Ambitious Honor: George Armstrong Custer's Life of Service and Lust for Fame

George Armstrong Custer, one of the most familiar figures of nineteenth-century American history, is known almost exclusively as a soldier, his brilliant military career culminating in catastrophe at Little Bighorn.But Custer, author James E. Mueller suggests, had the soul of an artist, not of a soldier.Ambitious Honor elaborates this radically new perspective, arguing that an artistic passion for creativity and recognition drove Custer to success-and, ultimately, to the failure that has overshadowed his notable achievements. Custer's ambition is well known and played itself out on the battlefield and in his persistent quest for recognition.What Ambitious Honor provides is the context for understanding how Custer's theatrical personality took shape and thrived, beginning with his training at a teaching college before he entered West Point.Teaching, Mueller notes, requires creativity and performance, both of which fascinated and served Custer throughout his life-in his military leadersh