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Couple of comments here.

Custer was young, very young. Took his command at 23, and died at 36. That takes with it the mindset of charging hard and fast, which is not a bad thing for a calvary commander. Custer wasn’t an exceptional tactician. Graduated last in his class.

He made a name for himself by being bold and brash. Got noticed and took command as there weren’t many Union commanders who had the spirit to fight. Pretty much rose through the ranks thereafter.

As he got older, he didn’t change he was pretty much the same man as he was at 23. He was appointed to command the 7th by Sheridan, ostensibly to find him a position when it was revealed that he was not in the employ of the army after the end of the war.

He used mostly the same tactics on the indian tribes, round up a group of calvary charge the enemy and break them.

What went wrong at Little BigHorn? Lots of things.

1, he was not with his usual command. He was explicitly requested to go out and lead the forces there, despite that they had a different command then his own. He was walking with a force that was not used to him or his command, and didn’t have the time to get everything sorted out.

2, the supply situation. Yes, he had enough men. Yes he had enough armament, but he was dumped into the situation without prior planning. This accounts for much of the confusion both before or after the battle, as when he took command, they left to confront the folks at Little Bighorn.

3. The situation at Little Bighorn. Again, as noted in the thread, Custer was unfamiliar with the surrounding area. Rather then take the time to scout and become familiar, which was a key to his successful charges, he just wanted to be done with the whole thing. He believed that his prior experience would be successful, because it had always been successful.

4. His organization, baggage train and communication with his other commanders was poor. Again, taking over a brigade not accustomed to bold action will endure hesitations and delays. One of the delays that was bothering Custer was the command to collect his forces together rather then just taking who he had there at the time and throwing it out. He believed the delay to consolidate was unnecessary and didn’t take the time to properly assess the situation.

5. What the Sioux did at Little Bighorn is rather remarkable. Most of the time, they kept to scattered tribes, which meant that they couldn’t consolidate very meny men and even fewer fighting men. The Sioux consolidated everyone into their village. One of the recorded comments is that the village was substantially larger then those that Custer had encountered throughout his career. They were also equipped with arms, and were well led, again as a result of Sioux organization and consolidation.

This was all unparelleled, a new trick to an old dog. Custer, rather then wait for all his men to gather, decides to haul out an unfamiliar brigade load them all together and charge at the enemy. Without scouting the area first, just go and charge. Would have probably worked too, if the situation hadn’t changed.

He then proceeded to divide his forces once more so to provide an encirclement. Had he not done this last move he likely would have survived the battle. He lost the battle before he even marched out, but he died because of the last fatal mistake.

He lost communication with the second division in the middle of the battle, and the second division wasn’t sure where he was or what was going on. They later dug in to try to fight, rather then ride into the fray and try to relieve Custer. Made sense at the time, dig in and try to fight. They were destroyed to a man.

So yeah, Custer made quite a few mistakes to lose the battle. I’m really not sure why it’s such a mystery. He broke a bunch of his rules and was so accustomed to force of habit that he didn’t notice his own rules were broken as he did as habit would have him do. Those missed things caused him to make the poor decisions later on.