Custer After Gettysburg

History remembers George Armstrong Custer for his ignominious defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but before that, he rose like a meteor—and flashed as brilliantly— during the American Civil War, from last in his class at West Point to hard-charging cavalry leader, major general, and division commander— all within the span of four years, before the age of twenty-six. This new book from Civil War cavalry expert Edward G. Longacre follows Custer through the final nineteen months of the war as the young cavalryman became one of the most celebrated soldiers in the country.

The story begins after Custer’s success at Gettysburg, where his brigade of Michigan Wolverines stopped Jeb Stuart’s Confederate horsemen in July 1863. The victorious cavalryman returned south to Virginia, where Ulysses Grant would soon begin the Civil War’s bloody endgame with Robert E. Lee. A trusted lieutenant to Union cavalry commander Philip Sheridan, Custer raided in support of Grant’s offensive in the Wilderness and a month later fought at Trevilian Station, the war’s largest all-cavalry battle. He then followed Sheridan west into the Shenandoah Valley, where they waged a scorched-earth campaign that culminated in victory at Cedar Creek, which ended the Confederate threat in the Valley and helped seal President Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. Custer rejoined the main army around Richmond and joined the final pursuit of Lee’s battered army to Appomattox. During these months of skirmishes, raids, charges, and battles, Custer was constantly in the thick of the fight, taking calculated risks that usually paid off and putting his own life on the line (a dozen horses were shot from under him).

Never again would Custer burn as brightly as during these remarkable months when he charged his way to victory and celebrity. Impeccably researched and dramatically told, Custer After Gettysburg thrusts readers into the saddle for an unforgettable ride with an American soldier— a hell-for-leather cavalryman, a flamboyant daredevil, a battlefield gambler—at the height of his success.