at the University of Nebraska and the College of William and Mary. Ed is the author of 30 books, all but one of which covers the Civil War. The Cavalry at Gettysburg won the Fletcher Pratt Award, his biography of Wade Hampton III, Gentleman and Soldier, received the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award, and his study of First Bull Run, The Early Morning of War, received the Dr. James I. Robertson Jr. Literary Prize. He lives with his wife, two dogs, and two cats in Newport News, Virginia, on ground maneuvered over during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign.

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    • 4/5
      First off, George Armstrong Custer has never been someone I particularly admired, or felt that much need to learn about. But when I noticed that Edward Longacre, probably the leading expert on cavalry in the U.S. Civil War had a book out on Custer's service during the late unpleasantness of the 1860s, I felt that I'd get an accurate assessment of the man. So, the big dichotomy here is how a man who apparently made a mission of skating through West Point with as little effort as possible, turned into such a determined careerist once he was actually on active service. Longacre really doesn't have a great answer to that, except to note that he doesn't find Custer to be an especially complicated individual, as opposed to being a bundle of contradictions. Perhaps the answer is that when actual responsibility was thrust upon Custer he realized that he had to live up to the moment and, in an army dominated by men past their prime, raw drive and energy counted for a lot.