Remember.

Despite his inconsistencies and flaws, there was something about Custer that distinguished him from most other human beings. He possessed an energy, an ambition, and a charisma that few others could match. He could inspire devotion and great love along with more that his share of hatred and disdain, and more than anything else, he wanted to be remebered.

Some are remembered because they transcend the failings of their age. Custer is remembered because he so perfectly embodied those failings. As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, "All mortal greatness is but disease."
- Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and The Battle Of The Little Big Horn

Unchecked. That was Custer. As a leader of men in the Civil War, he got things done. So did Sherman. So did Sheridan. So, for that matter, did Grant. The manner in which these men then waged war on the Native Americans was very much a case of genocide. It was dirty work. Dirty work that was done a long way from the marbled halls and gilded parlors of the East. The greed for glory and, yes, to be remembered, was what drove these men. A whole culture stood in their way.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand
- William Butler Yeats

Yes ... remember.

Philbrick's book is well written and informative. I recommend it. My favorite historian, Stephen A. Ambrose's account, Crazy Horse and Custer, is, by far, my favorite. Ambrose is a master storyteller ... at my dream campfire, Harrison and my Dad do the cooking, Pierre Cruzatte plays the fiddle, and Ambrose weaves the yarns. For exhaustive first-hand accounts, read E.A. Brininstool's Troopers With Custer.