894, by Selmar Hess.]

By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS

(1839-1876)

[Illustration: General George A. Custer.]

Daring is always popular. The dashing fighter outranks the tactician
and takes precedence over the engineer when the people's plaudits
for valor fill the air. To be the _beau sabreur_ of the army, as was
Murat, in Napoleon's day, and as Custer was in Grant's, is as
glorious as it is dramatic, as inspiring as it is picturesque. There
were, in fact, many points of resemblance between these two dashing
cavalry leaders--Murat, the Frenchman, and Custer, the American.
Both smelled powder as the aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose
rapidly from grade to grade, and from rank to rank, until they stood
at the top; both labored at the end under the burden of criticism
and detraction; and both met their death through a mistake, and fell
like brave and gallant soldiers.

George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, in the State of
Ohio, on December 5, 1839. His father was a blacksmith and farmer,
of German stock, a descendant of a Hessian officer named Kuestu--one
among many who came to conquer and remained to live and die as
citizens of the land they had failed to subjugate.

Young Custer was educated in the district school of New Rumley, and
in the academy at Monroe, in Michigan, where he went in 1849 to live
with his sister Lydia. Returning to Ohio he taught school for a year
or more in Hopedale, near New Rumley, and in 1857 was able to see
his boyish dream come true, and, as a lad of seventeen, enter the
United States Military Academy at West Point.

Cadet Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and hurried to the
front at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had
begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought
at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to
which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon
reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General
McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was
appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the rank of captain.

For his dash and daring in the Rappahannock battles he was advanced
by speedy promotions to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers,
his commission dating from June, 1863, just one year after his
appointment as aide-de-camp to McClellan. He won his brevet as major
in the regular army for his brilliant leadership of cavalry at
Gettysburg; he