SEPT 21: Custer Attends Cleveland Convention

George Armstrong Custer. (Credit: Library of Congress)

The Cleveland Dealer reported this week in 1866 that Gen. George A. Custer attended the Soldiers and Sailors Convention in the city. The organization, the newspaper noted, supported the policies of Democratic President Andrew Johnson “as opposed to that of Congress, the people’s representatives.”  

Custer, whose family supported the Democratic party, had accompanied President Johnson earlier in the month on his “Swing Around the Circle” tour of major American cities. Johnson tried to gain support for his “obstructionist Reconstruction policies” and for his preferred candidates in the upcoming November 1866 mid-term Congressional election.

In describing Custer, the newspaper wrote:

“Gen. George A. Custer, cavalry-riding Custer, a gentle youth with flaxen ringlets, is a native of Harrison County in this State. His rank in the regular army is that of Lieut-Col., though he still loves to sport the uniform of Brevet Major-General of volunteers, from which services he was long since mustered out. He delights in being conspicuous and whispering confidentially in the ears of those in authority. He was recently before the Reconstruction Committee but has himself been recently reconstructed.”