Chapter 4

Custer is feted at the New York Broker's Board and in the salon of the financier Levi Morton. He meets the actress Maggie Mitchell, and sees the great singer Clara Kellogg. In his hotel lobby, he is accosted by Porfirio Diaz, who invites him to put together a cavalry unit and come to Mexico to fight the French-installed Emperor Maximilian and his Confederate supporters. But the President forbids it, afraid it might offend the French. With no other prospects, Custer goes to Kansas as a lieutenant colonel commanding the new Seventh Cavalry.