Monroe, Mich. — The bigliest loser in American history — at least until the returns from the Congressional election started rolling in Tuesday night — surveyed the battleground state of Michigan from his perch on a downcast horse.
This was the doomed Major General George Armstrong Custer, whose brigade was routed and ritually mutilated by Sitting Bull’s Lakota Sioux at the battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana in 1876. “Custer’s Last Stand” has been immortalized in American infamy ever since, except in his hometown of Monroe, Mich., which is about an hour south of Detroit and just across the river from the tranche of the “51st State” still known to some as “Ontario.” In Monroe, Custer remains a bronze-headed hero, “presented at a young age,” according to a sign beside the equestrian statue on the bank of the River Raisin.
