On the Plains with Custer / The Western Life and Deeds of the Chief With the Yellow Hair, Under Whom Served Boy Bugler Ned Fletcher, When in the Troublous Years 1866–1876 the Fighting Seventh Cavalry Helped to Win Pioneer Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota for White Civilization and Today's Peace

by Edwin L. Sabin

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER

Famous American soldier and cavalry leader in the Civil War and on Indian campaigns afterward. A loyal citizen, a tender son, a devoted husband. Family name “Autie”; otherwise called Armstrong; by war correspondents styled “the Boy General”; by the soldiers nicknamed “Old Curly,” and “Jack”; entitled by the Indians “the Yellow Hair,” “the Long Hair,” or, in full, “White Chief with the Long Yellow Hair.”

Born at New Rumley, Ohio, December 5, 1839.

Father: Emmanuel H. Custer, of Maryland.

Mother: Maria Ward Kirkpatrick, of Pennsylvania.

Spent his boyhood at New Rumley, on the farm, and with his sister at Monroe, Michigan.

Educated at New Rumley, at the Stebbins Academy (Monroe) and the Monroe “Seminary,” and at the Hopedale, Ohio, Normal School.

Appointed to West Point Military Academy, 1857.