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Living up to Custer
Paul Smiley
Completed Feb 2005
Custer was photographed more times than Lincoln.
Taken from a photograph in the Custer home at Fort Abraham Lincoln in North Dakota in 1873. Custer reads quietly as a Lieutenant Colonel at age 33 in the shadow of his favorite portrait, of himself, as a General at age 25.
Loved or hated, Custer left us an intriguing life, definately worth investigating.
He was nearly six feet in height, broad-shouldered, lithe, and active, with a weight never above 170 pounds. His eyes were blue, his hair and mustache of golden tint. He was a man of immense strength and endurance, and, as he used neither liquors nor tobacco, his physical condition was perfect through all the hardships of his life. Eleven horses were shot under him in battle. At the age of twenty-three he was made a brigadier-general, at twenty-five a major-general. The close of the war reduced his command from thousands to hundreds; but his enthusiastic devotion to duty was not diminished, and his form was seen at the head of his men in his Indian service just as it had been during the civil war. He reverenced religion, he showed deference to the aged, he honored womankind, he was fond of children, and devoted to animals. His domestic life was characterized by a simplicity, joyous contentment, and fondness for home that was surprising when it is remembered that, out of the thirty-seven years of his brief life, fourteen were spent in active warfare. One of his friends wrote his history under his name in one sentence, "This was a man."
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Price |
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| Oil on canvas 18 x 24 |
$700.00 |
not for sale |
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| Limited edition print 18 x 24 |
$110.00 |
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| Open edition 11 x 14 |
$75.00 |
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