IMHO it's hard to find much that's admirable about Custer. Arrogance and ambition got him killed, along with the rest of his command.
George Armstrong Custer was quite a daring combat-leader.He became a darling of"Little Phil"(Sheridan)becuse of his exploits.The PC crowd has denigrated him for obvious reasons,but he was a superb cavalryman.There are a number of fine books on Custer,but one that relates solely to his Civil War duty that I would recommend is"Custer and His Wolverines"(The Michigan Cavalry Brigade 1861-65)by Edward G.Longacre.I mispoke when I elevated JEB Stuart to the top ten list.I meant Nathan Bedford Forrest. 105 posted on 9/1/02 9:32 AM Pacific by bandleader
He said it better than I could.
I felt the same way about Custer until I learned a bit more about him (learned enough to know that I'd need to learn a great deal more to have a better understanding of him). I certainly learned that he is more than the one-dimensional character that he had been presented to be.
Arrogant? Sure. Ambitious? Absolutely. But he had some other attributes too. He's an interesting subject, certainly.