Custer's Missing "Head"

on June the 25th 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn five companies of the U.S 7th Cavalry under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped out shortly afterward Congress commissioned a statue of Custer to be placed at West Point made from 20 condemned bronze cannons the statue portrayed Custer wielding a saber and a pistol the statue was unveiled in 1879 Custer's Widow Elizabeth Libby Custer was not happy she wrote the statue could not be worse than it is the face is of a man of sixty and the dress is so unmilitary that his brother officers shudder in looking at it the whole costume is incongruous and incorrect then he is armed like a Desperado in both hands the statue is a failure as a likeness as the representation of a soldier and as a work of art let me Custer lobbied ceaselessly for the next five years to have the statue removed and it was removed in 1884. supposedly the statue was then shipped to the workshops of the renowned architect Stanford white in New York City white was to remove the head from the statue which would then be displayed as a bust well white must have been very busy because he had still not gotten around to creating the bust at the time of his death in 1906 at the hands of a jealous husband at this point all records of the statue vanished from history perhaps Custer's missing head will reappear someday in an obscure junk shop or at an estate sale ultimately Libby Custer would get the statue she wanted for her husband a bronze equestrian statue which was unveiled in Monroe Michigan in June 1910 by President William Howard Taft and Libby Custer herself this statue commemorates Custer's actions during the Civil War which led many to believe that he had saved the union cause especially by his daring actions at the Battle of Gettysburg

Channel: Havoscar

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Id: H2g0dfsNo60

Length: 2min 57sec (177 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023