Planning and Custer just don’t seem to go together. Perhaps someone else laid the trap.
Custer was a battler. Agressive, impulsive.
If he was ordering a charge, he was probably leading it.
His aggressive march/attack led to Lee being cut off and forced to surrender at Appomatax on April 9th.
Custer’s near stationary attack by fire at Five Forks was decisive. Custer knew there was a time for planing and a time for execution, or as he would put it “Up Guards! At Them!”
Agreed on Custer.
I’ve never seen believable evidence of a Union trap for Stuarts cavalry at Gettysburg. Custer was out screening the Union right flank when he ran into Stuart (ok, really Fitzhugh Lee and Wade Hampton). Custer wanted a fight, charged in impetuously (not unheard of for him. /sarc) and managed to break up Stuarts advance.
If there was any real planning for what happened at East Cavalry Field it was solely on the Confederate side. And the planning went right out the window when an insane, glory seeking blonde Union Cavalry commander came charging across the field at them.
Agreed on Custer.
I’ve never seen believable evidence of a Union trap for Stuarts cavalry at Gettysburg. Custer was out screening the Union right flank when he ran into Stuart (ok, really Fitzhugh Lee and Wade Hampton). Custer wanted a fight, charged in impetuously (not unheard of for him. /sarc) and managed to break up Stuarts advance.
If there was any real planning for what happened at East Cavalry Field it was solely on the Confederate side. And the planning went right out the window when an insane, glory seeking blonde Union Cavalry commander came charging across the field at them.