George Armstrong Custer’s Birthday – Anniversary

Dec 5, 1839. Born at New Rumley, OH, Custer was a cavalry officer in the US Civil War whose courage and leadership brought him admiration and fame. He later spent ten years on the Great Plains fighting in the Indian Wars and leading a successful Black Hills expedition in 1874 to find gold. During a campaign to move the Lakota Sioux onto reservations to make way for the gold rush, Custer attacked an encampment of Sioux and Cheyenneon June 25, 1876. Outnumbered, he and about 215 of his men were quickly killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn now considered one of the biggest military fiascoes in US history.