DEC 2: Custer’s Half-Sister Weds

This week in 1846, George Custer’s older half-sister Lydia Ann marries David Reed in Monroe, Mich. Reportedly, she encouraged her father to send young George to live with the Reeds, which he did at the age of 14. He returned home to Ohio in the summers.

The Reed family plot in Monroe, Mich.

The Reed’s son, Henry Armstrong Reed, nicknamed “Autie” just like his uncle, joined Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn and was killed there along with Custer, Reed’s uncles Tom and Boston Custer, and George’s brother-in-law James Calhoun, who was married to Autie’s aunt Margaret “Maggie” Custer.