George Armstrong Custer

George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 to June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. He graduated last in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1861, but rose rapidly, being promoted to brevet brigadier general of volunteers at age 23 and commanding the Michigan Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. After the Civil War he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army and sent west to fight in the Indian Wars, mainly against the Lakota, Sioux and other Great Plains peoples. On June 25, 1876, while leading the Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led, an event known as Custer's Last Stand. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/