Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer of the United States Army, seated, in field uniform, 1865. Custer, an officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars, had a reputation as an aggressive commander willing to take personal risks by leading his Michigan Brigade into battle. He was defeated and killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, against a coalition of Native American tribes, an event popularly known in American history as "Custer's Last Stand".Photo credit: George L. Andrews