title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: The album reached number one on the record charts of various European and Oceanic countries, including Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland. In Canada, it was certified 6× Platinum and was the fifth-best-selling album of the 2010s, with sales of 542,000 copies. It was the fastest-selling album by a female artist of 2014 in the UK, where it earned a five-times platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry. "1989" also achieved success in Asia. It became one of the best-selling digital albums in China, having sold one million units as of August 2019. It also received a platinum certification in Japan. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), "1989" was the second-best-selling album of 2014 and third-best-selling of 2015. By 2017, the album had sold 10 million copies worldwide.


title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: "1989"s commercial success transformed Swift's image from a country singer to that of a pop icon. It was the second album to spawn five or more US top-10 singles in the 2010s decade, and made Swift the second woman to have two albums each score five US top-10 hits. Its singles received heavy rotation on US radio over a year and a half following its release, which "Billboard" noted as "a kind of cultural omnipresence" that was rare for a 2010s album. The academic Shaun Cullen specializing in the humanities described Swift as a figure "at the cutting edge of postmillennial pop". "1989" electronic-pop production expanded on Swift's next two studio albums, "Reputation" (2017) and "Lover" (2019).


title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: American rock singer-songwriter Ryan Adams released his track-by-track cover album of "1989" in September 2015. Finding it a "joyful" record, he listened to the album frequently to cope with his broken marriage in late 2014. On his rendition, Adams incorporated acoustic instruments which contrast with the original's electronic production. Swift was delighted with Adams' cover, saying to him, "What you did with my album was like actors changing emphasis." "Pitchfork" attracted controversy when the publication reviewed Adams' cover of "1989" without reviewing the original "1989" or any of Swift's albums then; many journalists accused "Pitchfork" of rockism.


title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: Along with "1989" success, Swift's status as a pop star became a subject of media scrutiny. Swift described herself as a feminist, but her public appearances with singers and fashion models whom the media called her "squad" gave the impression that she did so just to keep her name afloat in news headlines. Kristy Fairclough, a professor in popular culture and film, commented, "Her shifting aesthetic and allegiances appear confusing in an overall narrative that presents Taylor Swift as the centre of the cultural universe." Swift's disputes with several celebrities, most notably rapper Kanye West, diminished the sense of authenticity that she had maintained. Swift announced a prolonged hiatus following the 1989 World Tour because "people might need a break from [her]". Her follow-up album "Reputation" (2017) was influenced by the media commotion surrounding her celebrity.


title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: Retrospective comments from "GQ" Jay Willis, "Vulture" Sasha Geffen, and "NME" Hannah Mylrea praised how "1989" avoided contemporary hip hop and R&B crossover trends, making it a timeless album that represents the best of Swift's prowess. Mylrea praised it as the singer's best record and described it as an influence for younger musicians to embrace "pure pop", contributing to a growing trend of nostalgic 1980s-styled sound. Geffen also attributed the album's success to its lyrics offering emotional engagement that is uncommon in pop. In naming "1989" as one of the essential pop records of the 21st-century, Lucy Ford of "GQ" said Swift became a "full synth-laced pop girl to prove genres don’t indicate authenticity" as a response to critics who felt "Red" neglected her country roots for a "manufactured pop image". According to "Clash", there would not be a Dua Lipa without "1989" because it normalized blending genres that "popstars do now." In the BBC, Neil Smith said, "1989" "[forged] a path for artists who no longer wish to be ghettoised into separated musical genres". Ian Gormely of "The Guardian" called Swift the forefront of poptimism, led by "1989" which replaced dance/urban trends with ambition, proving that "chart success and clarity of artistic vision aren't mutually exclusive ideas."


title: 1989 (Taylor Swift album)

text: Contemporary artists who cited "1989" as an influence included American singer-songwriter Conan Gray, American actor and musician Jared Leto, and British pop band the Vamps, who took inspiration from "1989" while composing their album "Wake Up" (2015). American director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson cited "1989" as an inspiration for her feature film debut, "Someone Great" (2019).


title: Keith Haring

text: Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness. In addition to solo gallery exhibitions, he participated in renowned national and international group shows such as "documenta" in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial in New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Venice Biennale. The Whitney Museum held a retrospective of his art in 1997.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's popularity grew from his spontaneous drawings in New York City subways—chalk outlines of figures, dogs, and other stylized images on blank black advertising spaces. After gaining public recognition, he created colorful larger scale murals, many commissioned. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, many of them created voluntarily for hospitals, day care centers and schools. In 1986, he opened the Pop Shop as an extension of his work. His later work often conveyed political and societal themes—anti-crack, anti-apartheid, safe sex, homosexuality and AIDS—through his own iconography.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring died on February 16, 1990, of AIDS-related complications. In 2014, he was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco, a walk of fame noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields". In 2019, he was one of the inaugural 50 American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on May 4, 1958. He was raised in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, by his mother, Joan Haring, and father, Allen Haring, an engineer and amateur cartoonist. He had three younger sisters, Kay, Karen and Kristen. He became interested in art at a very young age, spending time with his father producing creative drawings. His early influences included Walt Disney cartoons, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, and the Looney Tunes characters in "The Bugs Bunny Show".


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's family attended the United Church of Christ. In his early teenage years, he was involved with the Jesus Movement. He later hitchhiked across the country, selling T-shirts he made featuring the Grateful Dead and anti-Nixon designs. He graduated from Kutztown Area High School in 1976. He studied commercial art from 1976 to 1978 at Pittsburgh's Ivy School of Professional Art, but eventually lost interest, inspired to focus on his own art after reading "The Art Spirit" (1923) by Robert Henri.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring had a maintenance job at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and was able to explore the art of Jean Dubuffet, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Tobey. He was highly influenced around this time by a 1977 retrospective of Pierre Alechinsky's work and by a lecture that the sculptor Christo gave in 1978. From Alechinsky's work, he felt encouraged to create large images that featured writing and characters. From Christo, Haring was introduced to ways of incorporating the public into his art. His first significant one-man exhibition was in Pittsburgh at the Center for the Arts in 1978.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring moved to the Lower East Side of New York in 1978 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts. He also worked as a busboy during this time at the nightclub Danceteria. While attending school he studied semiotics with Bill Beckley and experimented with video and performance art. Haring was also highly influenced in his art by author William Burroughs.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1978, Haring wrote in his journal: "I am becoming much more aware of movement. The importance of movement is intensified when a painting becomes a performance. The performance (the act of painting) becomes as important as the resulting painting."


title: Keith Haring

text: In December 2007, an area of the American Textile Building in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City was discovered to contain a Haring painting from 1979.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring first received public attention with his graffiti art in subways, where he created white chalk drawings on black, unused advertisement backboards in the stations. He considered the subways to be his "laboratory", a place where he could experiment and create his artwork and saw the black advertisement paper as a free space and "the perfect place to draw". The Radiant Baby, a crawling infant with emitting rays of light, became his most recognized symbol. He used it as his tag to sign his work while a subway artist. Symbols and images (such as barking dogs, flying saucers, and large hearts) became common in his work and iconography. As a result, Haring's works spread quickly and he became exceedingly more recognizable.


title: Keith Haring

text: The writings of Burroughs and Brion Gysin inspired Haring's work with lettering and words. In 1980, he created headlines from word juxtaposition and attached hundreds to lamp-posts around Manhattan. These included phrases like "Reagan Slain by Hero Cop" and "Pope Killed for Freed Hostage." That same year, as part of his participating in "The Times Square Show" with one of his earliest public projects, Haring altered a banner advertisement above a subway entrance in Times Square that showed a female embracing a male's legs, blacking-out the first letter so that it essentially read "hardón" instead of "Chardón", a French clothing brand. He later used other forms of commercial material to spread his work and messages. This included mass producing buttons and magnets to hand out and working on top of subway ads.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1980, Haring began organizing exhibitions at Club 57, which were filmed by his close friend and photographer Tseng Kwong Chi. In February 1981, Haring had his first solo exhibition at Westbeth Painters Space in the West Village. In November 1981, he had a solo show at Hal Bromm Gallery in Tribeca.


title: Keith Haring

text: In January 1982, Haring was the first of twelve artists organized by Public Art Fund to display work on the computer-animated Spectacolor billboard in Times Square. That summer, Haring created his first major outdoor mural on the Houston Bowery Wall on the Lower East Side. In his paintings, he often used lines to show energy and movement. Haring would often work quickly, trying to create as much work as possible—sometimes completing as many as 40 paintings in a day. One of his works, "Untitled" (1982), depicts two figures with a radiant heart-love motif, which critics have interpreted as a boldness in homosexual love and a significant cultural statement.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1982, Haring participated in "documenta 7" in Kassel, where his work were exhibited alongside Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. In October 1982, he had an exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery with his collaborator graffiti artist Angel "LA II" Ortiz. That year, he was in several group exhibitions including "Fast" at the Alexander Milliken Gallery in New York.


title: Keith Haring

text: In February 1983, Haring had a solo exhibition at the Fun Gallery in the East Village, Manhattan. That year, Haring participated in the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil and the Whitney Biennial in New York. In April 1983, Haring was commissioned to paint a mural, "Construction Fence", at the construction site of the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee. In October 1983, Elio Fiorucci invited Haring to Milan to paint the walls of his Fiorucci store. While Haring was in London for the opening of his exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery in October 1983, he met and began collaborating with choreographer Bill T. Jones. Haring used Jones' body as the canvas to paint from head to toe.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring and Angel "LA II" Ortiz produced a T-shirt design for friends Willi Smith and Laurie Mallet's clothing label WilliWear Productions in 1984. Haring also collaborated with fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. After Haring was profiled in "Paper" magazine, Westwood reached out to editor-in-chief Kim Hastreiter to facilitate a meeting. Haring presented Westwood with two large sheets of drawings and she turned them into textiles for her Autumn/Winter 1983-84 Witches collection. Haring's friend Madonna wore a skirt from the collection, most notably in the music video her 1984 single "Borderline."


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1984, Haring was included in the Venice Biennale. He was invited to create temporary murals at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He also painted the permanent "Keith Haring Mural" at Collingwood Technical College in Melbourne. That year, Haring painted murals at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and in Rio de Janeiro.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's swift rise to international celebrity status was covered by the media. His art covered the February 1984 issue of "Vanity Fair", and he was featured in the October 1984 issue of "Newsweek". Later that year, he designed the stage set for the production of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's "Secret Pastures" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Haring was commissioned by the United Nations to create a first day cover the United Nations stamp and an accompanying limited edition lithograph to commemorate 1985 as International Youth Year. He designed MTV set decorations and painted murals for various art institutions and nightclubs, such as the Palladium in Manhattan. In March 1985, Haring painted the walls of the Grande Halle de la Villette for the Biennale de Paris. In July 1985, he made a painting for the Live Aid concert at J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia. Additionally, he painted a car owned by art dealer Max Protetch to be auctioned with proceeds donated to African famine relief. Haring continued to be politically active as well by designing "Free South Africa" posters in 1985, and creating a poster for the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.


title: Keith Haring

text: In the spring of 1986, Haring had his first solo museum exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and he painted a mural. In 1986, Haring also created public murals in the lobby and ambulatory care department of Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn.


title: Keith Haring

text: In June 1986, Haring created a 90-foot banner, "CityKids Speak on Liberty", in conjunction with The CityKids Foundation to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Statue of Liberty's arrival in the United States. Later that month, he created his "Crack is Wack" mural in East Harlem, visible from New York's FDR Drive. It was originally considered as vandalism by the New York Police Department and Haring was arrested. But after local media outlets picked up the story, Haring was released on a lesser charge. While in jail, Haring's original work was vandalized. This mural is an example of Haring's use of consciousness raising rather than consumerism, "Crack is Wack" rather than "Coke is it." He painted an updated version of the mural on the same wall in October 1986.


title: Keith Haring

text: On October 23, 1986, Haring created a mural on the Berlin Wall for the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. The mural was long and depicted red and black interlocking human figures against a yellow background. The colors were a representation of the German flag and symbolized the hope of unity between East and West Germany.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring began collaborating with Grace Jones, whom he had met through Andy Warhol, for an interview magazine shoot in 1984. Haring painted Jones' body for her music video "I'm Not Perfect" (1986) and live performances at the Paradise Garage. He also painted Jones' for her role of Katrina the Queen of The Vampires in the 1986 film "Vamp". Haring collaborated with David Spada, a jewelry designer, to design the sculptural adornments for Jones.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring also illustrated vinyl covers for various artists such as David Bowie's "Without You" (1983), N.Y.C. Peech Boys' "Life Is Something Special" (1983), Malcolm McLaren's "Duck For The Oyster" (1983), and Sylvester's "Someone Like You" (1986).


title: Keith Haring

text: In April 1986, Pop Shop opened in Soho, selling shirts, posters, and other items showing Haring's work. This made Haring's work readily accessible to purchase at reasonable prices. Some criticized Haring for commercializing his work. Asked about this, Haring said, "I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art." The Pop Shop remained open after Haring's death; profits go to the Keith Haring Foundation.


title: Keith Haring

text: The Pop Shop was far from Haring's only effort to make his work widely accessible. Throughout his career, Haring made art in subways and on billboards. His attempts to make his work relatable can also be seen in his figures' lack of discernable ages, races, or identities. By the arrival of Pop Shop, his work began reflecting more socio-political themes, such as anti-Apartheid, AIDS awareness, and the crack cocaine epidemic.


title: Keith Haring

text: From 1982 to 1989, Haring was featured in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions and produced more than 50 public artworks in dozens of charities, hospitals, day care centers, and orphanages. Haring was openly gay and used his work to advocate for safe sex. He was diagnosed with AIDS in the autumn of 1988. He used his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his illness and to generate activism and awareness about AIDS.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1987, Haring had exhibitions in Helsinki, Paris, and elsewhere. During his stay in Paris for the 10th anniversary exhibition of American artists at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Haring and his lover Juan Rivera painted the "Tower" mural on an exterior stairwell at the Necker Children's Hospital. While in Belgium for his exhibition at Gallery 121, Haring painted a mural at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp.


title: Keith Haring

text: That same year, Haring was also invited by artist Roger Nellens to paint a mural at his Casino Knokke. While working there, Haring stayed in "Le Dragon", a monster-shaped guest house owned by Nellens which had been designed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle. With the consent of both the designer and the owner, Haring painted a fresco mural along an interior balcony and stairway.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring designed a carousel for André Heller's "Luna Luna", an ephemeral amusement park in Hamburg from June to August 1987 with rides designed by renowned contemporary artists. In August 1987, Haring painted a large mural at the Carmine Street Recreation Center's outdoor pool in the West Village. In September 1987, he painted a temporary mural, "Detroit Notes", at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The work reveals a darker phase in Haring's style, which Cranbrook Art Museum Director Andrew Blauvelt speculates foreshadowed the confirmation of his AIDS diagnosis.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring designed the cover for the 1987 benefit album "A Very Special Christmas" and the Run-DMC single "Christmas In Hollis"; proceeds went to the Special Olympics. The image for the "A Very Special Christmas" compilation album consists of a typical Haring figure holding a baby. Its "Jesus iconography" is considered unusual in modern rock holiday albums.


title: Keith Haring

text: Also in 1987, Haring painted a mural in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Point Breeze titled 'We the Youth' to commemorate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Originally intended as a placeholder, a new rowhome was never built and the lot became a park. The mural underwent a major restoration in 2013 and is Haring's longest standing public mural at its original location.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1988, Haring joined a select group of artists whose work has appeared on the label of Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine. In January 1988, he traveled to Japan to open Pop Shop Tokyo; it closed in the summer of 1988. In April 1988, Haring created a mural on the South Lawn for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which he donated to Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Late in the summer, Haring traveled to Düsseldorf for a show of his paintings and sculptures at the Hans Mayer Gallery. In December 1988, Haring's exhibition opened at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, which he stated was his most important show to date. He felt he had something to prove because of his health condition and the deaths of his friends Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.


title: Keith Haring

text: In February 1989, Haring painted the "Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA" mural in the drug-infested Barrio Chino neighborhood of Barcelona to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic. In May 1989, at the invitation of a teacher named Irving Zucker, Haring visited Chicago to paint a 480-foot mural in Grant Park along with nearly 500 students. Three other Haring murals materialized in Chicago around the same time: two at Rush University Medical Center, the other at Wells Community Academy High School. The latter, was completed days before Haring's arrival in Chicago, as a sort of welcome. According to Zucker, Haring sent the school a design template for the mural, which was executed by a fellow teacher, Tony Abboreno, an abstract artist, and Wells High School art students, but Haring gave it his final approval and signed it himself.


title: Keith Haring

text: For "The Center Show", an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Haring was invited by the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York to create a site-specific work. He chose the second-floor men's bathroom to paint his "Once Upon a Time..." mural in May 1989. In June 1989, Haring painted his "Tuttomondo" mural on the rear wall of the convent of the Sant'Antonio Abate church in Pisa.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring criticized the avoidance of social issues such as AIDS through a piece called "Rebel with Many Causes" (1989) that revolves around a theme of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". During the last week of November 1989, Haring painted a mural at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena for "A Day Without Art". The mural was commemorated on December 1, the second annual AIDS Awareness Day. He commemorated the mural on December 1, World AIDS Day, and told the "Los Angeles Times": "My life is my art, it's intertwined. When AIDS became a reality in terms of my life, it started becoming a subject in my paintings. The more it affected my life the more it affected my work." From Pasadena, Haring flew to Atlanta for the opening of his dual show with photographer Herb Ritts at the Fay Gold Gallery on December 2. In 1990, Haring painted a BMW Z1 at the Hans Mayer Gallery in Düsseldorf. He traveled to Paris for what would be his last exhibition, "Keith Haring 1983", at La Galerie de Poche in January 1990.


title: Keith Haring

text: On February 16, 1990, Haring died of AIDS-related complications at his LaGuardia Place apartment in Greenwich Village. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in a field near Bowers, Pennsylvania, just south of his hometown of Kutztown. Three months after his death, Haring posthumously appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's documentary film "Silence = Death" (1990) about gay artists in New York City fighting for the rights of people with AIDS. It was released on May 4, which would have been his 32nd birthday.


title: Keith Haring

text: Soon after moving to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts, he became friends with classmates Kenny Scharf, Samantha McEwen, and John Sex. Eventually, he befriended Jean-Michel Basquiat, who would write his SAMO graffiti around the campus. When Basquiat died in 1988, Haring wrote his obituary for "Vogue" magazine, and he paid homage to him with the painting "A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat" (1988).


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1979, Haring met photographer Tseng Kwong Chi in the East Village. They became friends and he documented much of Haring's career. In 1980, Haring met and began collaborating with graffiti artist Angel "LA II" Ortiz. Haring recounted: "We just immediately hit it off. It's as if we'd known each other all our lives. He's like my little brother." Ortiz's artistry formed an important part of Haring's work that has gone unacknowledged by the art establishment. Following Haring's death, Ortiz stopped receiving credit and payment for his part in Haring's work. According to Montez, author of the book "Keith Haring's Line: Race and the Performance of Desire", the Keith Haring Foundation and the art world have since made strides to rectify Ortiz's erasure.


title: Keith Haring

text: By the early 1980s, Haring had established friendships with fellow emerging artists Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000, and singer Madonna. Andy Warhol, who befriended Haring in 1982, was the theme of his 1986 "Andy Mouse" series. Warhol also created a portrait of Haring and his lover Juan Dubose in 1983. Through Warhol, Haring became friends with Grace Jones, Francesco Clemente, and Yoko Ono. He also formed friendships with George Condo, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, and Claude Picasso.


title: Keith Haring

text: Art dealer Yves Arman was Haring's close friend, and Haring was the godfather of his daughter. Haring said Arman was "probably the best supporter I had in the art world." In 1989, Arman was killed in a car accident on his way to see Haring in Spain.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1988, Gil Vazquez was invited by a friend to visit Haring's Broadway studio. Haring and Vazquez became close friends and spent a great deal of time together. Before his death, Haring set up a foundation bearing his name. He appointed his assistant and studio manager Julia Gruen to be the executive director; she began working for him in 1984. Vazquez is the board president of the foundation, which is based at Haring's Broadway studio.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1989, Haring established the Keith Haring Foundation to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children's programs. The foundation's stated goal is to keep his wishes and expand his legacy by providing grants and funding to non-profit organizations that educate disadvantaged youths and inform the public about HIV and AIDS. It also shares his work and contains information about his life. The foundation also supports arts and educational institutions by funding exhibitions, educational programs, and publications. In 2010, The foundation partnered with the AIDS Service Center NYC to open the Keith Haring ASC Harlem Center to provide HIV peer education and access to care services in Harlem.


title: Keith Haring

text: As a celebration of his life, Madonna declared that the final American date of her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour would be a benefit concert for Haring's memory. The more than $300,000 the show made from ticket sales was donated to the Foundation for AIDS Research. The act was documented in the 1991 film "."


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's work was featured in several of Red Hot Organization's efforts to raise money for AIDS and AIDS awareness, specifically its first two albums, "Red Hot + Blue" (1990) and "Red Hot + Dance" (1992), the latter of which used Haring's work on its cover. His art remains on display worldwide.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1991, Haring was commemorated on the AIDS Memorial Quilt with his famous baby icon on a fabric panel. The baby was embroidered by Haring's aunt, Jeannette Ebling, and Haring's mother, Joan Haring, did much of the sewing.


title: Keith Haring

text: Tim Finn wrote the song "Hit The Ground Running", on his album "Before & After" (1993), in memory of Haring.


title: Keith Haring

text: On May 4, 2012, on what would have been Haring's 54th birthday, Google honored him in a Google Doodle.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2014, Haring was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk. The Rainbow Honor Walk is a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."


title: Keith Haring

text: In June 2019, Haring was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's signature style is frequently seen in various fashion collections. His estate has collaborated with brands such as Adidas, Lacoste, UNIQLO, Supreme, Reebok, and Coach.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring is the subject of a composition, "Haring at the Exhibition", written and performed by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero in collaboration with DJ Nicola Guiducci. The work combines excerpts from popular chart music of the 1980s with samples of classical music compositions by Lorenzo Ferrero and synthesized sounds. It was featured at "The Keith Haring Show", an exhibition which took place in 2005 at the Triennale di Milano.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2008, filmmaker Christina Clausen released the documentary "The Universe of Keith Haring". In the film, Haring's legacy is "resurrected through colorful archival footage and remembered by friends and admirers such as artists Kenny Scharf and Yoko Ono, gallery owners Jeffrey Deitch and Tony Shafrazi, and choreographer Bill T. Jones".


title: Keith Haring

text: Madonna used Haring's art as animated backdrops for her 2008/2009 Sticky and Sweet Tour. The animation featured his trademark blocky figures dancing in beat to an updated remix of "Into the Groove".


title: Keith Haring

text: "Keith Haring: Double Retrospect" is a monster sized jigsaw puzzle by Ravensburger measuring in at with 32,256 pieces, breaking "Guinness Book of World Records" for the largest puzzle ever made in 2011. The puzzle uses 32 pieces of his work and weighs .


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2017, his sister Kay Haring wrote a children's book, "Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing," which ranked among the top ten sellers every week for over a year in the Amazon category of Children's Art History.


title: Keith Haring

text: In July 2020, BBC Two broadcast the documentary "Keith Haring: Street Art Boy", which is built from a series of interviews between Haring and art critic John Gruen in 1989. The documentary, which was directed by Ben Anthony, aired in December 2020 on PBS as part of the "American Masters" series.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's work demonstrates political and personal influences. References to his sexual orientation are apparent throughout his work, and his journals confirm its impact on his work. There are symbolic allusions to the AIDS epidemic in some of his later pieces, such as "Untitled (cat. no. 27)", "Silence=Death" and his sketch "Weeping Woman". In some of his works—including cat. no. 27—the symbolism is subtle, but he also produced some blatantly activist works. "Silence=Death", which mirrors the ACT UP poster and uses its motto, is almost universally agreed upon as a work of HIV/AIDS activism.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring was influenced by William Burroughs' work with Brion Gysin and their book "The Third Mind". He was also influenced by fellow artists, including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo, and Angel "LA II" Ortiz.In some of his art he drew connections between the end of the world and the AIDS virus. In a piece that he made with William Burroughs, he depicts the virus as demon-like creatures, the number 666, and a mushroom cloud.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's proximity to the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island had a large impact on him. His fear of nuclear disaster started to appear in his art. An example of this is a black and white striped flag that he said symbolized the danger of a nuclear apocalypse.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring was deeply influenced by the Jesus Movement as a youth, and it continued to play a role in his art for his entire career. The movement was an extremely evangelical, loosely organized, diverse group of Christians. They were known for their anti-materialism and anti-establishment beliefs, focus on the Last Judgment, and their compassionate treatment of the poor. As a young teenager, Haring became very involved in the movement. Religious symbols started to be incorporated into his drawings around that age as well as Jesus Movement sentiments. This includes anti-church establishment views that can be seen in some of his later work. Though his time as a "Jesus Person" did not last beyond his teenage years, religious images, symbols, and references continued to appear in his art. In an interview near the end of his life he commented, "[All] that stuff stuck in my head and even now there are lots of religious images in my work. Some people even think my work is by a religious fanatic or maniac."


title: Keith Haring

text: When Haring was drawing graffiti in the subway, he used a tag to sign his work. His tag, the Radiant Baby, depicts a baby with lines radiating from it, alluding to the Christ Child. He continued to make images depicting the Christ Child, including Nativity scenes in his characteristic style during his time as a subway artist. His last pieces were two religious triptychs; both went to Episcopal cathedrals. In them he illustrates the Last Judgment, though who is being saved in the pieces is ambiguous.


title: Keith Haring

text: During his lifetime, Haring had over 50 solo exhibitions, and was represented by well-known galleries such as the Tony Shafrazi Gallery and the Leo Castelli Gallery. Since his death, has been featured in over 150 exhibitions around the world. He has also been the subject of several international retrospectives.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring had his first solo exhibition at Westbeth Painters Space in February 1981. That month he also participated in "New York/New Wave" exhibit at MoMA PS1. Later that year he had a solo exhibition in the Hal Bromm Gallery, followed by his breakthrough exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1982. That same year, he took part in "documenta 7" in Kassel as well as Public Art Fund's "Messages to the Public" series in which he created work for a Spectacolor billboard in Times Square. In 1983, Haring contributed work to the Whitney Biennial and the São Paulo Biennial. He also had solo exhibitions at the Fun Gallery, Galerie Watari in Tokyo, and his second show the Tony Shafarzi Gallery.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1984, Haring participated in the group show "Arte di Frontiera: New York Graffiti" in Italy. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1986. In 1985, the CAPC in Bordeaux opened an exhibition of his works, and he took part in the Paris Biennial. In 1986, three of Haring's sculptures were placed at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza outside the United Nations headquarters. Two of the works were displayed at Riverside Park from May 1988 to May 1989. In 1991–92, Haring's "Figure Balancing on Dog" was displayed in Dante Park in Manhattan.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 1996, a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia was the first major exhibition of his work in Australia. His art was the subject of a 1997 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, curated by Elisabeth Sussman. The Public Art Fund, in collaboration with the Estate of Keith Haring, organized a multi-site installation of his outdoor sculptures at Central Park's Doris C. Freedman Plaza and along the Park Avenue Malls. This public exhibition occurred simultaneously with the retrospective at the Whitney.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2007, Haring's painted aluminum sculpture "Self-Portrait" (1989) was displayed in the lobby of the Arsenal in Central Park, as part of the retrospective exhibition "The Outdoor Gallery: 40 Years of Public Art in New York City Parks".


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2008, there was a retrospective exhibition at the MAC in Lyon, France. In February 2010, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Haring's death, the Tony Shafrazi Gallery showed an exhibition containing dozens of works from every stage of Haring's career. In March 2012, a retrospective exhibit of his work, "Keith Haring: 1978–1982", opened at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In April 2013, "Keith Haring: The Political Line" opened at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Le Cent Quatre. In November 2014, then at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.


title: Keith Haring

text: From December 2016 to June 2017, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles exhibited "The Unconventional Canvases of Keith Haring", which featured five vehicles that Haring painted. In 2019, Haring's work was exhibited at Gladstone Gallery in Belgium. The first major UK exhibition of Haring's work, featuring more than 85 artworks, was at Tate Liverpool from June to November 2019. From December 2019 to March 2020, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne exhibited "Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines".


title: Keith Haring

text: In February 2021, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver opened the exhibition "Keith Haring: Grace House Mural", which displays 13 panels from a mural Haring painted at a Catholic youth center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in either March 1983 or 1984. The mural—which featured Haring's radiant baby, barking dog, and dancing man figures—spanned three floors and 85 feet. When Grace House was sold, its operator, the Church of the Ascension, went against the Keith Haring Foundation's wishes of securing a buyer who would maintain the work. Instead, the church had sections of the mural cut out and sold at auction in 2019 to an anonymous private collector for $3.86 million. The panels are on loan to the museum and will appear on exhibit until August 22, 2021.


title: Keith Haring

text: In March 2022, the exhibition "Keith Haring: Grace House Mural" moved to the Schunck Museum in Heerlen, Netherlands, where it will appear until September 25, 2022.


title: Keith Haring

text: A "CBS Evening News" report from October 1982 shows scenes from Haring's solo exhibit at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in SoHo. It was reported that over a quarter of a million dollars worth of paintings were sold within the first few days of the show's opening. Although he was an established artist by 1983, Shafrazi stated that Haring wanted to keep his prices low. His prices ranged from $3,000 for a drawing to $15,000 for a large painting.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring created the Pop Shop in 1986 in the SoHo district of Manhattan, selling T-shirts, toys, posters, and other objects that show his works—allowing his works to be accessible to a larger number of people. Speaking about the Pop Shop in 1989, Haring said: "For the past five or six years, the rewards I've gotten are very disproportionate to what I deserve...I make a lot more money than what I should make, so it's a little bit of guilt, of wanting to give it back."


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring was represented until his death by art dealer Tony Shafrazi. Since his death in 1990, his estate has been administered by the Keith Haring Foundation, which is represented by Gladstone Gallery. In May 2017, Haring's painting "Untitled" (1982), which features his signature symbols—the radiant baby, barking dogs, angels and red Xs—sold for $6.5 million at Sotheby's in New York, becoming the most expensive Haring artwork sold at auction. However, the winning bidder, Anatole Shagalov, failed to pay and Sotheby's resold it for $4.4 million in August 2017.


title: Keith Haring

text: In October 2020, the Keith Haring Foundation hired Sotheby's to hold an online auction of more than 140 works from Haring's collection. "Dear Keith" surpassed its estimate of $1.4 million to achieve $4.6 million with a 100 percent sell-through rate by lot. All proceeds from the sale went to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of New York. In December 2021, Haring's 1982 painting "Untitled (Acrobats)" from the collection of Peter M. Brant and Stephanie Seymour, sold for $5.5 million at Sotheby's in New York.


title: Keith Haring

text: In 2022 the drawing of <nowiki>"Radiant Baby"</nowiki> that he had made on the wall of his childhood home in the early 1980s was removed by its owners, together with part of the wall panelling, and offered for sale.


title: Keith Haring

text: Haring's work is in major private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bass Museum in Miami; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut; the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He also created a wide variety of public works, including the infirmary at Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and the second floor men's room in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in Manhattan, which was later transformed into an office and is known as the Keith Haring Room. In January 2019 an exhibit called "Keith Haring's New York" opened at New York Law School in the main building of its Tribeca campus.


title: Keith Haring

text: The Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, established in 2007 in Hokuto, Yamanashi, Japan, is an art museum exhibiting exclusively the artworks of Haring.


title: Keith Haring

text: There is no catalogue raisonné for Haring, but there is copious information about him on the estate's website and elsewhere, enabling prospective buyers or sellers to research exhibition history. In 2012, the Keith Haring Foundation disbanded its authentication board to focus on its charitable activities. That same year, it donated $1 million to support exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and $1 million to Planned Parenthood of New York City's Project Street Beat. In 2014, a group of nine art collectors sued the foundation, claiming that it has cost them at least $40 million by refusing to authenticate 80 purported Haring works. In 2015, a judge ruled in favor of the foundation.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, but as the Civil War was just starting, trained officers were in immediate demand. He worked closely with General George B. McClellan and the future General Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his qualities as a cavalry leader, and he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers at age 23. Only a few days after his promotion, he fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade and despite being outnumbered, defeated J. E. B. Stuart's attack at what is now known as the East Cavalry Field. In 1864, he served in the Overland Campaign and in Philip Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. His division blocked the Army of Northern Virginia's final retreat and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates. He was present at Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: After the war, he was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army and was sent west to fight in the Indian Wars. On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory against a coalition of Native American tribes, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led after splitting the regiment into three battalions. This action became known as "Custer's Last Stand".


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: His dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his career, and reaction to his life and career remains deeply divided. His legend was partly of his own fabrication through his extensive journalism, and perhaps more through the energetic lobbying of his wife Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer throughout her long widowhood.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's paternal ancestors, Paulus and Gertrude Küster, came to the North American English colonies around 1693 from the Rhineland in Germany, probably among thousands of Palatines whose passage was arranged by the English government to gain settlers in New York and Pennsylvania.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: According to family letters, Custer was named after George Armstrong, a minister, in his devout mother's hope that her son might join the clergy.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel Henry Custer (1806–1892), a farmer and blacksmith, and his second wife, Marie Ward Kirkpatrick (1807–1882), who was of English and Scots-Irish descent. He had two younger brothers, Thomas and Boston. His other full siblings were the family's youngest child, Margaret Custer, and Nevin Custer, who suffered from asthma and rheumatism. Custer also had three older half-siblings. Custer and his brothers acquired a life-long love of practical jokes, which they played out among the close family members.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Emanuel Custer was an outspoken Jacksonian Democrat who taught his children politics and toughness at an early age. In a February 3, 1887, letter to his son's widow Libby, Emanuel related an incident from when George Custer (known as Autie) was about four years old:


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: "He had to have a tooth drawn, and he was very much afraid of blood. When I took him to the doctor to have the tooth pulled, it was in the night and I told him if it bled well it would get well right away, and he must be a good soldier. When he got to the doctor he took his seat, and the pulling began. The forceps slipped off and he had to make a second trial. He pulled it out, and Autie never even scrunched. Going home, I led him by the arm. He jumped and skipped, and said 'Father you and me can whip all the Whigs in Michigan.' I thought that was saying a good deal but I did not contradict him."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In order to attend school, Custer lived with an older half-sister and her husband in Monroe, Michigan. Before entering the United States Military Academy, Custer attended the McNeely Normal School, later known as Hopedale Normal College, in Hopedale, Ohio. It was to train teachers for elementary schools. While attending Hopedale, Custer and classmate William Enos Emery were known to have carried coal to help pay for their room and board. After graduating from McNeely Normal School in 1856, Custer taught school in Cadiz, Ohio. His first sweetheart was Mary Jane Holland.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer entered West Point as a cadet on July 1, 1857, as a member of the class of 1862. His class numbered seventy-nine cadets embarking on a five-year course of study. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the course was shortened to four years, and Custer and his class graduated on June 24, 1861. He was 34th in a class of 34 graduates: 23 classmates had dropped out for academic reasons while 22 classmates had already resigned to join the Confederacy.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Throughout his life, Custer tested boundaries and rules. In his four years at West Point, he amassed a record total of 726 demerits, one of the worst conduct records in the history of the academy. The local minister remembered Custer as "the instigator of devilish plots both during the service and in Sunday school. On the surface he appeared attentive and respectful, but underneath the mind boiled with disruptive ideas." A fellow cadet recalled Custer as declaring there were only two places in a class, the head and the foot, and since he had no desire to be the head, he aspired to be the foot. A roommate noted, "It was alright with George Custer, whether he knew his lesson or not; he simply did not allow it to trouble him." Under ordinary conditions, Custer's low class rank would result in an obscure posting, the first step in a dead-end career, but Custer had the fortune to graduate as the Civil War broke out, and as a result the Union Army had a sudden need for many junior officers.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Like the other graduates, Custer was commissioned as a second lieutenant; he was assigned to the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment and tasked with drilling volunteers in Washington, D.C. On July 21, 1861, he was with his regiment at the First Battle of Bull Run during the Manassas Campaign, where Army commander Winfield Scott detailed him to carry messages to Major General Irvin McDowell. After the battle, he continued participating in the defense of Washington D.C. until October, when he became ill. He was absent from his unit until February 1862. In March, he participated with the 2nd Cavalry in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia until April 4.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On April 5, Custer served in the 5th Cavalry Regiment and participated in the Siege of Yorktown from April 5 to May 4 and was aide to Major General George B. McClellan. McClellan was in command of the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign. On May 24, 1862, during the pursuit of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston up the Peninsula, when General McClellan and his staff were reconnoitering a potential crossing point on the Chickahominy River, they stopped, and Custer overheard General John G. Barnard mutter, "I wish I knew how deep it is." Custer dashed forward on his horse out to the middle of the river, turned to the astonished officers, and shouted triumphantly, "McClellan, that's how deep it is, General!"


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer was allowed to lead an attack with four companies of the 4th Michigan Infantry across the Chickahominy River above New Bridge. The attack was successful, resulting in the capture of 50 Confederate soldiers and the seizing of the first Confederate battle flag of the war. McClellan termed it a "very gallant affair" and congratulated Custer personally. In his role as aide-de-camp to McClellan, he began his life-long pursuit of publicity. He was promoted to the rank of captain on June 5, 1862. On July 17, he was demoted to the rank of first lieutenant. He participated in the Maryland Campaign in September to October, the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, the Battle of Antietam on September 17, and the March to Warrenton, Virginia, in October.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On June 9, 1863, he became aide to Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Pleasonton, who was commanding the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac. Recalling his service under Pleasonton, he was quoted as saying that "I do not believe a father could love his son more than General Pleasonton loves me." Pleasonton's first assignment was to locate the army of Robert E. Lee, moving north through the Shenandoah Valley in the beginning of what was to become the Gettysburg Campaign.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Pleasonton was promoted on June 22, 1863, to major general of U.S. Volunteers. On June 29, after consulting with the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Meade, Pleasanton began replacing political generals with "commanders who were prepared to fight, to personally lead mounted attacks". He found just the kind of aggressive fighters he wanted in three of his aides: Wesley Merritt, Elon J. Farnsworth (both of whom had command experience), and Custer. All received immediate promotions, Custer to brigadier general of volunteers, commanding the Michigan Cavalry Brigade ("Wolverines"), part of the division of Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick. Despite having no direct command experience, he became one of the youngest generals in the Union Army at age 23. He immediately shaped his brigade to reflect his aggressive character.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Now a general officer, he had great latitude in choosing his uniform. Though often criticized as gaudy, it was more than personal vanity. Historian Tom Carhart observed that "A showy uniform for Custer was one of command presence on the battlefield: he wanted to be readily distinguishable at first glance from all other soldiers. He intended to lead from the front, and to him it was a crucial issue of unit morale that his men be able to look up in the middle of a charge, or at any other time on the battlefield, and instantly see him leading the way into danger."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On June 30, 1863, Custer and the First and Seventh Michigan Cavalry had just passed through Hanover, Pennsylvania, while the Fifth and Sixth Michigan Cavalry followed about seven miles behind. Hearing gunfire, he turned and started to the sound of the guns. A courier reported that Farnsworth's Brigade had been attacked by rebel cavalry from side streets in the town. Reassembling his command, he received orders from Kilpatrick to engage the enemy northeast of town near the railway station. Custer deployed his troops and began to advance. After a brief firefight, the rebels withdrew to the northeast. This seemed odd, since it was supposed that Lee and his army were somewhere to the west. Though seemingly of little consequence, this skirmish further delayed Stuart from joining Lee. Further, as Captain James H. Kidd, commander of F troop, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, later wrote: "Under [Custer's] skillful hand the four regiments were soon welded into a cohesive unit..."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Next morning, July 1, they passed through Abbottstown, Pennsylvania, still searching for Stuart's cavalry. Late in the morning they heard sounds of gunfire from the direction of Gettysburg. At Heidlersburg, Pennsylvania, that night they learned that General John Buford's cavalry had found Lee's army at Gettysburg. The next morning, July 2, orders came to hurry north to disrupt General Richard S. Ewell's communications and relieve the pressure on the Union forces. By mid afternoon, as they approached Hunterstown, Pennsylvania, they encountered Stuart's cavalry. Custer rode alone ahead to investigate and found that the rebels were unaware of the arrival of his troops. Returning to his men, he carefully positioned them along both sides of the road where they would be hidden from the rebels. Further along the road, behind a low rise, he positioned the First and Fifth Michigan Cavalry and his artillery, under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington Jr. To bait his trap, he gathered A Troop, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, called out, "Come on boys, I'll lead you this time!" and galloped directly at the unsuspecting rebels. As he had expected, the rebels, "more than two hundred horsemen, came racing down the country road" after Custer and his men. He lost half of his men in the deadly rebel fire and his horse went down, leaving him on foot. He was rescued by Private Norvell Francis Churchill of the 1st Michigan Cavalry, who galloped up, shot Custer's nearest assailant, and pulled Custer up behind him. Custer and his remaining men reached safety, while the pursuing rebels were cut down by slashing rifle fire, then canister from six cannons. The rebels broke off their attack, and both sides withdrew.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: After spending most of the night in the saddle, Custer's brigade arrived at Two Taverns, Pennsylvania, roughly five miles southeast of Gettysburg around 3 a.m. July 3. There he was joined by Farnsworth's brigade. By daybreak they received orders to protect Meade's flanks. He was about to experience perhaps his finest hours during the war.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Lee's battle plan, shared with less than a handful of subordinates, was to defeat Meade through a combined assault by all of his resources. General James Longstreet would attack Cemetery Hill from the west, Stuart would attack Culp's Hill from the southeast and Ewell would attack Culp's Hill from the north. Once the Union forces holding Culp's Hill had collapsed, the rebels would "roll up" the remaining Union defenses on Cemetery Ridge. To accomplish this, he sent Stuart with six thousand cavalrymen and mounted infantry on a long flanking maneuver.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: By mid-morning on July 3, Custer had arrived at the intersection of Old Dutch Road and Hanover Road, two miles east of Gettysburg. He was later joined by Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg, who had him deploy his men at the northeast corner. Custer then sent out scouts to investigate nearby wooded areas. Meanwhile, Gregg had positioned Colonel John Baillie McIntosh's brigade near the intersection and sent the rest of his command to picket duty two miles to the southwest. After additional deployments, 2,400 cavalry under McIntosh and 1,200 under Custer remained, together with Colonel Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington Jr.'s and Captain Alanson Merwin Randol's artillery, who had a total of ten three-inch guns.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: About noon Custer's men heard cannon fire, Stuart's signal to Lee that he was in position and had not been detected. About the same time Gregg received a message warning that a large body of rebel cavalry had moved out on the York Pike and might be trying to get around the Union right. A second message from Pleasonton ordered Gregg to send Custer to cover the Union far left. Since Gregg had already sent most of his force off to other duties, it was clear to both Gregg and Custer that Custer must remain. They had about 2,700 men facing 6,000 Confederates.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Soon afterward fighting broke out between the skirmish lines. Stuart ordered an attack by his mounted infantry under General Albert G. Jenkins, but the Union line held, with men from the First Michigan cavalry, the First New Jersey Cavalry, and the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry. Stuart ordered Jackson's four gun battery into action. Custer ordered Pennington to answer. After a brief exchange in which two of Jackson's guns were destroyed, there was a lull.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: About one o'clock, the massive Confederate artillery barrage in support of the upcoming assault on Cemetery Ridge began. Jenkins's men renewed the attack but soon ran out of ammunition and fell back. Resupplied, they again pressed the attack. Outnumbered, the Union cavalry fell back, firing as they went. Custer sent most of his Fifth Michigan cavalry ahead on foot, forcing Jenkins's men to fall back. Jenkins's men were reinforced by about 150 sharpshooters from General Fitzhugh Lee's brigade, and shortly after Stuart ordered a mounted charge by the Ninth Virginia Cavalry and the Thirteenth Virginia Cavalry. Now it was Custer's men who were running out of ammunition. The Fifth Michigan was forced back and the battle was reduced to vicious, hand-to-hand combat.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Seeing this, Custer mounted a counterattack, riding ahead of the fewer than 400 new troopers of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, shouting, "Come on, you Wolverines!" As he swept forward, he formed a line of squadrons five ranks deep – five rows of eighty horsemen side by side – chasing the retreating rebels until their charge was stopped by a wood rail fence. The horses and men became jammed into a solid mass and were soon attacked on their left flank by the dismounted Ninth and Thirteenth Virginia Cavalry and on the right flank by the mounted First Virginia Cavalry. Custer extricated his men and raced south to the protection of Pennington's artillery near Hanover Road. The pursuing Confederates were cut down by canister, then driven back by the remounted Fifth Michigan Cavalry. Both forces withdrew to a safe distance to regroup.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: It was then about three o'clock. The artillery barrage to the west had suddenly stopped. Union soldiers were surprised to see Stuart's entire force about a half mile away, coming toward them, not in line of battle, but "formed in close column of squadrons... A grander spectacle than their advance has rarely been beheld". Stuart recognized he now had little time to reach and attack the Union rear along Cemetery Ridge. He must make one last effort to break through the Union cavalry.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Stuart passed by McIntosh's cavalry – the First New Jersey, Third Pennsylvania, and Company A of Purnell's Legion, which had been posted about halfway down the field – with relative ease. As Stuart approached, the Union troops were ordered back into the woods without slowing down Stuart's column, "advancing as if in review, with sabers drawn and glistening like silver in the bright sunlight..."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Stuart's last obstacle was Custer and his 400 veteran troopers of the First Michigan Cavalry directly in the Confererate cavalry's path. Outnumbered but undaunted, Custer rode to the head of the regiment, "drew his saber, threw off his hat so they could see his long yellow hair" and shouted... "Come on, you Wolverines!" Custer formed his men in line of battle and charged. "So sudden was the collision that many of the horses were turned end over end and crushed their riders beneath them..." As the Confederate advance stopped, their right flank was struck by troopers of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Michigan. McIntosh was able to gather some of his men from the First New Jersey and Third Pennsylvania and charged the rebel left flank. "Seeing that the situation was becoming critical, I [Captain Miller] turned to [Lieutenant Brooke-Rawle] and said: 'I have been ordered to hold this position, but, if you will back me up in case I am court-martialed for disobedience, I will order a charge.' The rebel column disintegrated, and individual troopers fought with saber and pistol.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Within twenty minutes the combatants heard the sound of the Union artillery opening up on Pickett's men. Stuart knew that whatever chance he had of joining the Confederate assault was gone. He withdrew his men to Cress Ridge.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's brigade lost 257 men at Gettysburg, the highest loss of any Union cavalry brigade. "I challenge the annals of warfare to produce a more brilliant or successful charge of cavalry", Custer wrote in his report. "For Gallant And Meritorious Services", he was awarded a Regular Army brevet promotion to major.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: General Custer participated in Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. The civilian population was specifically targeted in what is known as "the Burning".


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In 1864, with the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac reorganized under the command of Major General Philip Sheridan, Custer (now commanding the 3rd Division) led his "Wolverines" to the Shenandoah Valley where by the year's end they defeated the army of Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. During May and June, Sheridan and Custer (Captain, 5th Cavalry, May 8 and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, May 11) took part in cavalry actions supporting the Overland Campaign, including the Battle of the Wilderness (after which Custer ascended to division command), and the Battle of Yellow Tavern (where J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded). In the largest all-cavalry engagement of the war, the Battle of Trevilian Station, in which Sheridan sought to destroy the Virginia Central Railroad and the Confederates' western resupply route, Custer captured Hampton's divisional train, but was then cut off and suffered heavy losses (including having his division's trains overrun and his personal baggage captured by the enemy) before being relieved. When Lieutenant General Early was ordered to move down the Shenandoah Valley and threaten Washington, D.C., Custer's division was again dispatched under Sheridan. In the Valley Campaigns of 1864, they pursued the Confederates at the Third Battle of Winchester and effectively destroyed Early's army during Sheridan's counterattack at Cedar Creek.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Sheridan and Custer, having defeated Early, returned to the main Union Army lines at the Siege of Petersburg, where they spent the winter. In April 1865 the Confederate lines finally broke, and Robert E. Lee began his retreat to Appomattox Court House, pursued by the Union cavalry. Custer distinguished himself by his actions at Waynesboro, Dinwiddie Court House, and Five Forks. His division blocked Lee's retreat on its final day and received the first flag of truce from the Confederate force. After a truce was arranged Custer was escorted through the lines to meet Longstreet, who described Custer as having flaxen locks flowing over his shoulders, and Custer said “in the name of General Sheridan I demand the unconditional surrender of this army.” Longstreet replied that he was not in command of the army, but if he was he would not deal with messages from Sheridan. Custer responded it would be a pity to have more blood upon the field, to which Longstreet suggested the truce be respected, and then added “General Lee has gone to meet General Grant, and it is for them to determine the future of the armies.” Custer was present at the surrender at Appomattox Court House and the table upon which the surrender was signed was presented to him as a gift for his wife by Sheridan, who included a note to her praising Custer's gallantry. She treasured the gift of the historic table, which is now in the Smithsonian Institution. On April 15, 1865, Custer was promoted to major general in the US Volunteers, making him the youngest major general in the Union army at age 25.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On April 25, after the war officially ended, Custer had his men search for, then illegally seize a large, prize racehorse named "Don Juan" near Clarksville, Virginia, worth then an estimated $10,000 (several hundred thousand today), along with his written pedigree. Custer rode Don Juan in the grand review victory parade in Washington, D.C., on May 23, creating a sensation when the scared thoroughbred bolted. The owner, Richard Gaines, wrote to General Grant, who then ordered Custer to return the horse to Gaines, but he did not, instead hiding the horse and winning a race with it the next year, before the horse died suddenly.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On June 3, 1865, at Sheridan's behest, Major General Custer accepted command of the 2nd Division of Cavalry, Military Division of the Southwest, to march from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Hempstead, Texas, as part of the Union occupation forces. Custer arrived at Alexandria on June 27 and began assembling his units, which took more than a month to gather and remount. On July 17, he assumed command of the Cavalry Division of the Military Division of the Gulf (on August 5, officially named the 2nd Division of Cavalry of the Military Division of the Gulf), and accompanied by his wife, he led the division (five regiments of veteran Western Theater cavalrymen) to Texas on an arduous 18-day march in August. On October 27, the division departed to Austin. On October 29, Custer moved the division from Hempstead to Austin, arriving on November 4. Major General Custer became Chief of Cavalry of the Department of Texas, from November 13 to February 1, 1866, succeeding Major General Wesley Merritt.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: During his entire period of command of the division, Custer encountered considerable friction and near mutiny from the volunteer cavalry regiments who had campaigned along the Gulf coast. They desired to be mustered out of Federal service rather than continue campaigning, resented imposition of discipline (particularly from an Eastern Theater general), and considered Custer nothing more than a vain dandy.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's division was mustered out beginning in November 1865, replaced by the regulars of the U.S. 6th Cavalry Regiment. Although their occupation of Austin had apparently been pleasant, many veterans harbored deep resentments against Custer, particularly in the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry, because of his attempts to maintain discipline. Upon its mustering out, several members planned to ambush Custer, but he was warned the night before and the attempt thwarted.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On February 1, 1866, Major General Custer mustered out of the U.S. volunteer service and took an extended leave of absence and awaited orders until September 24. He explored options in New York City, where he considered careers in railroads and mining. Offered a position (and $10,000 in gold) as adjutant general of the army of Benito Juárez of Mexico, who was then in a struggle with the Mexican Emperor Maximilian I (a satellite ruler of French Emperor Napoleon III), Custer applied for a one-year leave of absence from the U.S. Army, which was endorsed by Grant and Secretary Stanton. Sheridan and Mrs. Custer disapproved, however, and when his request for leave was opposed by U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, who was against having an American officer commanding foreign troops, Custer refused the alternative of resignation from the Army to take the lucrative post.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Following the death of his father-in-law in May 1866, Custer returned to Monroe, Michigan, where he considered running for Congress. He took part in public discussion over the treatment of the American South in the aftermath of the Civil War, advocating a policy of moderation. He was named head of the Soldiers and Sailors Union, regarded as a response to the hyper-partisan Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Also formed in 1866, it was led by Republican activist John Alexander Logan.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In September 1866 Custer accompanied President Andrew Johnson on a journey by train known as the "Swing Around the Circle" to build up public support for Johnson's policies towards the South. Custer denied a charge by the newspapers that Johnson had promised him a colonel's commission in return for his support, but Custer had written to Johnson some weeks before seeking such a commission. Custer and his wife stayed with the president during most of the trip. At one point Custer confronted a small group of Ohio men who repeatedly jeered Johnson, saying to them: "I was born two miles and a half from here, but I am ashamed of you."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On July 28, 1866, Custer was appointed lieutenant colonel of the newly created 7th Cavalry Regiment, which was headquartered at Fort Riley, Kansas. He served on frontier duty at Fort Riley from October 18 to March 26, and scouted in Kansas and Colorado until July 28, 1867. He took part in Major General Winfield Scott Hancock's expedition against the Cheyenne. On June 26, Lt. Lyman Kidder's party, made up of ten troopers and one scout, were massacred while en route to Fort Wallace. Lt. Kidder was to deliver dispatches to Custer from General Sherman, but his party was attacked by Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. Days later, Custer and a search party found the bodies of Kidder's patrol.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Following the Hancock campaign, Custer was arrested and suspended at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, until August 12, 1868, for being AWOL, after having abandoned his post to see his wife. At the request of Major General Sheridan, who wanted him for his planned winter campaign against the Cheyenne, he was allowed to return to duty before his one year term of suspension had expired and joined his regiment to October 7, 1868. He then went on frontier duty, scouting in Kansas and Indian Territory to October 1869.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Under Sheridan's orders, he took part in establishing Camp Supply in Indian Territory in early November 1868 as a supply base for the winter campaign. On November 27, 1868, he led the 7th Cavalry Regiment in an attack on the Cheyenne encampment of Chief Black Kettle – the Battle of Washita River. He reported killing 103 warriors and some women and children; 53 women and children were taken as prisoners. Estimates by the Cheyenne of their casualties were substantially lower (11 warriors plus 19 women and children). Custer had his men shoot most of the 875 Indian ponies they had captured. The Battle of Washita River was regarded as the first substantial U.S. victory in the Southern Plains War, and it helped force a large portion of the Southern Cheyenne onto a U.S.-assigned reservation.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In 1873, he was sent to the Dakota Territory to protect a railroad survey party against the Lakota. On August 4, 1873, near the Tongue River, the 7th Cavalry Regiment clashed for the first time with the Lakota. One man on each side was killed. In 1874 Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and announced the discovery of gold on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. Custer's announcement triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush. Among the towns that immediately sprung up was Deadwood, South Dakota, notorious for its lawlessness.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In 1875, the Grant administration attempted to buy the Black Hills region from the Sioux. When the Sioux refused to sell, they were ordered to report to reservations by the end of January, 1876. Mid-winter conditions made it impossible for them to comply. The administration labeled them "hostiles" and tasked the Army with bringing them in. Custer was to command an expedition planned for the spring, part of a three-pronged campaign. While Custer's expedition marched west from Fort Abraham Lincoln, near present-day Mandan, North Dakota, troops under Colonel John Gibbon were to march east from Fort Ellis, near present-day Bozeman, Montana, while a force under General George Crook was to march north from Fort Fetterman, near present-day Douglas, Wyoming.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's 7th Cavalry was originally scheduled to leave Fort Abraham Lincoln on April 6, 1876, but on March 15 he was summoned to Washington to testify at congressional hearings. Rep. Hiester Clymer's Committee was investigating alleged corruption involving Secretary of War William W. Belknap (who had resigned March 2), President Grant's brother Orville and traders granted monopolies at frontier Army posts. It was alleged that Belknap had been selling these lucrative trading post positions where soldiers were required to make their purchases. Custer himself had experienced first hand the high prices being charged at Fort Lincoln.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Concerned that he might miss the coming campaign, Custer did not want to go to Washington. He asked to answer questions in writing, but Clymer insisted. Recognizing that his testimony would be explosive, Custer tried "to follow a moderate and prudent course, avoiding prominence." Despite this, he provided a quantity of unsubstantiated accusations against Belknap. His testimony, given on March 29 and April 4, was a sensation, being loudly praised by the Democratic press and sharply criticized by Republicans. Custer wrote articles published anonymously in "The New York Herald" that exposed trader post kickback rings and implied that Belknap was behind them. During his testimony, Custer attacked President Grant's brother Orville on unproven grounds of extorting money in exchange for exerting undue influence.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: After Custer testified, Belknap was impeached and the case sent to the Senate for trial. Custer asked the impeachment managers to release him from further testimony. With the help of a request from his superior, Brigadier General Alfred Terry, Commander of the Department of Dakota, he was excused. However, President Grant intervened, ordering that another officer fulfill Custer's military duty.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: General Terry protested, arguing that he had no available officers of rank qualified to replace Custer. Both Sheridan and Sherman wanted Custer in command but had to support Grant. General Sherman, hoping to resolve the issue, advised Custer to meet personally with Grant before leaving Washington. Three times Custer requested meetings with the president, but each request was refused.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Finally, Custer gave up and took a train to Chicago on May 2, planning to rejoin his regiment. A furious Grant ordered Sheridan to arrest Custer for leaving Washington without permission. On May 3, a member of Sheridan's staff arrested Custer as he arrived in Chicago. The arrest sparked public outrage. "The New York Herald" called Grant the "modern Caesar" and asked, "Are officers... to be dragged from railroad trains and ignominiously ordered to stand aside until the whims of the Chief magistrate ... are satisfied?"


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Grant relented but insisted that Terry—not Custer—personally command the expedition. Terry met Custer in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 6. He later recalled that Custer "with tears in his eyes, begged for my aid. How could I resist it?" Custer and Terry both wrote telegrams to Grant asking that Custer lead his regiment, with Terry in command. Sheridan endorsed the effort.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Grant was already under pressure for his treatment of Custer. His administration worried that if the "Sioux campaign" failed without Custer, then Grant would be blamed for ignoring the recommendations of senior Army officers. On May 8, Custer was told that he would lead the expedition, but only under Terry's direct supervision.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Elated, Custer told General Terry's chief engineer, Captain Ludlow, that he would "cut loose" from Terry and operate independently.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: By the time of Custer's Black Hills expedition in 1874, the level of conflict and tension between the U.S. and many of the Plains Indians tribes (including the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne) had become exceedingly high. European-Americans continually broke treaty agreements and advanced further westward, resulting in violence and acts of depredation by both sides. To take possession of the Black Hills (and thus the gold deposits), and to stop Indian attacks, the U.S. decided to corral all remaining free Plains Indians. The Grant government set a deadline of January 31, 1876, for all Lakota and Arapaho wintering in the "unceded territory" to report to their designated agencies (reservations) or be considered "hostile".


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: At that time the 7th Cavalry's regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, was on detached duty as the Superintendent of Mounted Recruiting Service and in command of the Cavalry Depot in St. Louis, Missouri, which left Lieutenant Colonel Custer in command of the regiment. Custer and the 7th Cavalry departed from Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17, 1876, part of a larger army force planning to round up remaining free Indians. Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1876, the Hunkpapa Lakota holy man Sitting Bull had called together the largest ever gathering of Plains Indians at Ash Creek, Montana (later moved to the Little Bighorn River) to discuss what to do about the whites. It was this united encampment of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians that the 7th met at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation created in old Crow Country. (In the Fort Laramie Treaty (1851), the valley of the Little Bighorn is in the heart of the Crow Indian treaty territory and accepted as such by the Lakota, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho). The Lakotas were staying in the valley without consent from the Crow tribe, which sided with the Army to expel the Indian invaders.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: About June 15, Major Marcus Reno, while on a scout, discovered the trail of a large village on the Rosebud River. On June 22, Custer's entire regiment was detached to follow this trail. On June 25, some of Custer's Crow Indian scouts identified what they claimed was a large Indian encampment in the valley near the Little Bighorn River. Custer had first intended to attack the Indian village the next day, but since his presence was known, he decided to attack immediately and divided his forces into three battalions: one led by Major Reno, one by Captain Frederick Benteen, and one by himself. Captain Thomas M. McDougall and Company B were with the pack train. Reno was sent north to charge the southern end of the encampment, Custer rode north, hidden to the east of the encampment by bluffs and planning to circle around and attack from the north, and Benteen was initially sent south and west to scout Indian presence and potentially protect the column from the south.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Reno began a charge on the southern end of the village but halted some 500–600 yards short of the camp, and had his men dismount and form a skirmish line. They were soon overcome by mounted Lakota and Cheyenne warriors who counterattacked "en masse" against Reno's exposed left flank, forcing Reno and his men to take cover in the trees along the river. Eventually, however, the troopers engaged in a bloody retreat up onto the bluffs above the river, where they made their own stand. This, the opening action of the battle, cost Reno a quarter of his command.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer may have seen Reno stop and form a skirmish line as Custer led his command to the northern end of the main encampment, where he may have planned to sandwich the Indians between his attacking troopers and Reno's command in a "hammer and anvil" maneuver. According to Grinnell's account, based on the testimony of the Cheyenne warriors who survived the fight, at least part of Custer's command attempted to ford the river at the north end of the camp but were driven off by Indian sharpshooters firing from the brush along the west bank of the river. From that point the soldiers were pursued by hundreds of warriors onto a ridge north of the encampment. Custer and his command were prevented from digging in by Crazy Horse however, whose warriors had outflanked him and were now to his north, at the crest of the ridge. Traditional white accounts attribute to Gall the attack that drove Custer up onto the ridge, but Indian witnesses have disputed that account.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: For a time, Custer's men appear to have been deployed by company, in standard cavalry fighting formation—the skirmish line, with every fourth man holding the horses, though this arrangement would have robbed Custer of a quarter of his firepower. Worse, as the fight intensified, many soldiers could have taken to holding their own horses or hobbling them, further reducing the 7th's effective fire. When Crazy Horse and White Bull mounted the charge that broke through the center of Custer's lines, order may have broken down among the soldiers of Calhoun's command, though Myles Keogh's men seem to have fought and died where they stood. According to some Lakota accounts, many of the panicking soldiers threw down their weapons and either rode or ran towards the knoll where Custer, the other officers, and about 40 men were making a stand. Along the way, the warriors rode them down, counting coup by striking the fleeing troopers with their quirts or lances.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Initially, Custer had 208 officers and men under his direct command, with an additional 142 under Reno, just over 100 under Benteen, and 50 soldiers with Captain McDougall's rearguard, accompanying 84 soldiers under 1st Lieutenant Edward Gustave Mathey with the pack train. The Lakota-Cheyenne coalition may have fielded over 1,800 warriors. Historian Gregory Michno settles on a low number of around 1,000 based on contemporary Lakota testimony, but other sources place the number at 1,800 or 2,000, especially in the works by Utley and Fox. The 1,800–2,000 figure is substantially lower than the higher numbers of 3,000 or more postulated by Ambrose, Gray, Scott, and others. Some of the other participants in the battle gave higher estimates:


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: As the troopers of Custer's five companies were cut down, the native warriors stripped the dead of their firearms and ammunition, with the result that the return fire from the cavalry steadily decreased, while the fire from the Indians constantly increased. The surviving troopers apparently shot their remaining horses to use as breastworks for a final stand on the knoll at the north end of the ridge. The warriors closed in for the final attack and killed every man in Custer's command. As a result, the Battle of the Little Bighorn has come to be popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand".


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: On February 9, 1864, Custer married Elizabeth Clift Bacon (1842–1933), whom he had first seen when he was ten years old. He had been socially introduced to her in November 1862, when home in Monroe on leave. She was not initially impressed with him, and her father, Judge Daniel Bacon, disapproved of Custer as a match because he was the son of a blacksmith. It was not until well after Custer had been promoted to the rank of brigadier general that he gained the approval of Judge Bacon. He married Elizabeth Bacon fourteen months after they formally met.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: In November 1868, following the Battle of Washita River, Custer was alleged (by Captain Frederick Benteen, chief of scouts Ben Clark, and Cheyenne oral tradition) to have unofficially married Mo-nah-se-tah, daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock in the winter or early spring of 1868–1869 (Little Rock was killed in the one-day action at Washita on November 27). Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to a child in January 1869, two months after the Washita battle. Cheyenne oral history tells that she also bore a second child fathered by Custer in late 1869. Some historians, however, believe that Custer had become sterile after contracting gonorrhea while at West Point and that the father was in actuality his brother Thomas. Clarke's description in his memoirs included the statement, "Custer picked out a fine looking one and had her in his tent every night."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: It is unlikely that any Native American recognized Custer during or after the battle. Michno summarizes: "Shave Elk said, 'We did not suspect that we were fighting Custer and did not recognize him either alive or dead.' Wooden Leg said no one could recognize any enemy during the fight, for they were too far away. The Cheyennes did not even know a man named Custer was in the fight until weeks later. Antelope said none knew of Custer being at the fight until they later learned of it at the agencies. Thomas Marquis learned from his interviews that no Indian knew Custer was at the Little Bighorn fight until months later. Many Cheyennes were not even aware that other members of the Custer family had been in the fight until 1922 when Marquis himself first informed them of that fact."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Several individuals claimed responsibility for killing Custer, including White Bull of the Miniconjous, Rain-in-the-Face, Flat Lip, and Brave Bear. In June 2005, at a public meeting, Northern Cheyenne storytellers said that according to their oral tradition, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a Northern Cheyenne heroine of the Battle of the Rosebud, struck the final blow against Custer, which knocked him off his horse before he died.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: A contrasting version of Custer's death is suggested by the testimony of an Oglala named Joseph White Cow Bull, according to novelist and Custer biographer Evan Connell. He says that Joseph White Bull stated he had shot a rider wearing a buckskin jacket and big hat at the riverside when the soldiers first approached the village from the east. The initial force facing the soldiers, according to this version, was quite small (possibly as few as four warriors) yet challenged Custer's command. The rider who was hit was mounted next to a rider who bore a flag and had shouted orders that prompted the soldiers to attack, but when the buckskin-clad rider fell off his horse after being shot, many of the attackers reined up. The allegation that the buckskin-clad officer was Custer, if accurate, might explain the supposed rapid disintegration of Custer's forces. However, several other officers of the Seventh, including William Cooke, Tom Custer and William Sturgis, were also dressed in buckskin on the day of the battle, and the fact that each of the non-mutilation wounds to George Custer's body (a bullet wound below the heart and a shot to the left temple) would have been instantly fatal casts doubt on his being wounded or killed at the ford, more than a mile from where his body was found. The circumstances are, however, consistent with David Humphreys Miller's suggestion that Custer's attendants would not have left his dead body behind to be desecrated.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: During the 1920s, two elderly Cheyenne women spoke briefly with oral historians about their having recognized Custer's body on the battlefield and said that they had stopped a Sioux warrior from desecrating the body. The women were relatives of Mo-nah-se-tah, who was alleged to have been Custer's lover in late 1868 and through 1869, and borne two children by him. Mo-nah-se-tah was among 53 Cheyenne women and children taken captive by the 7th Cavalry after the Battle of Washita River in 1868, in which Custer commanded an attack on the camp of Chief Black Kettle. Mo-nah-se-tah's father, Cheyenne chief Little Rock, was killed in the battle. During the winter and early spring of 1868–69, Custer reportedly sexually assaulted teenage Mo-nah-se-tah. Cheyenne oral history alleges that she later bore Custer's child in late 1869. (Custer, however, had apparently become sterile after contracting venereal disease at West Point, leading some historians to believe that the father was really his brother Thomas). In the Cheyenne culture of the time, such a relationship was considered a marriage. The women allegedly told the warrior: "Stop, he is a relative of ours," and then shooed him away. The two women said they shoved their sewing awls into his ears to permit Custer's corpse to "hear better in the afterlife" because he had broken his promise to Stone Forehead never to fight against Native Americans again.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: When the main column under General Terry arrived two days later, the army found most of the soldiers' corpses stripped, scalped, and mutilated. Custer's body had two bullet holes, one in the left temple and one just below the heart. Capt. Benteen, who inspected the body, stated that in his opinion the fatal injuries had not been the result of .45 caliber ammunition, which implies the bullet holes had been caused by ranged rifle fire. Some time later, Lieutenant Edward S. Godfrey described Custer's mutilation, telling Charles F. Bates that an arrow "had been forced up his penis."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: The bodies of Custer and his brother Tom were wrapped in canvas and blankets, then buried in a shallow grave, covered by the basket from a travois held in place by rocks. When soldiers returned a year later, the brothers' grave had been scavenged by animals and the bones scattered. "Not more than a double handful of small bones were picked up." Custer was reinterred with full military honors at West Point Cemetery on October 10, 1877. The battle site was designated a National Cemetery in 1886.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer has been called a "media personality", and he valued good public relations and used the print media of his era effectively. He frequently invited journalists to accompany his campaigns (one, Associated Press reporter Mark Kellogg, died at the Little Bighorn), and their favorable reporting contributed to his high reputation, which lasted well into the latter 20th century.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer enjoyed writing, often writing all night long. He wrote a series of magazine articles of his experiences on the frontier, which were published in book form as "My Life on the Plains" in 1874. The work is still a valued primary source for information on US-Native relations.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's wife, Elizabeth, who had accompanied him in many of his frontier expeditions, did much to advance this view with the publication of several books about her late husband: "Boots and Saddles, Life with General Custer in Dakota", "Tenting on the Plains, or General Custer in Kansas and Texas" and "Following the Guidon".


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: The deaths of Custer and his troops became the best-known episode in the history of the American Indian Wars, due in part to a painting commissioned by the brewery Anheuser-Busch as part of an advertising campaign. The enterprising company ordered reprints of a dramatic work that depicted "Custer's Last Stand" and had them framed and hung in many United States saloons. This created lasting impressions of the battle and the brewery's products in the minds of many bar patrons. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an adoring (and in some places, erroneous) poem. President Theodore Roosevelt's lavish praise pleased Custer's widow.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: President Grant, a highly successful general but recent antagonist, criticized Custer's actions in the battle of the Little Bighorn. Quoted in the "New York Herald" on September 2, 1876, Grant said, "I regard Custer's Massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary – wholly unnecessary." General Phillip Sheridan took a more moderately critical view of Custer's final military actions.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: General Nelson Miles (who inherited Custer's mantle of famed Indian fighter) and others praised him as a fallen hero betrayed by the incompetence of subordinate officers. Miles noted the difficulty of winning a fight "with seven-twelfths of the command remaining out of the engagement when within sound of his rifle shots."


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: The assessment of Custer's actions during the American Indian Wars has undergone substantial reconsideration in modern times. Documenting the arc of popular perception in his biography "Son of the Morning Star" (1984), author Evan Connell notes the reverential tone of Custer's first biographer Frederick Whittaker (whose book was rushed out the year of Custer's death.) Connell concludes:


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: These days it is stylish to denigrate the general, whose stock sells for nothing. Nineteenth-century Americans thought differently. At that time he was a cavalier without fear and beyond reproach.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: The controversy over blame for the disaster at Little Bighorn continues to this day. Major Marcus Reno's failure to press his attack on the south end of the Lakota/Cheyenne village and his flight to the timber along the river after a single casualty have been cited as a factor in the destruction of Custer's battalion, as has Captain Frederick Benteen's allegedly tardy arrival on the field, and the failure of the two officers' combined forces to move toward the relief of Custer.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Custer's defenders, however, including historian Charles K. Hofling, have asserted that Gatling guns would have been slow and cumbersome as the troops crossed the rough country between the Yellowstone and the Little Bighorn. Custer rated speed in gaining the battlefield as essential and more important. Supporters of Custer claim that splitting the forces was a standard tactic, so as to demoralize the enemy with the appearance of the cavalry in different places all at once, especially when a contingent threatened the line of retreat.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Sharply criticizing the self-styled “Indian fighter,” US Indigenous people's organized movements have emphasized Custer's role in the U.S. government's treaty violations and other injustices against Native Americans.


title: George Armstrong Custer

text: Standing Rock Sioux theologian and author Vine Deloria Jr. made an emotionally-charged comparison between Custer and Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann, referring to Custer as the "Eichmann of the Plains" in a 1996 "Los Angeles Times" interview. In his 1969 book "Custer Died for Your Sins," Deloria condemned Custer's violations of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that established the Black Hills region as unceded territory of the Sioux and Arapaho peoples. Custer's violations of the Fort Laramie Treaty included an 1874 gold expedition and the 1876 Battle of Greasy Grass (Battle of the Little Bighorn).