GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.



tails of battles and campaigns, which they hardly comprehehd-
ed, but they did care very match for what Lieutenant Custer,
or rather their dear boy Armestong was doing, and in his let-
ters he tells them this freely, without any mock modesty. At
a little later period we shall see a good deal of these letters:
for the present it is thought better to go no further in our re-
searches than Custer himself has indicated that lhe wishes us to
go. We shall therefore follow him to Bull Run and to the
Peninsula, taking up the parable ourselves only when he stops.
   The personal interest of these letters is great, and their read-
ing is much more racy than the published narratives of Custer
himself. They reveal the real natural Custer, full of life and
spirits, generous and ardent, so clearly, that it is like talking
with a famous actor off the stage, far more interesting than see-
ing him act. Unlike most actors, however, Custer is better
company off the stage than on it, and we hope that these, let-
ters, when they come, will aid in undeceiving the world as to
his character, and free him from one very unjust charge, that-
of vanity. From this vice no man was freer, and his most pri-
vate letters show as much real modesty as his most studied
published memoirs.



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