Custer was not overly popular with his troops, either. The 7th had one of the highest desertion rates when he was the field commander, and he faced charges at least twice for excessive discipline (and that took some doing in the Old Army). And as for the twaddle about it being the best regiment on the Frontier....the less said the better about that one.

Custer's tactics at the Little Big Horn were the same tactics he'd always used on the Frontier. He divided his command at the Wa####a in '68 and ended up with an element cut off and destroyed (Elliott's detachment...granted there are some questions about Elliott's competence, but there is little real debate that this incident did a great deal to solidify the cliques within the 7th's officer corps...and they were among the worst in the Frontier Army). For all his romanticized scribbling about the Indians, I don't think Custer ever really understood the reality of war on the Frontier.

And in an unrelated aside...when you're looking at the tactics of Custer's detachment I don't think you're looking at Custer's tactics. I tend to believe that Custer was either killed or incapacitated very early in the battle (he always led from the front and his first instinct was to charge). His brother would have carried him (dead or alive) to the "last stand" sight, and the Indians weren't even aware that they were fighting Custer until after the fact. His command was really quite "green," and the loss of their commander would go far toward explaining why his detachment "came apart" like it did. Clearly the Sioux and Cheyenne played a major role in that (don't get me wrong), but the assumption that Custer "fought until the very end" has always struck me as much more white man's myth than plausible reality.