I'm Tony Dean and today we'll be calling history to speak with General George Armstrong Custer. He'll be answering our call on April 20, 1876, just a few months before he makes his famous last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. You've heard the story. Custer and his boys look off in the distance and they see Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse with a coalition of Native Americans, thousands of them. General Custer looks at his men.
Totaling at about 25 percent of the opposing force and says boys we can take him and of course he was wrong.
Well, my wife and I were in Montana years ago and we visited that battlefield It was quite a sight to walk to the top of that hill as you pass all the gravestones Marking the spots where the bodies were found But there were two things that surprised me looking back at that day Well, the first thing is, is that we almost stepped on a rattlesnake, and I didn't know that Montana had rattlesnakes. But the second thing is how little I knew about George Custer, even after visiting that site.
Yes, this was a man who made a poor choice, and possibly a victim of hubris. But long before that, he was He is a fierce warrior that earned the rank of general by the age of 23. And considering how many times he had defied the odds by beating a much larger force, Why would he have thought he wasn't going to win this battle as well? After all, he had this mysterious force called Custer's Luck on his side. This man fought Robert E. Lee's army and won.
He was shot off his horse so many times and lived it became a joke. He fought at Gettysburg. He was the one that received the truce flag from the Confederate army during the Civil War and was even in the room where Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. After the signing, he was given the surrender table. He was more than one failed battle. He was a powerful leader, a master of the media, a rock star in his time, and a man that got results.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow history lovers, and Julius Caesar aficionados everywhere, I give you George Custer! Hello, is that you, General Custer? I hear, I hear a voice. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. General Custer. Sir, my name is Tony Dean. I'm actually talking to you from the future in the 21st century. I understand that you're at the Centennial Exhibit in Philadelphia, where Mr. Alexander Graham Bell is introducing his telephone to the public for the first time.
And I spoke with Mr. Bell earlier, and he gave me permission to contact you on his device. And sir, I was hoping that I could ask you some questions today about your life. But before I do, I understand this is a strange introduction. Could I answer any questions that you might have first? It's hard to hear there's a such a crowd in the background, but I've, I've been told that we can use the room that Watson attends and it'll be, it'll be more quiet.
Can you hear, can you hear all the noise in the background? There's a lot of people here. So, so if you'll give me a second, I'll, I'll pause and move into that room and that'll be much, much quieter, more, more comfortable for conversation. Yes, that would be great. Thank you very much and just tell me when you're in that room. Okay. I'm I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes. . So what tell what is this event that you're at? Well, it's the Centennial Exhibit. Everybody in the country's here.
I mean, we've got the largest exhibit of agricultural, scientific machinery. You know, the Coralis, the largest machine ever built by man. I'm in the building the main building. It's the, it's the largest building in the country. And there's people who have brought exhibits from all over the world. I dare say there's probably a hundred thousand people out there that are trying to push and shove to get to every exhibit that features anywhere from art to science. Well, what are you doing there?
I mean, are you an art and science guy? I thought you were a military guy. Oh, absolutely. I'm, I'm always interested in, in everything, but the only reason I'm back here is I've just come away from the Hester Clymer committee that's investigating Secretary of War William Belknap. That's the president's secretary who is being impeached and I was giving testimony and they've given me the day off.
So, Vinnie Ream, the sculpturist you, you probably know, she's the one that did the, the Lincoln sculpture that's in the Capitol. Well, she's she's with me, and, and I'm escorting her through the exhibit, so this has been a wonderful day. Very tiring, but there's about seven buildings, and we've gotten through about half of them. And, of course, then when I got to see my old friend Alex, he, he asked me to stay for a bit.
He'd talked to you previously, and He was wanting me to talk to you on this new contraption. Do you, do you realize it's like, it's like a telegraph, but sound goes across the wires. I, I had no idea such a, such an instrument existed and it's going to revolutionize communication in this country. Believe me, it does revolutionize communication for sure. By the way, did you just say Alex? Do you refer to Alexander Grembell as Alex? Are you, are you close?
Oh, well, I call him Mr. Bell, usually Professor or something. But, you know, we're, we're, we're friends. We're pretty good friends. We've spent a lot of time together. I, I knew of this concept coming a few years ago when I visited him in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and , he was telling me about this, but by God, I did not have the slightest idea that such a thing would work.
And the fact that I'm talking to you and you keep referring to coming from the future I think the future is here right now. We're in the future. I think, I think that you'll find later on that you're just in the early stages of this. You're not going to believe some of the , stuff that happens next . I'm wondering you were talking about these impeachment trials. Tell me a little bit about that. What happened during that? Did you get in some trouble
? Well, the the, the post traders have been built out of some of their annuities because the post traderships are being sold as franchise through Secretary of War Belknap, and also the President's brother, Orville, has been somewhat involved in the corruption on the frontier. You know, the Army has got a unthinkable task were to police the planes and the way that the Congress has cut our budget. We're, we're only 24, 000 troops on the frontier.
That's infantry and cavalry troops to police over 250 million square miles. So it amounts to that one soldier has to surround 10 Indians and those Indians have been been, for the most part, peaceful in the last few years, since the State Planes Campaign that I led in 69, where we were able to pacify the Southern Plains, we hadn't had any trouble, until some of these Indians have been built out of their promise annuities.
You know, the flower and the beef that was supposed to be sent to the reservations has been illegally sold to prospectors who are entering into the black hills to mine for gold. And because of that, the Indians have had to leave the reservations to follow the Buffalo herd. And that's put up. A strain on the military as well as the settlers who are out west as they've had a tendency to their livestock and horses and so forth.
And so we're getting pressured to put more physical force into the military and we just don't have the funds right now. Congress keeps cutting the budget since the war. We're skeleton crews on the prairie. We don't have the men to keep the peace, and it's a, it's an overwhelming job. I'm partly here to meet with the military staff, General Sherman and Sheridan, and talk about the upcoming campaign this summer.
If all goes well, I should be returning to Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory, to plan the campaign. The upcoming spring campaign, which will, in order to bring the Indians back to the reservations. So, I kind of get the impression that you're responsible for enforcing what what I guess some Americans might call encroaching on, I guess, land that we want. But, it also seems like that you were saying that we're not following through on our end with the Indians. Is that your impression?
Well, often, as in all government the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing. And, at one time, the Indian Bureau was under them. And then it was turned over to the Interior Department. But as much as I'm an advocate for allowing the Indians to have a free roaming life, they are not in a situation right now to make demands on the government. And the demands that they've made on the government has crippled the system that They're trying to perpetrate out there in the West.
We've just come off from a, a great depression in the last few years with the failure of the Northern Pacific railroad. I had a hand in doing the protecting of the surveyors up there, my old classmate from West Point, , Tom Rosser had been the chief surveyor of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
It was great times for us to spend up there, but we ran into some problems with the Lakota people and their fighting and resisting the the progress of the railroad has impacted our government to the extent that people are looking for ways and means of corralling the Indians so Progress can return to the great American opportunity. The West is the great American opportunity.
And with each passing year, we see the possibility of agricultural purposes alone on the frontier with a diminishing of the bison. And we've seen a great, in the last 20 years, a of the bison herds. There could be introduction to beef cattle on the prairies. The grasslands could support a whole agricultural livestock disposition for the United States and feed the country. And so we can't have anything that's going to impede progress on the frontier. You don't sound like a general.
You sound like a businessman or a politician right now.
Well, I have a first hand knowledge of the plight of the American Indian, and although I admire them, I realize that their prowess is always exhibited by their capture of livestock even non Indian women , and then the military is sent in to Enforce the law and it's, it's a fine edged blade that we have to use to keep the peace on the frontier and it's it's a difficult thing, but I can also see from the idea of people in the East who are looking to the
West for new opportunities and that's a conflict that when we run into a culture so different from our own that there's going to be differences of opinion. Yeah. Do you feel like when it comes to these laws in relation to westward expansion and just the Indian presence in either their lands or the lands that we want, do you feel like we're kind of making these laws up as we go? Don't we always? Are you okay with that?
Well, you know, I, I'm pretty much an old file in that I, I believe in the old ways and, and I, I sort of harken back to how things were and I don't really like change that much, but I did see the progress of when I first came to the frontier and it took days and days to cross areas that now locomotives can, can cross in a matter of hours. And so it's, it's shrinking our nation. That was one time a large expanse, and it was something that people back east just imagined.
Now, they're becoming tourists and coming out to the frontier, and everyone's wanting to grow. They want all of the necessities that they're used to having back east brought to the fringes of civilization in the desert, American desert that they called it, but I've always felt that Each time we've progressed, we've taken a little bit away from what life was like before the coming of the white man. So, do you have good relationships with Indian tribes or individual leaders?
Indians that you've throughout your career ended up having to fight with because you were instructed to by the United States government? For the most part, I, I feel that I do and one of the things, That has been floated to me as the idea of becoming head of the Indian Bureau because I have first hand knowledge of most of the tribes that I have had any with have been to the point that they respect me. And they know that when I tell them something, it's the truth.
The Indian is such that you don't lie to him, you tell him the truth. And part of the reason that I was brought to Washington is because of that veracity, that I was willing to testify. Before the Congressional Committee about the corruption that's taking place in the West and, and give them my personal opinion. And it's been suggested that I might have more knowledge than the average officer who has been assigned to the West because of my time my tenure on the planes.
So you mentioned corruption and you were talking about Ulysses S. Grant's brother. And you're saying he's part of the corruption that you're testifying against? Well, I can't, I can't present solid evidence, but what has been remarked to me, I've heard.
word hearsay evidence that I presented that he has been in collusion with the secretary of war and different members of the administration in the selling of these and post traderships and even the post traderships that are in the military reservations. Those have been sold as a franchise and the cost of 4, 000 a year, which is substantially higher than what the profit margin would allow for anyone having that franchise.
So, that extra money is being brought in by the selling on the black market of those supplies that were necessarily committed to the American Indian. So, I want to get clear on this, because I'm not 100 percent sure, when you're saying post traderships, and you're talking about franchises, can you clarify this?
I think what you're saying is, is that there's money suppo there's flour and supplies that are supposed to go to the Indian tribes, and Orville, and The secretary of war, which I think he said, his name is Belknap. They're not giving that to the Indians that it's supposed to go to. They're taking it from that and then selling it on the black market. Well, I can't say that they're directly doing that, but they're sending it to the post traders.
That's an individual store that's on the reservation and those annuities that are being sent. When I'm talking like flour and, and beef and all trade, goods, blankets and and what have you. Those are being sent necessarily to the reservation and because of the cost of the franchise in order to stay in business, a post trader is forced to sell that on the black market to people who Annuities weren't meant for.
What I'm saying is like a prospector would buy flour and the Indians wouldn't receive the full amount. So they'd have to sell that in order to pay for their franchise and stay valid. Otherwise they'd be replaced by some other corrupt. Post trader. So It filters back to Washington because Washington is setting it up to where the only way to do it successfully is to do it using the black market.
Well, these post traders could sell it to anybody they wanted to if they had family members, but they need the money. In order to pay off the politicians back East, they have to grease the palms of the politicians in order to stay current.
You've spent quite a bit of time involved in different wars and different campaigns, but long before you were monitoring the the movement of the Indians, or you were fighting in the civil war you didn't start your life as No, in fact, my mother wanted me to go into the Methodist ministry, because , on my birth, and because it was a very bad blizzard that was happening in New Rumley, Harrison County, Ohio, where I was born, the doctor couldn't get to our, our home.
And so the midwife, Ann Lyle, and the minister, George Armstrong, attended to my mother who gave birth to me on the kitchen table. And so she had admired the Methodist minister to the point that she had hoped that I would go into the Methodist ministry. She had a great deal of respect and hoped that I would pursue that. As a small boy I grew up with my father who was a blacksmith. justice of the peace and Was around horses a lot.
And so I think I gravitated more towards the cavalry and hearing of those stories about Mexican war and the great Military leaders. I cut my teeth on books such as James Fenimore Cooper's last of the Mohicans and Charles levers Charles O'Malley in the light And so it was those books that inspired me to think of adventure, and I could only hope that after I left the farm that I could go into a military career.
And fortunately for me, the fellow who had been appointed from our district washed out, didn't pass pre exams at West Point, and I was appointed by my congressman, John A. Bingham. And I entered West Point in 1857 and would have probably spent five years there if the war hadn't broke out. And I ended my years at the Academy early. We had two classes. We had the May of 61 class. And then my class graduated in June of 61.
But I read that you, before you went into West Point, I read that you were a teacher. Is that true? Oh, yes. Yes. In fact, my method of madness was to get my teaching degree because I needed to bone up on my math and, and studies so that I could pass the pre exams. You know, it's a very hard curriculum to even get into West Point. You know, first you have to get appointed by a congressman. And out of all of the appointees they sift out the ones that don't pass.
Pre exam, and then you have that demerit system that occurs at any given semester. A hundred demerits would get you expelled from the academy. So a large class dwindles down by the fifth year. You're pretty much down to only maybe sixty to eighty students out of the original, oh, maybe a hundred and thirty that were expelled. Oh, so once you get, once you've been appointed, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be there for several years.
It means that if you don't keep your nose clean, that that you could get kicked out very easily. They just take the best of the best.
Well, I, I came very near I had quite a few demerits while I was there, and so I spent 66 consecutive Saturdays walking guard duty in order to shave off some of the skins, the demerits that I earned while I was there, and it was not an easy task to, to get through a semester because you're getting demerits for hair out of uniform wrinkled uniform, lights on after hours, Any number of Delinquencies could easily get you expelled, so you're, you're constantly on guard that you're also studying.
There are so many different quizzes that are thrown at us, tests that we were given unexpectedly, and so it was always to be on top of your game. Do you have any idea how many dimers you ended up with? 700 into 23. Okay, now, now I'm super confused. Well, I would have had more than that, but I was able to shave them off from disciplinary guard duty. So I got, I got quite a few of them off. I had demerits for swinging my arms in formation hair out of uniform because my hair was too long.
So I shaved my head bald and then I got undemerit for hair really out of uniform until my hair grew back. I wore a wig and then when I did grow my hair back, I lathered it down with cinnamon oil and I, I picked up the nickname of cinnamon while I was there at the academy. Okay. Wait a minute. Now you have a history of, as far as when commanding your regiments of , demanding discipline and really taking a ragtag group and turning them into hardcore fighters.
And yet, it doesn't appear that you followed the rules at all when you were going through West Point. Is that, is that correct? Well, I'm a young guy. I was, I was young. I mean, I was young. I was 17 when I entered the academy, but I, I certainly grew up while I was there. And by the time that the war broke out, it didn't take a few battles that everyone grew up very quickly. And the responsibility of command puts a whole different complexion on things.
You know, I was 23 years old when I became a Brigadier General, and I had 1, 500 men's lives that I was responsible for guiding them into battle and hoping that I could bring them out without too many casualties. But it's inevitable in a situation of war that men die. Your command and, and men across the lines from us and many of those men that I was shooting at were men that I'd shared blankets with at West Point. It was a very difficult thing.
When you talk about being responsible for men's lives in battle, when I, what I hear in your voice is a man who feels that connection between his soldiers. Like it sounds like you can really feel that. And yet my understanding is, is that you went into some of these very difficult battles where the odds were against you. They had way more soldiers than you did and you were winning these battles, but you were losing huge amounts of soldiers.
And so I guess I'm wondering, first of all, is that true? And second of all, how you think about that? Well, the cavalry is always audacious, and we have to do the main, thrust of the army. And I took as many chances as any of my men who were following me into battle. I didn't say, go in and get them. I said, come on, men, follow me. And through the course of the war, I had 11 horses shot from under me. So I was putting myself in the same difficulties that I expected my men to put themselves in.
You don't win a battle by saying, go get them guys and stand back and hide behind trees while the men are butchered and process of going up against outnumbered forces. when I asked you how you felt about the men, I feel like you're talking more about yourself and that you're saying that your method is to lead from the front and just to go all in with the assumption that if they see their leader going all in, that they're going to follow.
I would certainly hope they would, but I, I do have a concern for casualties that I take in battle. Any good officer is going to have a concern for his men, the welfare of his men, and you just don't. unceremoniously lead them into a slaughter.
We used tactics that we learned at West Point from von Clausewitz and Jaumeni, the arts of war, and I used those plans on the battlefield and In anything that I did throughout my military career, I used the knowledge that I gained from my time at West Point. Was this a natural strength that you had for strategy, or were these just all strategies that you learned from West Point?
Well, I learned at West Point, but then when you take and apply them in the real world, You have to be able to use your mind to look at things, look at the terrain understand the likelihood that this could work and audaciousness of the cavalry. When an enemy sees men mounted on horses coming down on them, it creates a great deal of consternation and quite possibly they'll buckle And a mad skedaddle to the rear makes it victorious on our part being the cavalry arm of the service.
But it's the infantry that holds the line. They come in behind us, and we only hope that we have tactical commanders study the same books that, that I did, and could You know, follow that same philosophy , of the art of war. Who are some of the people that you, fought with, that you admired their abilities? And maybe also who are some of those that were , totally inadequate and should have never been leading men ? Well, there's a number of men that were appointed because of their political.
position in civilian society. They became colonels and then field promotions to generals. And they didn't always have the knowledge of the military mindset. I was very fortunate. The first year out of West Point that I was appointed to the staffs of Philip Kearney. I served with General McClellan. I had opportunities to be with General Pleasanton. Eventually I was put under General Sheridan.
And I was at the right place at the right time, and fortunately for me, the men that I served under were military masterminds. And they were able to instill in me those proper things that I used when I had my own commands. And I tried to use an amalgam of all of their great traits in my own military career. I learned from each person. Commander that I served under, and I know, I know that you probably didn't know that at one point I was an aau.
I was one of the first air Corps that would go up in observation balloons during the Peninsula campaign, and was able to see the Confederate withdrawal from Yorktown, thus relieving the consternation and concern around Washington DC of invasion. What's that word you said? Aero nod. Yes, I went up in an observation balloon. The Army of the Potomac, which I served with, had seven observation balloons. I mostly went up in a balloon called Intrepid, and I would be a thousand feet above the earth.
Confederate positions, writing it down in a journal. I had binoculars and compass, and was able to observe the positions of their artillery, the cavalry, infantry positions. And I suggested that we did early morning observations to go up before light,. before it gets too windy. And so I could observe the campfires when they were making breakfast. And from that position, I could see where each company was. Was that a dangerous job? Oh yes.
I recall my first ascension that I went up with one of professor Thaddeus Lowe's assistants. He didn't go up with me, but he was head of the balloon core and his assistant. Went up in this basket that was a little more than a, a laundry basket in, in, in size. And it seemed like it was a wicker basket that had woven wicker that I, being so skinny at the time, I thought I was going to fall between the cracks.
And to assure me he began jumping up and down in the basket, which caused me to have that instant laxative feeling come into my stomach. And it was One of those situations where I, I spent the better part of the ascension just sitting in the basket holding on for dear life. But eventually I got used to it and was more than thankful when I finally got sent back to be under General Barnard's staff as a forward observer.
And was back in the saddle as opposed to being tethered off by a thousand foot rope above the ground. Yeah, that sounds very dangerous. Sounds like you'd be more, more comfortable with your feet a little closer to the ground. So were there any other strange jobs that you did like this before, , you started, , gaining notoriety in the military? Well, I was on staff duty for the better part of the first two years, and on staff duty, my word was whatever the commander sent out.
So I was riding between the front lines. And it was a dangerous situation because normally I had my orderly riding with me, but the, just the two of us, often the case going in between lines of combat and posting orders to the, the forward commanders, as well as check and vedettes and, and picket duty to make sure that our lines were secure.
And it was on one occasion when I was out checking vedettes, that's mounted pickets, that I got word that I was to return to headquarters, and General Pleasanton had taken over the Cavalry Corps, and so he had this idea of promoting the younger men in the ranks to higher positions, and so Elon Farnsworth, Wesley Merritt, and myself We're promoted to the grade of Brigadier General. We're, we're all in our twenties at the time.
And so we became known as the Boy Generals and that was quite an occasion to be given command of a brigade simply because the brigade that I had acquired. Was actually made up of volunteer cavalry regiments, all from the same state, of Michigan. And I had previously applied for a colonelcy and one of the new formed up regiments, the seventh Michigan. And I was given a command of the first, fifth, sixth, and seventh Michigan regiments, all men from the same state.
And just a few days before the battle of Gettysburg. , were you 23 or 25 when you were promoted to general, ? I was 23 when I got my brigadier general, and then by the age of 25, I'd received my second star, which was major general. I'm still the youngest major general in the history of our country. Why would they take a chance on someone so young? Are there not older, wiser men that would have been more qualified for this?
They may have been older and wiser and maybe the wiseness was to their disadvantage because they didn't seem to use that progress in battle. And so they wanted somebody that was willing to perform. And so we were promoted by merit, , what we showed in battle. And that was what they needed at the time. Up until probably Brandy Station the cavalry, the Union cavalry anyways, was inadequately used. They were assigned to baggage trains, courier duty very, very ineffective.
And so, right after the Battle of Brandy Station the cavalry was kind of given the lead to go into battles and, and work effectively, and then the infantry would come up and secure the position after we gained the land. What was the battle of Brandy station? It was probably the largest gathering of mounted forces on the North American continent took place in early June of 63. And Jeb Stewart.
who was the flower of the confederacy, had successfully proven that he could ride around the army of the Potomac and not be touched. And so the attempt was to move the war into the north. General Robert E. Lee wanted to make it an offensive war. And so his idea was to sweep in through Pennsylvania. And, and drop into Washington, capture the the Capitol, and force the Union to capitulate or to recognize the South, the Confederacy, as a equal entity.
And so in his attempt, they pushed up through the valley of where Brandy Station was located in that part of Virginia. And we had our cavalry forces into position. And as each accumulated it became an all out war. And during that battle, a couple of the officers went down, their horses went down, and I rode to the front and rallied the troops and was able to turn what might've been a Union defeat into a Union victory. You've mentioned some pretty big names there. One of them being Robert E. Lee.
And as you are, , fighting these different battles in the Civil War, , I know there was at least, at least one time or a couple times where you were directly engaging Robert E. Lee, but can you tell me a little bit about him, what fighting him was like, what kind of person he was, what you know about him?
I can't tell you a lot about him because I haven't really studied the man, but I would tell you that the South had a number of, Officers that inspired the men and in any given battle, if you have someone who creates an inspiration, you can turn the into victory simply because the men will rally on a certain individual and Robert E. Lee was venerated by the South to the degree that he was almost godlike and the men protected him and admired him and would probably have done anything
ran into the mouth of cannons, which they pretty much did at the Battle of Gettysburg when Pickett came across that open field towards Cemetery Ridge. They wouldn't have done that for other commanders, but he was able to inspire them, and so was Pickett and Longstreet and other officers of the South that they admired and venerated and held up in high esteem. When you talk about Gettysburg tell me a little bit about that battle.
Well, I think it was a battle that was fought by accident because the South, by that year, had been suffering greatly because we were being effective with the Anaconda campaign, strangling. the ports of the South, so they couldn't get goods in from the European countries. And so they were at a loss for clothing and shoes. And somehow or another, they'd heard General Heath, Confederate officer, heard that there were shoes in a town of Gettysburg.
So they went in with a strategy that they were going to steal shoes for the men who needed shoes. And there were out. A small scouting detachment of cavalry that saw that buildup and sent back word. And so numerous commands came in, corps, cavalry corps, General Reynolds came in, and it built up. The good thing of it was, it was in a location where there was the adequate water that would be needed for the livestock, the men, and to cool the weaponry.
So, that was ideal ground for the battles to take place, but it wasn't strategically planned. It was in Robert E. Lee's movement to sweep into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then to drop down into Washington, and it was just a stop over on their route. And the decision that was made of Robert E. Lee to move back south was a result of the Union victory being able to hold the line at Gettysburg. That was kind of the turning point because it became the high water mark of the Confederacy.
During the first two days of the battle probes were made. and the right and left flank of the Union Army atop Cemetery Ridge. And when they were unable to turn those flanks, they felt that the weakness was in the middle. And so Pickett's charge commenced across an open field to attack what they thought was the weakest point of the Union command. But at the same time, they had instructed J. E. B. Stuart to swing in behind with Black Horse Cavalry and attack the rear.
and right flank of the Union Army, which would have caused mass disintegration of the command on Cemetery Ridge. Fortunately for me, I was in a movement heading towards Devil's Den when I got word that General McMurdy Craig and his Pennsylvania boys needed me to move my command, the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, and put us between and the right flank and we were fortunate that we had the new firearm.
The seven shot repeating rifle, Spencer repeating rifle, which effectively gave us more firepower than the Confederates had, and we were able to thwart Stuart's attempt to turn that flank, and at the end of the day, he retired from the field, and we were able to hold that position and save the Union forces atop Cemetery Ridge. If you had not been in that battle then, if you had not been in that position, the uh, Confederates have won Gettysburg. It's possible.
There was thoughts that if we had lost that major conflict that we would have had to come to some sort of compromise at the time. My former commander general George McClellan he was talking of running for the presidency and he did run in 64 his was to have peace at any cost. And we had already committed a lot of men to that conflict. Their lives had been lost. And it was, it was such that, We needed to make a point and push the war to the south.
And once we were able to do that, then the last year of the war rolled up pretty fast. started pressing the issue. Yes. They were in bad need of supplies and by attrition they had lost a lot of men and manpower through those last few years of the war. I want to go back for a minute to West Point. So, here you are going to school at West Point, and they are preparing this, this class of generals and leaders that are going to go out and fight on both sides of this battle.
How did it, what did it look like when the war started? did you see a bunch of people , leave West Point and then immediately go fight for one side or the other? And did more people go south than north? What, what did that look like? My class alone had, by attrition, gotten down to about 68 cadets. And we had heard rumors to the effect that they were offering commissions in the Southern Army. And many of my classmates, roommates even, were Southern born.
And they were just waiting until they got a letter offering them a commission. And so many of them dropped out. And The remaining class was 34, and I ended up at the bottom of the class because of my grades and demerits, and became known as the immortal I guess they since now call them goats of the class, but still. We were offered commissions as second lieutenants in the Union Army, and it was the only place that you would be, by act of Congress, considered an officer and a gentleman.
And so I was given a second lieutenant commission in Company G, 2nd U. S. Cavalry. But the majority of the students who left ended up in positions of power in the Confederate Army. Most of them jumped to the grade of captain to colonel in a short period of time. It was meteoric that I would become a brigadier general as quickly as I did, but that was due to the fact that I had the right mentors putting me in the right place at the right time through my first few years of the war.
, as the war is starting, Was there like heavy recruiting from both the North and the South? Were they both trying to keep those people? They were. What did that look like? Well, I can't say that I was there on site because most of the time I was at the academy and then was pretty much signed to Washington and then joined my unit in the field. But there was a overall surge of patriotism, both for the North and South and the South felt that they were fighting to preserve a way of life.
And they, they were fighting for their independence. We were fighting to contain the Union so that the country wouldn't be broken up, split up into two separate countries. And that was our purpose long before the issue of slavery became first and formal. And the, the fight for the, to save the Union and, Do you have opinions on slavery? Well, I never was one to be pro slavery at all, whatsoever.
And even though I spent a great deal of time with my southern students, that was not an issue that was talked about. It was mostly about rights, about a strong federal government as opposed to state individual governments. And most of the students that I spoke with felt that each state should have their own form of government. And unfortunately, For the United States to have been successful at that time.
We, we, we need a strong federal government to hold us together, much like what we experienced during the revolutionary war, when there were individual colonies, we were united and strengthened by the fact that we stayed together. So, what was the Civil War about? Was the Civil War about slavery then, or was it about states rights? It became, it became the issue.
Yes, it became the issue because most northern people weren't apprised of how ingrained slavery was in the South, but as time went on And we penetrated the South and some of the plantations. We saw how prevalent it was, but at the time the South was agricultural based, and so they needed people to work the fields. And the indication that there were a larger degree of black indentured slaves became more apparent. That most people in the North had no knowledge of.
We were more of a industrial manufacturing, and people worked and were paid, and the South being poor and based mostly on cotton and sugar cane and rice, they needed people to work the fields, and they didn't get the prices for their goods. It was dependent on the weather, and you could have a bad year, and so they weren't. In a position to pay high wages is the industrial part of the country. And so we, we already had the advantage on the South.
But we didn't have the war tactics that the South had. They had most of the generals that knew how to fight that had been, , raised on horseback and were attuned to the land , where people in the North were more concerned about paying their bills and, and going to work and not, you know, Apprised of the terrain and stuff that would be needed in battle. So, like, men who came from stores and factories were put in charge of troops. Because they were influential in government.
And they had no knowledge of war. So, they were ineffective. You gotta put people in that know what they're doing, especially when you've got men's lives at, at risk. That doesn't make any sense, taking a guy that, , he's got a lot of money or has got lot of pull in, in politics. I mean, he's just not going to charge into the bullets.
Well, all of these questions you're asking me, particularly about the Civil War and the Indian Wars, they're all based on opinions that I've formed, and not necessarily the absolute facts, because I look at things that maybe the man next to me might not see in the same light. Light. And I would tell you that when I was at West Point, we were being taught the European tactics that had been employed during the Napoleonic Wars.
And that suddenly changed when the different inventions that came out that were more killing machines used during the Civil War. And it. Made obsolete those Napoleonic tactics. What, what are some of those inventions? Well, the rifling of the muskets they were smooth bore in the beginning of the war. Then they rifled them to become more accurate. And we were still firing across lines that had been drawn during the revolutionary war that were the.
tactics at the time that allowed that a large amount of lead would be shot out like a shotgun and you would hope that you'd hit something. Well, then it became more accurate and each wound inflicted by the rifled 58 caliber Springfield devastated the enemy. The person that got hit because chances are it shattered the bone and they'd have to lose a limb in the process. If they weren't killed outright, then it would take two men that would have to remove them from the field.
So you could effectively remove three people from a line a skirmish line and that person probably wouldn't return to the front because of the wounds that they suffered. If they didn't die outright during the procedure to remove their arm or leg, they would probably just return to civilian life and try to make do as best they can. Jeez, what a way to think.
I mean, here, we got these super awesome guns, we shoot one guy, which means they need two guys to carry him away, and that's how we win the battle. I don't know if I would have been that great of a general. In the next episode, we are going to talk a little bit more about Custer's luck. We're going to talk about how he received the surrender table after Lee surrendered to Grant.
And we're going to talk about the Battle of Washita, where Custer was accused of massacring more than a hundred Native Americans and much more. I'm glad you're enjoying this podcast. If you haven't yet subscribed now, and we'll see you at the next episode of the calling history podcast with part two of George Custer.