George Custer

George Custer (1839-1930) was an officer in the United States Army. In the War of Secession, he served as an aide to General George McClellan at the Army of the Potomac's headquarters.

In the Second Mexican War, Custer commanded a cavalry regiment which helped pacify the first Mormon rebellion. In Utah he and his superior, John Pope, developed a brutal policy against Mormons and suspected polygamists, which the citizens of Utah did not forget as time passed. During that war he also fought in Canada and helped win one of the few victories the U.S. had in the war by defeating a British force commanded by Charles George Gordon, with help from Theodore Roosevelt's Unauthorized Regiment. His beloved brother Tom was killed by British forces, and this instilled in Custer a lifelong hatred for the Canadians.

In the Great War he was in command of the US First Army in Kentucky. Many of his policies were questionable, including his insistance of heading straight for the enemy which cost many lives. However he pushed the Confederates into Tennesee and he was one of the first people to see the importance barrels could have in war. Against the stated wishes of the General Staff, he planned the Barrel Roll Offensive, allowing the US to achieve a breakthrough. After the war he was promoted to full (four-star) general.

After the war, when the US expelled the British from all of Canada and occupied the country, Custer asked President Theodore Roosevelt (with whom he felt a bitter rivalry dating backto the Second Mexican War) to give him command of occupatio forces. Roosevelt initially refused but later relented and named Custer military governor of Canada.

There he tried to bring a stop to the ongoing rebellion. His success was limited, but he remained popular among Americans--and hated by Canadians.

In 1922, he was forced to retire by President Upton Sinclair. During a farewell tour of Canada, Arthur McGregor tried to kill him by throwing a bomb into his car. Custer returned the bomb to McGregor, killing him.

Custer died in 1930 and was buried in Arlington, West Virginia. Jake Featherston railed against the humiliation of having a hated US general buried in Robert E. Lee's plantation.