Most historians and scholars who have studied and written about Custer's Last Stand in the last 20 years agree that Custer's conduct at the Battle of the Little Big Horn was not reckless or incompetent, and that his two chief subordinate officers, Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, doomed his chance for victory by failing to obey his orders.

Custer's Last Stand took place on June 25, 1876.

Custer was an outstanding officer during the Civil War. He played an important role at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and in the fighting in the Shenendoah Valley in 1864. In 1865, he captured the remainder of Jubal Early's Confederate forces at the Battle of Waynesboro. Moreover, he blocked the final retreat of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates. He attended Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865. By 1864 Custer was considered to be a national hero.

Custer and his wife Elizabeth (Libbie)

Libbie ardently defended her husband's reputation after the battle. She came to his defense when his political enemies falsely blamed him for the defeat. She correctly suspected that the effort to place all the blame on her husband was based on political motives. Before the battle, Custer had been exposing corruption in the Grant administration. 

"Based on his background, education, training, and the information available at the time of his attack, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer made good decisions as he lead the 7th Cavalry in its defeat at the Little Bighorn." (Major John Neumann, The Military Decision Making Process and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, p. vi)

"Eyewitness accounts from survivors of Reno's command claim that Reno quickly lost control of the situation and ordered a mount and dismount three times in rapid succession. Had he maintained control of the situation, not dismounted, and pressed the attack into the village, Custer's later 'last stand' may never have become a reality. Even his Indian adversaries recognized the opportunity that Reno had. In 1883 a Sioux woman, disgusted by the conduct of Reno's command, said that, 'He had the camp at his mercy, and he could have killed us all or driven us away.…' Instead, he panicked and withdrew." (Major Eric Eibe, Custer Revisited, p. 10)

General Custer and his wife Libbie, with Custer's brother Tom standing behind them

Some people view Custer as a villain because he carried out government policy toward the Indians, and they assume the policy was entirely unjust, if not genocidal. But there is a lot more to the story of the government's treatment of the Indians than most textbooks portray. In many cases it was the Indians who violated treaties and struck the first blow. Some Indian tribes, such as the Sioux and the Cheyenne, were vicious and predatory even against other tribes.

The Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Big Horn were not "defending their homeland." Custer scholar Robert Nightengale: 

One controversial notion should be put aside right away: that the Plains Indians at the Little Bighorn were defending their homeland. That is a myth. When Custer surprised the Sioux and Cheyenne village, he was not attacking peace-loving defenders. The Little Bighorn Valley is part of the Crow Indians' traditional homeland, and the Sioux had driven the Crows from it. Back on March 10, 1876, Indian agent Dexter Clapp of the Crow Agency in Montana said that "the Sioux are now occupying the eastern and best portion of their [the Crows'] reservation and by their constant warfare paralyzing all efforts to induce the Crows to undertake agriculture or other means of self-support, and added that the Crows expect the Sioux to attack this agency and themselves in large force."

Other tribes such as the Shoshones, Blackfeet and Arikaras were also victims of Sioux raids and war-making. (LINK)

After the Canadian government allowed the Sioux to relocate in Canada in 1877, the Sioux wore out their welcome there after just four years, partly because they began stealing from nearby tribes and hunting on other tribes' lands.