The legendary war hero George Armstrong Custer ranked at the bottom of his class when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy. It was not until the Civil War that he made his reputation as a fearless cavalry leader. In 1863, at the age of 23, he was made a brigadier general, and in 1865, a major general. He returned to his regular rank as captain after the war, until 1866, when he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 7th Cavalry.

Custer was known as a daredevil. His early success as the "boy general" fuelled an arrogance, a belief that he was destined for greatness. Accounts of the man describe his great mood swings: high-spirited and filled with energy one moment, sulking and brooding the next. His wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, or Libbie, as she was known, followed Custer from camp to camp and fort to fort, throughout the West. Both Libbie and her husband were skillful writers, publishing books and articles about life on the Plains.

Custer spent his final 10 years of life in battle with the First Nation tribes of the Great Plains region and the Dakota and Montana territories. In 1874, he led an expedition into the Black Hills, a region that had been guaranteed to the Lakota nation in the Fort Laramie Treaty six years earlier. In 1876, Custer's regiment joined with other troops to force the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians onto reservations.

Custer's mythic "Last Stand" at the Battle of Little Big Horn placed him among the most alluring figures in American history. On June 25, 1876, Custer ordered an attack on a village of what turned out to be more than 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Custer and his entire unit were wiped out in one of the greatest fiascos of the United States Army.