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No, Custer was a General. But he was a brevet general, which means it was a temporary rank. He was later named a major general of volunteers which is also a temporary promotion. After the war he resumed his permanent rank of captain. At the time of little big horn he was a Colonel in the regular army. While it is true that little big horn was a grade A clusterf**k, Custer's contribution to the 3rd day of Gettysburg was absolutely vital. Without his contribution, Meades army would've been flanked at the south end of the federal line.

The department of the army contributed a fair bit to massacre at the Little Bighorn themselves. Custer’s big mistake was in ditching the big guns. His other big mistake was in attacking but he had no reason to believe that the indians wouldn’t run as they had always done before.

In my opinion, Custer’s widow hurt him badly when she refused to allow an investigation of her husband after the massacre. In those days they deferred to the widow and it allowed rumors to run rampant. I’ve read that there were also some concerns about what fault the department of defense might hold so they just dumped it on the dead guy. The indians themselves seemed to have the highest opinion of him with some saying he was still firing a pistol in each hand with multiple arrows in him.

Then along came Hollywood to complete the legend.

I personally think repeating rifles would have made the difference. The Springfield carbine Model 1873 was a fine rifle but it just didn’t fire fast enough. (About 10 rounds per minute I believe)