Editing George Armstrong Custer (section)

==Education==
[[File:George-a-custer west-point.jpg|thumb|[[United States Military Academy|USMA]] Cadet George Armstrong "Autie" Custer, ca. 1859 with a [[Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer Pocket Revolver]].]]
To attend school, Custer lived with an older half-sister and her husband in [[Monroe, Michigan]].<!--Why? --> Before entering the [[United States Military Academy]], Custer attended the McNeely Normal School, later known as Hopedale Normal College, in [[Hopedale, Ohio]]. The school was known for training teachers for elementary schools. While attending Hopedale, Custer and classmate William Enos Emery were known to have carried coal to help pay for their room and board. After graduating from McNeely Normal School in 1856, Custer taught school in [[Cadiz, Ohio]].<ref name="Custer Lives Bio">{{cite web|title=General George Custer Biography, US 7th Cavalry|url=http://custerlives.com/custer1.htm|publisher=Custer Lives!|access-date=May 16, 2012|archive-date=February 14, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214184239/http://custerlives.com/custer1.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> His first sweetheart was Mary Jane Holland.<ref>Jim Donovan, ''Custer and the Little Bighorn: The Man, The Mystery, The Myth'', 2011 – 0785825894, p 22. Quote: "A Young Romantic Custer at age seventeen. This is the first known photograph of the future Boy General, taken June 1857 in Cadiz, Ohio. He is holding a photograph of Mary Jane Holland, his first serious romance. pretty teenage daughter, Mary Jane, caught his eye and Armstrong Custer was in love. It was his first serious romance, and the two began spending plenty of time together. He wrote her often—the beginning of a lifelong habit of committing his most private thoughts to paper"</ref>

Custer entered [[West Point]] as a cadet on July 1, 1857, as a member of the class of 1862. His class numbered seventy-nine cadets embarking on a five-year course of study. With the outbreak of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861, the course was shortened to four years, and Custer and his class graduated on June 24, 1861. He was 34th in a class of 34 graduates: 23 classmates had dropped out for academic reasons while 22 classmates had already resigned to join the Confederacy.<ref>Tom Carhart, ''Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg and Why It Failed''. (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 2003), p. 39.</ref>

Throughout his life, Custer tested boundaries and rules. In his four years at West Point, he amassed a record total of 726 demerits, one of the worst conduct records in the history of the academy. The local minister remembered Custer as "the instigator of devilish plots both during the service and in Sunday school. On the surface he appeared attentive and respectful, but underneath the mind boiled with disruptive ideas."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Custer|last=Wert|first=Jeffry|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=2015|pages=21}}</ref> A fellow cadet recalled Custer as declaring there were only two places in a class, the head and the foot, and since he had no desire to be the head, he aspired to be the foot. A roommate noted, "It was alright with George Custer, whether he knew his lesson or not; he simply did not allow it to trouble him."<ref>{{cite web|title=George Custer: Facts Summary Information|url=http://www.historynet.com|access-date=March 31, 2014}}</ref>