that was george custer at west point. he said his career at west point was an example to be carefully avoided by future cadets. he was goat of his class, the last of his class. the title of my other book that is out there. what does that mean? does that mean he cannot hack it? there are actually two types of people who, in at the bottom of the class. who get is the people to west point and it is hard and they are in over their head, they struggle, they do what they can, they study all the time and they squeak in at the bottom. that is one type of goat. the other type is the guy who gets to west point and says i can handle this, i know i can graduate from this place, i do not care about grades, i do not care about class rank. instead of studying i am going to have a good time and then at the last minute i will cram and i will squeak through. that was cadet custer. he was that type of cadet. there been many cadets like that. george pickett is another example, speaking of people famous for blowing it. time going to the nearb

where george custer does a bunch stuff that he never, ever did. but it's a movie. thisbrown is featured in movie. we're talking about the great collection here of john brown material. here's earl flynn as custer. they died with their boots on. most noted in terms of 20th century, this was the of custer that people most associated with him. earl flynn captured the seriousness and the boyishness custer the prankster about.e'll talk when someone up to that level it's pretty easy to transfer them into being the super villain. after the 1960's and the 1970's thing tookort of culture, rather than heroic custerred then we had big man.er from little we had richard mulligan playing of psycho.nd self-important ran dop guy who decisions all the time. the realer became custard to many people. he was a blow hard. had no military ability what so ever. indian hater. that.ings like that became dominant image of years. in last 30 now we have representation like night at the museum. stiller.uster and ben in which he lements which i'll be famous for my biggest failure. custard the goa

james robbins talks about his book the real custer on the life and military career of general george custer. custer'sns recounts childhood and formative years as well as his time in battle from the civil war to his defeat at the battle of little bighorn. we recorded this event in 2014 at the hudson library and historical society in hudson, ohio. james: i would like to thank all the hudson library team. it has been great meeting some of you in the audience. it is great to be out of the beltway. ohio, alsoer is from grant, sheridan, sherman all have ohio roots.

george armstrong custer. now, custer served in sherman's army, and i don't mean the army he led to the sea during the civil war, but the army that sherman commanded as commanding general in the late 1860's and early 1870's. and awaiting custer and others was a native american society undergoing its own profound changes. to understand those changes, let's focus back on lakota. they were powerful residents of the missouri valley, and they had eyed the united states with some degree of suspicion. they saw it as their role to connect trading routes. throughout much of the 18th and early 19th centuries, they had sought to establish and preserve their own authority and their own autonomy. much of their own diplomacy, much of their negotiation and conflict in the 19th century was with their native neighbors. but in the final decades of the 19th century, they faced a new challenge from the united states, from an army led by men like george armstrong custer. one of the leaders was a man named red cloud. his father was

civil war commander george custer is said to have uttered the famous words, "it's not how many times you get knocked down that counts. it's how many times you get back up." nowhere is that spirit more evident than in las vegas, and we found one spot where it looked like they might not get back up, but they did. ♪ so, here i am in reflection bay in henderson, nevada, a place that went from riches to rags and now back to riches, one of the greatest stories of redevelopment and resurgence in america. this entire area five years ago was ground zero of the real-estate crisis in america, and today it is an american success story. ♪ lake las vegas is a beautiful, 328-acre lake that was actually man-made. it was a massive project spanning decades, creating the lake, the golf courses, hotels, and luxury communities in the middle of the vegas desert. but when the recession hit, the area was devastated. >> this was the kind of situation that's very rare -- to have a 300-acre lake and have all these residential areas around it, with the hotels and golf, but when the economy changed, people walke