Goofs for
They Died with Their Boots On (1941) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: In the film, Custer is awarded a medal. In reality, he never received any decoration, though he did receive honorary (brevet) promotions for gallantry. The only medal awarded by the government, or the Army, was the newly developed "Medal of Honor", which George Custer never won - though his brother Thomas was one of three soldiers in the Civil War (along with only sixteen others since then) to receive it twice.
  
  
• Factual errors: The movie shows Custer and the 7th charging with their sabers, hard to do as they did not bring them along on this campaign.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Several tire tracks can be seen towards the end of the movie when the 7th Cavalry is chasing Crazy Horse and the Indian war party.
  
  

• Continuity: During The Battle of Little Big Horn California Joe is shot in the back by two arrows but as he utters his last words to Custer there is only one arrow in his back.
  
  
• Factual errors: As Custer meets Libby while walking his "Punishment Tour" at West Point, he's carrying a Springfield muzzle-loader. But the musket has no ram-rod which was essential to its loading. That might be the least of the mistakes in this scene, however. History records that Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon never met Custer while he was at West Point. She met him in 1862, almost a year after he left the Military Academy.
  
  
• Factual errors: Phil Sheridan was never Commandant of West Point during Custer's time there as portrayed in the film. In fact, he was only nine years older than Custer and, having graduated from West Point in 1853, was only a First Lieutenant at the outbreak of the Civil War, not a Colonel.
  
  
• Factual errors: By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, Winfield Scott had been retired from the army for over a year.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the film, George Armstrong Custer argues that there is no gold in the Black Hills, but in reality, he led the 1874 expedition that discovered gold near French Creek.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the final battle, a trooper struggling with an Indian is shot in the back with an arrow by another Indian. The outline of the square block under his clothes into which the arrow was fired can be clearly seen.
  
  
• Factual errors: Numerous times during the film, Libbie Custer refers to General Phil Sheridan as "Uncle Phil". In fact, no family relationship existed between the two and there is no evidence that she knew him in an way independently of her husband's association with him. Custer was, however, one of Sheridan's favorite officers, and it's possible that she might have considered a familial relationship of sorts existed between them.
  
  
• Factual errors: Libbie Bacon's father was, as portrayed in the film, against the idea of his daughter marrying Custer, but not because Custer insulted him in a bar. Judge Bacon thought Custer, who was from a humble background, was of insufficient social standing to deserve his daughter's hand. The judge relented only after Custer was promoted in 1864 to the brevet rank of Brigadier General.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: During the office scene where they are discussing which cadets can be graduated early, you can see the shadow of the boom mic on the wall in the left rear of the room.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Custer finds Sharp selling guns to the Indians he says, "You know these Winchesters will out distance our Springfields". Actually, the Springfield .45-70 has a much farther range than the .44-40. (The Winchester though did have a much faster firing rate.)
  
  
• Factual errors: Among the many historical inaccuracies is the fact that Crazy Horse and Custer never met each other face to face. Given Crazy Horse's relative anonymity, it is also unlikely that he would have been recognized had he in fact been captured prior to the Little Big Horn.
  
  
• Anachronisms: After Queens own Butler has refused to take the letter back to Ft Lincoln, the camera shows a side shot of California's head and he has what appears to be a hearing aid in his ear.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When the Michigan Cavalry charges at Gettsyburg they appear to be carrying a 35-star flag (straight rows of 5x7). Use of the 35-star flag went into official effect on 4 July 1863 (following the admission of West Virginia into the Union), which happens to be the day after Custer's Michigan Brigade fought Stuart at Gettysburg.
  
  
• Anachronisms: As Custer is first arriving at Fort Abraham Lincoln, ND, a soldier announcing his arrival is standing in front a 1930s era plaque memorializing the fort's founding.
  
  

Related Links