George Armstrong Custer

AKA:

Autie

Birth Name:

Birth Date:

December 5, 1839

Birth Place:

41209 Rumley Road East, New Rumley, Ohio

Death Date:

June 25, 1876

Place of Death:

Little Bighorn, Montana Territory

Age:

Cause of Death:

Bullet wounds to the chest and head

Cemetery Name:

United States Military Academy Post Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Historical Figure

George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) was a U.S. Army officer and cavalry commander during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Born in New Rumley, Ohio, Custer attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating last in his class in 1861. Despite his poor academic standing, he quickly rose to fame for his boldness and bravery during the Civil War, earning rapid promotions and leading cavalry units in key battles such as Gettysburg and Appomattox. After the Civil War, Custer was assigned to the western frontier, where he became involved in the Indian Wars. He is most famous for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, where his forces faced a large combined force of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. Custer and his 210 men were killed in the battle, a disastrous defeat for the U.S. Army. Custer's death cemented his legacy as a controversial figure, admired by some for his bravery and criticized by others for his recklessness and stupidity. Despite his tragic end, he became a symbol of the American frontier, and his life continues to be a subject of debate.

The Rest of the Story …

George Armstrong Custer was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, by a combination of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. It is generally accepted by historians today that Buffalo Calf Road Woman rode her horse into the Little Bighorn battlefield and struck Custer on the back of the head with a tomahawk-like club followed by a warrior named White Cow Bull, who is credited with firing the shot that mortally wounded Custer.

Through 12 years as a wife and 56 years as a widow, Elizabeth Custer cherished “the General,” as she sometimes called her man, and defended his reputation against all comers. Libbie never hesitated to assert that he was betrayed in June 1876 at the Little Bighorn, and she blamed the catastrophe that killed 268 men (including five members of the Custer family) on cowardly subordinates. She loved her “Autie,” as George was known to family and friends, and she kept the memory of their love alive with three bestselling, yet factually challenged, books that have never been out of print and lecture tours from England to Japan until she herself died in 1933, just shy of 91 years old.

Married on February 9, 1864, the Custers, most of their biographers agree, had a passionate love. It was four years into this reputedly most idyllic of marriages that George had a protracted love affair with the daughter of Cheyenne Chief Little Rock, who died in the Battle of the Washita. The primary authority for a Custer-Monahsetah tryst is Kate Bighead, a Cheyenne woman who escaped, running barefoot through the snow, from Custer’s attack on the Washita. “My cousin…went often with him to help in finding the trails of Indians,” she recalled. “All of the Cheyennes liked her, and all were glad she had so important a place in life. After Long Hair [Custer] went away, different ones of the Cheyenne young men wanted to marry her. But she would not have any of them. She said that Long Hair was her husband, that he had promised to come back to her, and that she would wait for him. She waited seven years. Then he was killed.”

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

United States Military Academy Post Cemetery

329 Washington Road

West Point, New York, 10996

USA

North America

Map:

Map of U.S. Military Academy Post Cemetery (aka West Point Cemetery)

Grave Location:

Section XXVII, Row A, Grave 001

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery, make your way to the intersection of Sections 14, 15 and 17 for the final resting place of American General George Armstrong Custer.