Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. He was defeated and killed by the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. More than 30 movies and countless television shows have featured him as a character. He was portrayed by future U.S. president, Ronald Reagan in "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), as well as by Errol Flynn in "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941). In 1896, Anheuser-Busch commissioned from Otto Becker a lithographed, modified version of
Goes Ahead Sioux and Cheyenne who were expected to be on either Rosebud Creek or in the Little Bighorn valley. The six Crow scouts were sent with Custer because they were familiar with the Rosebud and Little Big Horn drainage. On June 24, 1876 the Crow scouts were ranging ahead, and they sent back word to Custer that the trail of the Sioux/Cheyenne encampment had moved from the Rosebud valley toward the valley of the Little Bighorn. At first light on June 25, 1876, the morning of the battle, the Crow scouts were at a high point (later known as the Crows