Sitting Bull (detail),
David Frances Barry, photographer, copyright 1885.
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
George Armstrong Custer, Officer of the Federal Army,
Brady National Photographic Art Gallery, between 1860 and 1865.
Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865
On June 25, 1876, George Armstrong Custer and the 265 men under his command lost their lives in the Battle of Little Big Horn, often referred to as Custer's Last Stand.
Educated at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Custer proved his brilliance and daring as a cavalry officer of the Union Army in the Civil War. Major General George McClellan appointed the twenty-three-year-old Custer as brigadier general in charge of a Michigan cavalry brigade. By 1864, Custer was leading the Third Cavalry Division in General Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign. Throughout the fall, the Union Army moved across the valley—burning homes, mills, and fields of crops.