Custer at Gettysburg: A New Look at George Armstrong Custer versus Jeb Stuart in the Battle's Climactic Cavalry Charges

George Armstrong Custer is famous for his fatal defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876, but Custer’s baptism of fire came during the Civil War. After graduating last in the West Point class of 1861, Custer served from the First Battle of Bull Run (only a month after graduation) through Appomattox, where he witnessed the surrender. But Custer’s true rise to prominence began at Gettysburg in 1863.

On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, only twenty-three years old and barely two years removed f...