Fans of High Plains history might be interested in a major new biography of George Armstrong Custer, entitled Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of New America. Author T.J. Stiles takes a different approach with his book. He tells Custer’s story up to—but not including—the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Kansas Public Radio commentator Rex Buchanan says Stiles stops where other people start paying attention. Buchanan calls the book “a richly detailed analysis of Custer and the times and places that shaped him.”
Kansas readers will enjoy learning about Custer's formative adventures in the Sunflower State. Custer spent a good deal of time in Kansas. After the Civil War, he was assigned to Fort Leavenworth, and then to Fort Riley. In Kansas, Custer was not exactly popular with his own men. His career in the state got off to an inauspicious start when he accidentally shot his own horse.
