A Complete Life of General George A. Custer, Volume 1: Through the Civil War

by Frederick Whittaker, Gregory J.W. Urwin (Introduction)

In the election year of 1876 the Battle of the Little Big Horn was horrifyingly fresh to opinion makers, who divided along political lines in assigning blame. The late General George A. Custer, who had been a Democrat with aspirations to high office, was more pilloried than praised by President Grant and influential editors of Republican newspapers. Coming to the defense of Custer was Frederick Whittaker, who less than six months after the disaster published this first biography of him. A Complete Life was the beginning of a legend, and Whittaker did more than anyone else except Libby Custer to make the flamboyant Boy General a permanent resident of the national consciousness. Quite aside from its contribution to the public image of Custer, this important book placed him and his associates against a concrete background of onrushing events. Drawing on newspaper reports and the general's own words, Whittaker captures the excitement of the era. In Volume 1 a boy's life in Ohio is made immediate. Then Custer's escapades as a cadet at West Point (where he was called Fanny because of his golden locks), his courtship of Judge Bacon's saucy daughter, and his singular service as a cavalryman in the Civil War are described in vivid circumstantial detail. From the first Battle of Bull Run through Gettysburg and the Virginia campaign he is seen in action, conspicuously defying death and winning promotion. Volume 2 deals with Custer's fighting in the West, ending with a memorable description of his last stand at the Little Big Horn in June 1876. The introduction to Volume 1 is by Gregory J. W. Urwin, who won praise for Custer The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer , also a Bison Book.

Genres: Civil War, Biography

356 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

Reviews

[NDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whittaker thinks very highly of Custer. “Adulation” would not be too strong a word; nor would “worship.” But I think the 1993 Introduction to this edition by Gregory Urwin (University of Central Arkansas) is as informative as the story itself, particularly when Urwin says, “…it should be stated that this view of Custer was commonly held by those who served with the Boy General in the Civil War.” Urwin also says, “…my research revealed that most if not all of the Union soldiers who followed Custer in the Civil War regarded him as a peerless cavalryman and a genuine hero. This was something that Whittaker already knew from personal experience.”
(So much for another academic’s sneering dismissal of Whittaker—who served 1861-65 with the Sixth NY Cavalry and knew something of his subject—as a “dime-store novelist”.)
That being said, the biography was obviously rushed out (just in time for Christmas’76) and relies extensively on others’ already-published works, including Custer’s own writings (about himself.) I can’t quite call it plagiarism but original research it’s not.
One of the most interesting comments Urwin makes is in his footnote 21 referencing the 1934 “revisionist” history of Custer (by Frederic F. Van De Water), which supposedly debunks the “Custer Myth” (and was conveniently published the year after Libby Custer’s death when she was no longer around to defend her husband.) Specifically, Urwin states that “…Van De Water deliberately skewed the facts in an effort to make Custer’s every success look like dumb luck or newspaper propaganda.” That’s a pretty strong condemnation of a presentation of Custer that seems to be the fashionable view nowadays.

In any case, I think that a scholarly “study edition” of Whittaker’s work highlighting his factual errors and referencing respectable differences of opinion about Custer’s career would be a valuable read, if such exists. Perhaps I’ll piece some of that together on my own as I read some of the other histories referenced in this excellent Introduction.