• Custer's Trials

  • A Life on the Frontier of a New America
  • By: T.J. Stiles
  • Narrated by: Arthur Morey
  • Length: 23 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (499 ratings)

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Custer's Trials

By: T.J. Stiles
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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Publisher's summary

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History

From the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, a brilliant biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.

In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person - capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years).

The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countless slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West. He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and other rising intellectuals.

During Custer’s lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiment of the nation’s gallant youth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer’s tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful Black woman who ran their household; as well as his battles and expeditions. It casts surprising new light on a near-mythic American figure, a man both widely known and little understood.

©2015 T. J. Stiles (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Spectacular...a satisfying portrait of a complex, controversial military man.... Confidently presenting Custer in all his contradictions, Stiles examines the times to make sense of the man - and uses the man to shed light on the times." (Publishers Weekly)

"Stiles doesn't disappoint with this powerful, provocative biography.... A highly recommended modern biography that successfully illuminates the lives of Custer and his family as part of the changing patterns of American society." (Library Journal)

"A warts-and-all portrait.... Stiles digs deep to deliver genuine insight into a man who never adapted to modernity." (Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about Custer's Trials

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Custer and his times

My interest in General Custer had mostly been related to his service during the Civil War and all of my reading that touched on his life had been concerned with that period. However I recently watched one of the old Western movies that described his life and, knowing that it was pure nonsense, it made me realize that I knew very little of his life after the end of the Civil War except for his death at the Little Bighorn. Hence the purchase of this book.

I believed this to be a biography of George A Custer and, to some extent, it was precisely that. However Mr Stiles has also given us a broad view of life during Custer's lifetime and that broad view helps to explain much of what Custer did and why. The book starts with Custer's application to and acceptance at West Point, follows his life through West Point, through his life on George McClellan's military staff and his appointment as a general and his first commands. It then describes his life after the Civil War, his re-entry into the military and his life through various commands until his assignment to the 7th Cavalry and the battle of the Little Big Horn.

The book is long (at 23+ hours), but is never boring. Along with Custer's life the author takes time to describe the changes taking place in that nation so we have a good and detailed explanation of President Johnson's conflict with the Republican congress after the end of the Civil War, the reasons for his impeachment, Custer's meddling in politics and his opposition to the reconstruction policies of President Grant, the influence of the rise of a new type of capitalism and the Vanderbilts, Goulds and the Guilded Age, Custer's literary attempts and the failures of his attempts to make money in speculation. There is also a great deal of time spent on the problems Custer had with his military and civilian superiors Grant, Sherman and Sheridan toward the end of his career.

This is a very good book and provides a clear picture of what life was like in the middle to late 19th century, but in my view it is tarnished by the author's unwillingness to avoid psychoanalyzing Custer and inventing motives for his actions. A good deal of information comes from Custer's letters to his life Elizabeth as well as to his friends and other family and these make fascinating reading. Custer opposed the attempts by the Federal Government to protect the liberated slaves and to ensure that they had the vote and should be rightly judged for his segregationist views and his attempts to oppose Reconstruction, but the author should also understand that Custer was not alone among northerners with these views and that the age was one of common opposition to equality. It is right to judge Custer, but not to judge Custer alone.

The book is narrated wonderfully by Author Morey and I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the middle to late 19th century in the United States.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic!

I thought I might gain a little bit of of knowledge about Custer, believing that I already knew Custer well. I was so wrong. I did not know as much as I thought I knew, and most of what I thought I knew was wrong.
The author has done an incredible job of telling the reader about the man who was Custer and about the people around Custer and the world that Custer lived in. Most importantly, he put the reader into Custer's head and heart and considered the times that Custer faced and who and what made Custer who he was, beyond only being a brave man.
If you like the whole period of American History around the Civil War and the first American depression, then you must read this book.

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12 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

a masterful job of cutting through the legend(s)

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Anyone looking for a balanced telling of this story will appreciate the setting of context. T. J. Stiles has done a masterful job of placing Custer within his time, even when Custer himself did not always feel comfortable in his time.

Who was your favorite character and why?

It has to be the engaging, complicated, maddening and delightful Custer himself.

What does Arthur Morey bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His calm reading of the story enables one to remain objective about a subject that is anything but to most Americans.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I listened to the final chapter 4 times - the inquiry requested of the military by Reno made for interesting listening and while some of it was complicated, it was enlightening.

Any additional comments?

The only thing I would add, if it were somehow possible, was a map of the area of the battle. I plan to find one and listen AGAIN to the final chapter in order to fully understand it all. (I have been to the Custer battlefield at the Little Big Horn twice and the picture still eluded me.)

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful biography

The definitive work on Custer. The narrator does a fine job but gets a little monotone at times.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

too long

Could have gotten the same messages and much of the same content into 18 hours or less. Someone needed to do a hard edit, which would have vastly improved the book. For example, does anyone really care about (or remember) the details of Custer's stock market shenanigans?

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A incitful picture of a very different america,

I found this book very illuminatin. The incite into these characters, personalities, never failed to make me want to think about these peoples lives problem contrasted to ours today. Read the book, It's worth the education.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Tedious, dry

I couldn’t get through it. Like reading a phone book
Sorry maybe for academics. Not for entertainment

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Too Long

A very carefully researched, extremely detailed and well written biography of Custer. However I learned far more than I ever wanted to know. I would certainly have preferred an abridged version of this book. If you want to know every detail of Custer's life you will enjoy this book.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Meh

I have no issue with the scholarship (superb) or writing style (very clear). The performance was excellent. However, Custer himself is a totally unsympathetic protagonist, especially as a grown man. Thus this was not my favorite.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not Blown Away

I am afraid I was not as impressed as a number of the reviewers were. Toward the end of the book I was wondering what had caused the author to devote so much time on the life of George Armstrong Custer. I am not saying that great men do not have faults, but I still think we can recognize that the faults are not sufficient to offset the greatness of the man. Not the case here. I do not view Custer as a great man, certainly not after listening to this volume.

His greatest contribution to his memory was that he and his company were completely annihilated at the battle of the Little Big Horn. I do admit that he was a warrior. He knew how to fight. But I didn't see much laudable in him other than that. Certainly not someone who should be emulated. So why did the author spend so much time researching and writing about he life of Custer. After finishing listening to the audible of the book, I can honestly say I have no idea. Very little time was spent on the battle of the Little Big Horn - basically just in the Epilogue. I think it would have been a much better book if it had just focused on his last battle, and not on a life that was not that commendable.

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