Who was Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer?
Some say he was a heartless butcher of the west, while others place him on a pedestal of American heroism.
Two journalism professors at UT, Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown, teamed up to co-author their new book, “Inventing Custer: The Making of an American Legend,” to crack the myth of Colonel Custer and to reveal the man hidden inside.
Caudill and Ashdown have previously co-authored several historical nonfiction books examining cultural mythic figures, like Nathan Bedford Forrest and William Sherman among others. The pair formed due to a mutual interest in American and journalistic history, with Ashdown holding more expertise in the Civil War era and Caudill focusing on newspaper history and trends of ideas throughout U.S. history.
“I’d say we had similar writing styles, and we both enjoyed editing — and cigars — so we were able to write with a common voice and improve each other’s work,” Ashdown recalled.
The thought to pursue the myth surrounding Custer originally came to Caudill on a fishing trip in 2013. While on his way to the Snake River watershed in Idaho, Caudill stopped by the Little Bighorn Memorial site. Intrigued by the story, Caudill brought the idea up to Ashdown, who initially refused the project.
“The next morning Paul showed up to the office with this stack of books he had gotten from the UT library and said ‘Now here’s just a few of the good books on Custer. This doesn’t even cover all of the bad and mediocre ones that are out there,’” Caudill said. “And I said ‘OK, OK I get it. I’m convinced.’ Then he pulls out of his coat pocket an outline while saying ‘This is how we can do this.’”
To take on a story as well-known Colonel Custer’s, the pair decided to find an angle no one had examined yet. They avoided looking directly at The Battle of Little Bighorn or pursuing a full biography.
In the end, the co-authors chose to examine how Custer became a legendary figure, both by his own hand, by the media and the American public. Custer’s self-promotion began with his writing — or, more accurately, his storytelling.
“The way stories, or narratives, evolved fit a kind of pattern,” Ashdown said. “The motivation was simply to tell a good story. Sometimes a good story overruns the truth of the story, and when that happens it becomes myth.”
Custer’s stories, despite potential embellishment, received credibility due to his flamboyant and intriguing personality.
“He seemed to be the type of person in high school that everyone likes for some reason even though they find the person kind of obnoxious,” Ashdown said. “I think it’s just a simple fact that we tend to gravitate to people who are interesting, and he made himself interesting.”
Custer may have used his infectious personality to make a name for himself throughout his entire career. Despite graduating last in his class at West Point in 1861, Custer moved up quickly in the field during the Civil War, becoming an officer within two or three years.
But, as Caudill said, “the Civil War defines Custer’s life and the Battle of Little Bighorn describes his legend.”
Custer went from famous to infamous with the story of the 7th Cavalry Regiment’s last stand. The most interesting part of the last stand myth is that there are no legitimate accounts of its existence since no American soldiers survived. According to Caudill, a few Native American accounts exist, but they are unreliable.
So what is the truth about the myth of Custer and his last stand? Caudill said it depends on how you choose to look at it.
“A myth can be something that’s untrue, or it was a larger truth, a larger insight into something,” Caudill said. “So when you are talking about a mythic figure you might be talking about someone who never existed or something who is larger than life.”
Custer has certainly become larger than life in American culture. After his death the public revered him as a war hero until the 1930s, when he became what Caudill called a “homicidal, glory-seeking, maniac” in film and books.
For Caudill, the public myth may hold more interest than the real man himself since it reveals the viewpoint of an era.
“You have to rewrite history for every generation because the insights, the knowledge, the prejudices of every generation change,” Caudill said.
Ashdown and Caudill said they view this constantly evolving myth surrounding Custer as an inseparable facet of his factual history.
“In Custer’s case, the myths are a part of the story, and all the layers have to be peeled away to get at the ‘facts’ (which are in dispute),” Ashdown said. “The way we remember the past is conditioned by the way we encounter the past … that doesn’t mean it’s ‘false,’ or inferior to history.
“It gives us a character who then becomes part of a story.”
