Portal:Montana/Selected biography/5

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George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Promoted at an early age to a temporary war-time rank of brigadier general, and later made a permanent Lt. Colonel, he was a flamboyant and aggressive commander during numerous Civil War battles, known for his personal bravery in leading charges against opposing cavalry. He led the Michigan Brigade whom he called the "Wolverines" during the Civil War. He was defeated and killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, against a coalition of Native American tribes comprised almost exclusively of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors, and led by the Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall and by the Hunkpapa seer and medicine man, Sitting Bull. This confrontation has come to be popularly known and enshrined in American history as Custer's Last Stand.

Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel Henry Custer (1806-1892), a farmer and blacksmith, and Marie Ward Kirkpatrick (1807-1882). Through his life Custer was known by a variety of nicknames. Among Whites he was called alternately Autie (his early attempt to pronounce his middle name), Armstrong, Fanny, or Curley. When he went west the Plains Indians whom he encountered called him Yellow Hair and Son of the Morning Star. His brothers Thomas Custer and Boston Custer died with him at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, as did his brother-in-law and nephew. His other two full siblings were Nevin and Margaret Custer, and he had several other half siblings. Custer's father's family originally came from Westphalia in West Germany. They emigrated and arrived in America in the 17th century. The original family surname was "Küster". He was a fifth-generation descendant of the German, Arnold Küster from Kaldenkirchen, Duchy of Jülich (today North Rhine-Westphalia state), who later immigrated to Hanover, Pennsylvania.