History

Custer's Buckskin Jacket
1870s


By wearing fringed buckskin apparel such as this jacket, General George Armstrong Custer liked to project himself as a dashing cavalier and a true frontiersman. However, history recalls him in a different way. Custer will always be remembered as the man who led the Seventh U.S. Cavalry to a crushing defeat at the hands of the Sioux and the Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. The annihilation of Custer and about 200 of his soldiers has been known ever since as "Custer's Last Stand."

Notes Donated to the Smithsonian by Custer's widow, Elizabeth, in 1912
George Armstrong Custer, born December 5, 1839, New Rumley, OH; died June 25, 1876, Little Bighorn River, MT