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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything

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T.J. Stiles was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer for history for his biography on Cornelius Vanderbilt,

a story featured here on Our American Stories. and his biography on George Armstrong Custer,

Stiles casts surprisingly new light

on one of the best-known figures of American history,

a subject of seemingly endless fascination.

Here's T.J. Stiles with the story of George Custer.

Now, Custer is one of the most controversial figures in American history.

People love him and they hate him. These days, they tend to hate him more than love him.

He was, in fact, notorious as well as a celebrity during his own lifetime. But whether you love Custer or hate him or have no particular opinion, we all envision him in a particular way.

Usually alone on a hilltop surrounded by his dead soldiers,

as Cheyenne and Lakota warriors circle around him

as he fires off his last bullet and is slaughtered,

along with more than 200 of his troops.

This Custer is the one that lives in our imagination.

He's a man of the West. He's a man who's eternally fighting Native Americans.

He's someone who we can't really imagine anywhere else. Custer is one of the most

researched people in American history, and I respect that research. I tried to put together a picture

of Custer's life and his significance and his meaning for Americans at the time before he got to the Little

...