Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America

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TJ Stiles was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer for history first biography on Cornelius Vanderbilt story featured here on our American stories in his biography on George Armstrong Custer Stiles cast surprisingly new, like on one of the best-known figures of American history, a subject of seemingly endless fascination beers TJ Stiles with the story of George Custer Custer is one of the most controversial figures in American history. People love him and they hate him these days. They tend to hate him more than love. He was in fact victorious as well as a celebrity during his own lifetime, but whether you love Custer or hate him read no particular opinion. We all envision him in a particular way, usually alone on a hilltop surrounded by his dead soldiers as Cheyenne and Lakota warrior circle around him as he fires off his last bullet slaughtered along with more than 200 of his troops. This Custer is the one that lives in our imagination. He's a man of the West is a man who is eternally fighting Native Americans is someone who we can't really imagine anywhere else. Custer is one of the most researched people in American history and I respect that research I tried to put together a picture of Custer's life and his significance and his meaning for Americans at the time before he got to the little big horn before that enormous sun rises over his life and blinds us to everything that came before that stunning death of his, which was indeed significant. Why was it that Custer was a celebrity before he got there.

Why was it that he was notorious before he got there, what was the meaning that Americans saw in him before he took on the meetings that we put upon him.

This was the mission that I set for myself and writings biography of Custer there's another aspect to Custer as well when it's a little bit more familiar. That's Custer is the Army officer in many of these are very well-known eat. He was a young boy from a poor background in Ohio who went off to West Point very lucky you got an appointment to West Point. There is one of his classmates said when he realized he could not lead the class academically. He decided to supported by providing a solid base graduated last in his class.

But first, and demerits and what is that mean again this is this is something I have to do I have to try to understand that the human meeting the interior state that's reflected in the outer actions all those demerits are a reflection of his acting out of his performing for an audience. That audience are his fellow cadets trying to project an image of himself and this is an important fact about Custer sending this to understand about him, but also see past which is the fact that he was always telling stories about himself. He was telling stories to audience and he was also telling the stories to himself that this ego this this grand performative nature is his elaborate costume.

He worried about the cost since he adopted when he went west. We were buckskin instead of a black velvet uniforms he had during the war.

This is telling a story to the public and it's also creating one for himself that he is not that obscure boy that did no one from nowhere. That in fact that he's someone who is right who is performing on a historical stage of man whose antebellum romantic hero. That's the story he's telling me still performing for that audience and just days after graduating, he is the commander of the guard for the Army encampment. The training encampment for the cadets as they do their military training in the summer and upperclassman starts a fistfight with underclassmen plead and Custer's and charges Of the guard.

He supposed to rest them. An army can't function with the soldiers just fighting with each other. It will and instead he says Stanback boys let them have a fair fight.

Well, you know, nowadays it would be handled administratively, but this was something that he was court-martialed for convicted, but Custer's luck came in something that saved him again and again.

The Civil War had broken out. He's terribly fearful that he will miss the entire thing is we pleads for mercy and Mrs. Bill pleads for mercy and they take pity on him to convict him, court-martialed conviction, but they let them go off to war there finds a new audience he's performing now for his superiors. He finds a mission and suddenly the miscreant of West Point begins to perform extremely well and there's something charming about him, something it's very hard to capture in the documents is that charisma and his superiors are susceptible to during the Peninsula campaign is actually plucked from obscurity when he performs very well taking part in a raid on Confederate position that comes to the attention of Gen. McClellan puts them on his staff then now Custer is performing for Gen. McClellan performs very well and interestingly he he worships McClellan notoriously conservative Gen. both politically and military operations. Custer worships this man was so accomplished and so steam even though his own personality so different is volunteering to go off underrates he wants to win in a way that McClellan doesn't. And that's what actually saves him. When McClellan falls the fact that he's a committed soldier wants to win, but the other thing that saves them is not just his merit is the fact that he's trying to find a new patron and with remember the Civil War was not fought primarily by the regular Army, but by an organization that was created for the duration of the war. US volunteers and this is a very political army with regiments raised by the states. The regimental officers appointed by Gov.'s and it's very much reflects antebellum America, a world of personal connections with this very few large institutions and you been listening to TJ Stiles and storytelling in my goodness, the storytelling about him at West Point last in his class on grades first and demerits acting out for the cadets acting out for himself, creating in a sense his own version of himself that he would have to live up to. And that is a part of the American dream. What is Gatsby all about the in the great Gatsby, one of Great American pieces of fiction by Fitzgerald when we come back more of this remarkable self creation story of a man. We all know but don't story George Custer continues with TJ Stiles here on our American stores. If you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past. Know that all of our stories about American history from reward innovation culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College placement students studying all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. If you can get the Hillsdale tools that will come to you with their free and terrific online courses to Hillsdale.edu to learn more and we continue here with our American stories and with TJ Stiles 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner for history on his biography on Cornelius Vanderbilt. Please by all means go to L American stories and take a listen. It's a terrific piece of storytelling get back to TJ and the story of George Custer Lincoln himself was a self-taught lawyer but you know before the end of the 19th century. It's unimaginable to think of the self-taught lawyer representing the largest corporations in America, as Lincoln had in this is the world know that that Custer came out of so he's in the Army of the first great institutions of the upcoming America the organizational society, but he's operating very much as a man of the past, looking for those personal patrons still current not passed yet but this is the world that is not looking to the future, but rather one that flexed that an older America and he finds a new patron is patron is that date becomes the commander of the cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and when Lee invades the North Gen. Pleasanton who picks Custer for his staff as a chance to appoint new brigade commanders and he takes this 23-year-old Lieut. who graduated last his class makes him a Brig. Gen. in what happens.

Custer performs exceptionally well to go straight practically straight to the battle of Gettysburg his men see him in this black velvet uniform with gold braid winding from cuffed elbow and they think he's kind of ridiculous. I'd like to point out, there were other generals who dress like that. There were also other generals and Custer himself is a product of actually border state culture into Maryland born fathers from southern Ohio.

He has very much southern cities and you know this is kind of the antebellum ID of chivalry and more southern idea of culture again reflecting older America more romantic ideal. And that's the ideal Custer presents an interesting thing about that is that it served a practical purpose in one week.

We see Custer's affectations. It's very easy to dismiss and as merely an egoist someone who was a full vanity and simply wanted everyone to look at him, but on the battlefield of the Civil War.

A Brig. Gen. is in the mix, and by drawing attention to himself.

He's both inspiring his men is both giving them a rallying point. They know where their commander is Nate he helps to orient his men, especially when he leads them forward and it's also declaration about his own confidence in himself as a fighter declaration of confidence in himself and his own personal courage and this is something that we have to remember when we see that grant performance that Custer puts on that when it comes to battle.

There is real substance there. This is a man who actually fought very well and it wasn't really lucky wasn't merely impetuous he actually was a real professional in all of the chaos of Custer's life. This is where we see him performing with confidence with self-assurance and with real professionalism. That's were he's in control of himself is in battle. The problem for him is that in the future of the battles.

Fewer and fewer, farther and farther apart, but in the Civil War. The come thick and fast in his men love him and admire him.

He may be the last American General to kill someone in a sword fight and seeing their leader actually fighting and fighting well that is bravely but with personal skill. This is something that is men absolutely love one of the soldiers says I know I saw Gen. Custer plunges his saber into the belly of a rebel who's trying to kill him. You can imagine how hard men fight for general who's that bright so you know this is something that can seem difficult or repugnant to work ridiculous to modern mind, but to that in mind, it comes out of antebellum America. In a world in which the Civil War is crushing gallantry. Crushing individual heroics to the massive firepower. Custer is in this little slice the Civil War cavalrymen fighting other cavalrymen in which old-fashioned gallantry actually still serves a practical purpose. It was that romantic image actually lives on and allows them to succeed and for that reason, he becomes extremely popular.

He didn't just win battles. He did it in a way that captures an older idea of America. The people felt was slipping away at the same time that he's leading a gala charge against the Confederate charge on horseback and fighting with the sword at that very moment ticket was leading the mass Confederate infantry attack on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg and what happened mast rifle fire and mass artillery fire, wipe them out. They died by the thousands, and they went forward with all the traditional martial values is traditional virtues neatly lined up with their flags in front of them and they were crushed. Individual heroics are being wiped out so the Civil War gives rise to Amber Spears, one of the darkest American writers came out of the infantry fighting the Civil War convinced that death comes from everyone at random, sometimes plain cruel practical jokes in human beings give Oliver Wendell Holmes whose idealism bled out of them to the little through his neck at Antietam comes out and becomes one of the great realists of American law.

You have people who didn't fight like Mark Twain and Henry Adams of much darker, more ironic sensibility or Henry and his brother was eight now forgotten but but at the time very important 19th century intellectual who fought in the cavalry developed a much darker and more cynical worldview. As a result, but Custer is an outlier. He's a man who actually has all of his illusions reinforced by the Civil War and yet by looking beyond just the battle records we see Custer in another role which is the institutional manned organizational man and the record is full of reprimands from his superiors, especially Gen. Kilpatrick Custer, for example, would go over the head of his division commander to appeal directly to Pleasanton is patron and he's getting written reprimand saying you are supposed to go through the chain of command don't go round or division commander. He loves his old friends. West Point, Grinnell and the other side is constantly calling truces to go socializing this old friends West Point and now Kilpatrick is saying you been told before you were not to fraternize with the enemy where having a war and this is something Custer is constantly you know you have been told not to do and this is a theme that runs throughout his life, his difficulty is functioning as a member of a hierarchical organization it is sense is a member of a bureaucracy or a large institution dealing with chains of command dealing with institutional requirements and able to manage subordinates and being able to meet his duties as the required by superiors. Now that there's much more to it than that but that is the first point where we see Johnson the Democrats defeated Johnson loses his effort, and Custer goes West enters into his first campaign against American Indians and is fascinating in many ways, one having nothing to do with Custer is the fact that he sits in on councils that are being held between Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, who leads this first grade expedition Custer joins in the Great Plains and he's conferring with Kyle was in with Diane's and the code is in the Great Plains and their explicitly telling him what the crisis is even before settlers began to move around the Great Plains and occupy lands to High Plains nations counted as their own. Because you had the California gold rush.

You had the great migration to Oregon you had the Colorado gold rush, and you had thousands of migrants moving across the Great Plains and Custer himself doesn't quite grasp it, his first year in the Great Plains is a disaster and he goes off and is humiliated by Cheyenne's Lakota's on the Great Plains. He finally gives that the campaign and rides back to meet his wife and his court-martial convicted so you know this is a well-known story.

Custer's convicted, but something that people don't realize is that Custer was nearly court-martialed again. He couldn't accept the fact that he been convicted. This is not Custer look this is not the way that he's used to being treated rules of always been broken for him and you been listening to TJ Stiles tell a remarkable story about well, let's face it someone we think we all know George Custer but don't and I'm a history buff, and I did know a lot of this 23 years old. He's a Brig. Gen. in black velvet uniform thought of regaling is sort of quasi-Southern cultural roots parents from southern Ohio and Maryland had a bit of that border states culturing them in a bit of that rebel and roll serve the purpose and the fact that he's the last American General to kill an opposing soldier in a sword fight fact that he would be in battle, rattling his guys was more here than just a showman. He was a warrior and a soldier when we come back more of the story of George Custer here on our American story, and we continue with TJ Stiles and the story of George Custer here on our American stories. Let's pick up where we last left off is always been able to avoid the usual institutional processes and when he's convicted quite rightly, even though he's only suspended for a year he can't take it any writes a letter to the press saying it's a trumped up prosecution and that everybody agrees that he should never been convicted and so we find in the records of the national archives. The judge advocate general writing to Gen. Grant saying everybody believes that he should be court-martialed again is refusing to accept the validity of the institutional process of military justice within the Army and is lashing out his brittle defensiveness that insecurity in Custer that always makes a crisis works and so Sheridan intervenes. He says I know what he did is wrong.

It really offends me to please don't do that actually want to back duty and finally Custer gets called back to duty to do what to fight a battle. The battle is very controversial. Washita succeeding campaign, but this first Sheridan's concern. Custer fights well a fight this battle well and that's what saves them from himself. His ability to fight the thing we think of them as being so bad at now, Custer engages a lot of other areas that I talk about in my book he goes to Wall Street dispense a total of about two years. New York absent Civil War. He loves the cosmopolitan center. He loves the theater loves literature. He loves fine art.

He tries to float the silver mine that get invested in Colorado on Wall Street is no interest in running the mind. He just wants to float the stock and sell it. Make a killing. And he does a terrible job of so he's a celebrity.

He sees the world is celebrated on Wall Street. He's treated to fancy dinners. He sees the wealth at the new financial markets are creating. He wants to take part in the new corporate economy, but doesn't grasp can't master and that's Custer living on this frontier in time, wanting to engage with the new world is very much a man of an older well that's beginning to disappear.

Unable to master the way the world changing Pete find some success as a popular writer actually goes on to write articles for one of the new national magazines, and he tries project himself as a public intellectual writing about the Great Plains's natural history and peoples and then writes his memoir, but it's a very romantic style is very, very different from Henry Adams who takes over the North American review and gives orders that sound like something an editor would say today, Henry Adams says you know cut out all unnecessary words, especially adjectives and on-site straight out of you know your your creed of writing 101 Custer meanwhile was trying to cram in as many unnecessary words as possible. This is a man with a gambling addiction. He writes in his official report responding to an inquiry exactly what meaning is intended to apply to the word gambling which is construed differently by different persons. Yes, I'm at a loss to understand if by gambling, the active betting money or risking it on games of chance or contest of speed between horses and if among games of chance are included that usually known as poker and similar games. My answer is that so far as my knowledge and belief extend none of the officers of this command have an addiction to gambling except the commanding officer is an official report. It's sarcastic as hell.

Well, you know. Lucky for him he goes off on the Ellison expedition of 1873, but again, going to the national archives, not just looking at this of high-profile events you see that Custer is seeing now is a problem officer within the institution of the Army talk about them is someone who can't they kick it along with their's visit to dispute the blows up over really nothing but people are writing about how you we can't work with this guy.

They don't trust anything he says it's about whether they need more supply wagons or whatnot, but nobody believes Custer because he is such a problem. Officer in the view of the Army.

The institutional opinion of the Army. He goes off on the Ellison expedition escorting a surveying party for the Northern Pacific Railroad with the second wave of transcontinental railway through Lakota country and he's got a brewing fight with his commanding officer Col. Stanley and Stanley's writing about Custer's reputation. I was living up to his reputation as a problem officer, and there's obviously the tension between the two is brewing to a boiling point. But what happens he has two battles with the soup. He actually performs very well, something we have to remember we get a little big court. It's not impetuous. He reads an ambush of the kind that led to the Federman defeat by the suturing gray clouds work he reads it and avoids it keeps his men well in hand is not reckless and impetuous. Suddenly, Stanley's writing about how proud he is of Custer and so once again, Custer is created a crisis for himself unable to work within the institution the Army unable to to catch on to the changing times, but he has a chance to fight and that's what saves them from himself built. He plunges himself after the also expedition into one more great crisis when there is a revolutionary election 1874, the Democrats commended control of the House of Representatives, and they do something which may be familiar to you. They launch a wave of investigations of the administration and they call in Custer to testify was I point out you know you prosecutors or Committee Chairman don't call witnesses unless they know they're going to say. Somehow Custer's been in touch with and so Custer testifies about corruption in the grant ministration. She doesn't know about. Personally, a high-profile regular army officer openly allying himself with the political opposition of the commander-in-chief, something the Army would not tolerate today. Custer doesn't guess what Pres. Grant was a little upset about this and I think justifiably actually and so he says Custer cannot be the field commander the seventh cavalry and upcoming campaign to drive business soon so that the, the government can seize control of the Black Hills and again Custer sees a chance to fight is escaping a becomes desperate and he pleads anything manages to get general Terry his immediate superior to plea for him and finally reluctantly grant allows be put back in command of his troops and to go off to fight in an attempt to save himself one last time from crisis that he's created for himself, but that time the situation to change the Lakota's and Cheyenne's they are the ones I think deserve the credit for that victory in dismissing Custer as an arrogant fool. We can diminish the magnitude of that victory, not simply numbers but fighting skill and the most amazing combination of tactical leadership among the Lakota's, especially they defeat Custer's it. Custer lost made mistakes they want in Custer Road into something he could luck his way out of couldn't fight his way out of Custer's luck finally ran out at the little big: the reason that was such an event for Americans is not simply the scale they defeat.

That's very true not simply that the cream of the American army, such as it was wiped out by a bunch of preindustrial nomads, but that it was led by this rate, loved notorious celebrity Americans had put so much meeting on still as controversial as ever, and yet in that bright sunlight of the little B: we can forget all of the great crises that ran through his life. All of the meeting had for his fellow Americans, and how much his life tells us about the way our country as it exists now came into being and a superb job on the storytelling and production by Greg Hendler and a special thanks to TJ Stiles remarkable storytelling on the life of George Custer's book Custer's trials of life on the frontier of a new America is available on Amazon and all the usual suspects back to the bookstore and by then TJ Stiles Custer's trials want a wife multiple court marshals and somehow his fighting ability and his connections always save the day. Of course, until it didn't. As Jason until one day his luck ran out that little big horn story of George Custer general the story of Gen. George Custer the side of his life that you probably didn't know we love doing that here on the show here on our American stores and this is our American stories and as you know we tell stories about everything. Very few athletes let alone celebrities have achieved the legendary status is been given to George Herbert Babe Ruth Junior here's my Gibbons Dir. emeritus and curator of the Babe Ruth birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland tells just a little bit about what made the babe alleging today I like talking about one of my favorite topics that would be Babe Ruth. The guy that I've spent most of my lifetime studying and celebrating. He is arguably the most celebrated athlete ever and certainly the greatest baseball player of all time that people ask me all the time. They say will how can you say that how can you say he's the greatest and it's an easy answer.

He is the only player who starred both as a picture and then as a position player. Not to mention being the major all-time slugger 342 batting average.

When he retired in 1935, PL 206 major league pitching and batting records. This talent certainly puts him on the Mount Rushmore export but is bigger than life personality and the timing of his move from Boston to New York in 1920 the beginning of the roaring 20s in America help make him into an American cultural icon right up there with the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King, Marilyn Munro, honest Abe Lincoln's all these years after his death 72 to be exact. Virtually every American in countries in Latin America and Japan where they played baseball. They know the name Babe Ruth's autograph. The most valuable and recognizable.

What contributes to this unprecedented celebrity certainly it is baseball accomplishments but also something legendary details the myths and legends that help to mold that legendary aspect into the man. Let's start at the beginning right here in Baltimore and how we got to the point of having the most famous nickname in all of sports. Ruth grew up on the west side of Baltimore along the waterfront came from modest family blue-collar workers. They were saloon keepers mom and dad. They were so busy trying to run the shop that at the age of seven. His father threw up his hands and said George to be taking you to St. Mary's industrial school and there he stayed until he was 19 years old to 12 years.

He stated St. Mary's and was raised by these variant brothers, most notably a guy by the name of brother Matthias and brother Matthias instilled in Ruth a little bit of discipline a lot of religion and totting the game of baseball. Ruth went on to for the rest of his life thinking that brother Matthias was really the man that he admired more than any other, and Matthias gave him the gift of teaching and how to pitch Pro catch it. All those things. Ruth excelled at St. Mary's. To the extent that when he was 19 years old. He caught the attention of the Baltimore Orioles minor-league owner and manager guy by the name of Jack Dunn now here is where the nickname comes. Donnie goes out to St. Mary's and signs Ruth on Valentine's Day 1914 to a contract that would pay the extra $600 a month. Ruth said that's more money than I've seen in my whole life, so Donnie takes Ruth along with his a minor-league Orioles down to spring training in Fayetteville, North Carolina and their word spreads about Don having to sign Guardian papers to get Ruth to be a professional baseball player St. Mary's industrial school would not have released Ruth until he was 21 without someone else signing over for the legal guardian rights to to George Junior.

So off they go there and word gets out that that Donnie is his legal guardian and the players and reporters covering the team started referring to George Ruth as Jack Dunn's baby and this is in mid February 1914 within a month the Baltimore Sun is referring in print to Ruth as Babe Ruth and the nickname obviously. Forever. The next thing I wanted to talk to you about occurred on his first stop in major league baseball in Boston, where he was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox as a matter fact he was so good that in the five full season to play in Boston. He helped deliver three World Series championships to Austin and the Red Sox and was just a a burgeoning star's name was known known nationwide by then. Babe Ruth was everybody thought that he was the best left-handed pitcher in the game, but he got sold to the Yankees over the winter of 1919, 19, 20 and headed off to New York Yankees who had never worn a championship so he goes to New York Pl. they are 16 years and in that time delivered seven World Series appearances for the Yankees in the meantime, the Red Sox totally dried up and over the next 86 years failed to win a World Series championship that became known as the curse of the Bambino something that is still talk about to this day, especially in Boston. A lot of people know that Babe Ruth love children, maybe more than any other athlete ever.

And, at least at that. We have seen, they went out of his way. Throughout his career throughout his life to visit children in orphanages and also hospitals. He always would be trying to bring some joy to children are down on their locker and some kind of trouble. On one of those that one of those hospital occasions since that's where the story of Little Johnny Sylvester comes from the year is 1926 Yankees are playing the Cardinals for the World Series and word gets out in this supposedly came from Johnny Sylvester's father Yankees fans that little Johnny is dying of the rare blood disease and is there anything that the Yankees could do to lift his spirits while the story goes that Babe Ruth predicted he would hit a home run for Johnny in the next World Series game, so Johnny listens to his radio and Bain hits a homerun and list Johnny spirit, but in fact, that day Ruth hit three home runs, so you must really lifted the Johnny spirits, to the extent that Johnny got better and went on to live a long and productive life as a banker up in Connecticut in 1986. 60 years after the event at the Museum.

We decided to celebrate the little Johnny story and I went looking for Johnny Sylvester I found in and I asked him I said John, do you have anything to prove that Babe Ruth predicted he hit a home run for an Johnny says not only can I prove it. I'll bring it to Baltimore and show you an Johnny came down to Baltimore and he presented a baseball to us and all the baseball Babe Ruth wrote, not a home before you in Wednesday's game and that Ball State will display with us for about 20 years. It was one of our most popular artifacts just a great story but it just shows you just how incredible Babe Ruth really was next up is 1927 barnstorming tour the Yankees had defeated the Pirates four straight games in the 27 World Series and Ruth and Lou Gehrig went out and toward the country going to small towns to play baseball games. Will this was a big deal because back in the 20s. It was rare when Americans could see their their favorite athletes or movie stars or things like that. They pretty much had to go to a movie theater to watch movie tone reels to take to get a glimpse at the stars. So Ruth and Gehrig take off on the six weeks to work and give their fans and experience they would remember for the rest of their lives. It was so big when they came to town.

The only thing I can liken it to you in today's world is when the Beatles hit America in 1964 we had never seen anything like it. Back then, this was equal to that Ruth was the biggest thing that ever happened in America. The last thing I want to talk about is the cold shot home.

This is Babe Ruth supposedly points and then worries going to hit a home run and on the next pitch he does. It occurred in the 1932 World Series game three, October 1, 1932 Ruth is with the Yankees there in Chicago playing the Cubs. There are two games to none in the fifth inning of that game. Ruth comes to the plate. The Cubs had been giving him a lot of grief throughout the game. Throughout the series, actually. And he was pushing back in with attuned to count the step out of the box supposedly pointed either the centerfielder at pitcher Charlie route but said route up and hit the next pitch down your throat and Ruth hit the ball to center field. On the next swing and the ball became the longest home run in the history of Wrigley Field. So there you are just some examples, the infallibility of Ruth celebrity and his mythic status in this country. He is an American icon is in all American dream come true.

The big fella.

The Bambino debate in World War II and I'll leave you with this Japanese when they charged American positions, they shouted, to hell with Babe Ruth knowing that Babel is precious to them, maybe more precious than anything else and that's the way Babe Ruth was bigger than life and great job by Robbie and a special thanks to Mike Gibbons, the Dir. emeritus and curator of the Babe Ruth birthplace and Museum. The story of the legendary man known as babe our Americans