own skirmish line and his horse artillery was exchanging shots with the Confederate gunners. Twenty-three-year-old George Custer, West Point ’61, youngest brigadier in the Potomac army, was dressed for battle in a sailor’s blouse with silver stars on its wide collar points, red cravat, black velveteen hussar’s jacket spangled with gold braid, olive corduroy pants, gleaming jackboots, and wide-brimmed felt hat. It was said he looked “like a circus rider gone mad.” Yet for all the gaudy trappings, George Custer always led his Michigan troopers by example and always from out front.3
