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OBEDIENT TO THE END

The momentum to snap awakens when trust in our inner resources outweighs the perceived risk. When faced with a hurdle—even a life-threatening one—confident people who trust their instincts can often snap an innovative solution. They set their eye on a goal and learn what it takes to get there. If they learn that they're not yet prepared, they find out what this means and rectify it. They keep moving forward, focusing on what they want and watching for ways to achieve it. Any person or situation can present an opportunity, even when it looks like anything but.

Even as a child, Stanley Milgram stood out. Everyone who knew him believed he'd accomplish something great. He was driven, even exceptional, in everything in which he took an interest, and he was a keen observer of small details. He had that “edge-of-the-seat” attitude about life, and by the age of twenty-eight, he had changed the way the world thinks about what ordinary people are willing to do for an authority figure. Despite the considerable risk he was taking to a career he'd work hard to build, he expected to accomplish something important and extraordinary. To achieve this was worth whatever cost it exacted.

Born into a family of Jewish bakers, Milgram pushed himself hard to excel. He took on the subject of political science but grew disenchanted with the apparent muddle of methods and information. When he learned about an education grant in 1954 that encouraged students to enter the behavioral sciences, he liked the possibilities implied. He read a catalog for the courses offered in Harvard's Department of Social Relations and decided to apply there for graduate school. This was bold, considering that he had little background as an undergraduate and he was trying to enter one of the most hallowed institutions in the country.

Indeed, the admissions committee responded that he lacked adequate preparation. Instead of accepting the decision or wallowing in disappointment, Milgram demonstrated his penchant for challenge: there was always a way, he believed, to get what he wanted. He proposed to the graduate chair, the esteemed Gordon Allport, that he take intensive summer courses, but Allport thought this was not sufficient. Still, he was impressed enough with Milgram's persistence that he offered another route: he advised Milgram to apply as a “special student” so he could make up his deficits during his first year with a load of undergraduate courses. It was a generous gesture, but Milgram spotted its potential for setback. He thanked Allport and proceeded with his own plan. That summer he enrolled in six undergraduate courses in three different colleges in New York, auditing two and taking four for credit. It was an enormous load, but Milgram completed these courses with straight As. This allowed him to enter Harvard that fall on equal footing with other grad students, as well as showing its “gatekeepers” that he meant business. It was not the last time he'd face such obstacles, but Milgram would approach all future tasks with this kind of bold determination.

In fact, when he moved into the dormitory, Perkins Hall, he found the common phone to be a nuisance. It rang endlessly, prohibiting him from focusing on his studies, so to stop the constant distraction, Milgram invented a system for the other residents to follow: for each incoming call for them, each student must answer the phone twice. “He had created a norm, a guideline for appropriate conduct,” wrote his biographer Thomas Blass, “in what previously had been a behavioral vacuum.”1 It worked; even after Milgram left, the residents continued to use this rule.

During the fall of 1955, Milgram received a momentous assignment. He was to be a teaching and research assistant to a visiting psychologist from Swarthmore College, Dr. Solomon Asch. Known for his ability to make complex ideas simple for research purposes, Asch had a passion for studying modes of conformity. The fashion of social psychology during this time focused on situational influences, especially those from other people. Thus, Asch had made a name in the field, and Milgram was impressed.

Asch had created an experimental design that was producing some surprising results. The core experiment involved this: he would place an individual subject among seven other people and ask him to participate in a series of exercises that involved a perceptual judgment. The subject would believe that everyone was all doing the same thing, but in fact the other seven people were confederates whose job was to make erroneous judgments. The research tested how strong the influence of others' opinions was versus one's own judgment.

The study involved eighteen trials per subject. In each trial, Asch would show different sets of four vertical lines of varying lengths, two of which matched. The subjects had a simple task—to identify the matching lines. Each would announce his response to the others. On the first two trials, everyone made the correct call, but on the third trial, the confederates gave a response that research subjects could clearly see was an error. At this point, the subject had to make a decision: say what he could clearly see or agree with the group, despite believing the answer to be wrong. This same scenario occurred twelve out of the eighteen trials, forcing the subject to question his judgment again and again.

When he designed the experiment, Asch had believed that most people would go against the group and respond with the right answer, but to his surprise, about one-third of the research subjects agreed with the group. This inspired Asch to design more experiments on conformity with variations on this same design. He hoped to pinpoint the nature of the group pressure that elicited conformity, even when conforming seemed wrong or absurd. Sometimes, he instructed one confederate to be the subject's ally to see if this diminished the rate of conformity. From these data, he worked on a theory about the individual and the group.

Milgram was sufficiently impressed to design his doctoral work around conformity studies, hoping to compare the results from other countries against those from the United States. But first, he had to prove himself once more. He had failed the required statistical examination, so his doctoral committee questioned his ability to carry out solid research. They said, in fact, that without a solid grasp of statistics, writing a dissertation in this field was impossible. Milgram dismissed this concern. He believed that this test was not indicative of his ability. He told the committee as much, and he prepared a detailed report that convinced them that he was right. He passed.

Milgram selected Norway and France for comparison, finding that Norway's rates of conformity were nearly the same as those of the United States, but in France, where group pressure was culturally less imposing, the experiments showed a lower rate. More interesting, Milgram took the experiment in a direction that Asch had not yet done, and it laid the groundwork for his flash of genius. Sensing that something was missing, he added consequences for the responses that subjects gave. He told them that information from the study would be used to assist in designing safety signals for airplanes. Believing that people would reconsider group cohesion in light of the potential of contributing to an unsafe airplane design, Milgram was surprised to find that this item reduced the level of conformity by only a small increment. More than half the subjects still yielded to peer pressure. Milgram thought that maybe they were embarrassed by the public nature of the experiment: because they stated their response to everyone else in the room, they didn't want to be the odd man out.

Next, Milgram rigged an intercom system so that the subjects could hear the confederates' responses, but they could not hear what a subject said. While the rate of conformity dropped a little more, it remained near the 50 percent level. Again, Milgram was surprised, and he attributed his results to the role of pervasive cultural pressures to conform. Although this data would not be much more for Milgram than a dissertation topic, the two years he spent on the experiments prepared him for intense focus and innovative thinking. It also opened up a life-changing opportunity. When Asch invited Milgram to be his research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he accepted. Located near the Ivy League university and next to a woodsy nature preserve with extensive walking paths, the institute was a center for theoretical research—an idea hatchery. It had hosted the likes of Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, and Kurt Gödel. In this idyllic setting, select researchers were able to pursue their goals without distraction, but opportunities were also available to meet other intellectuals of note—historians, philosophers, mathematicians, scientists—and perhaps to find stimulation in their work. This think tank was a rare place for intellectual inquiry and the meeting of minds.

Milgram arrived with great expectations of scholarly camaraderie, but in his opinion Asch kept him in the shadows, using Milgram's efforts without proper credit to complete a book on conformity. Asch also gave Milgram precious little time to work on his dissertation. Although Milgram was frustrated with this unexpected roadblock, being at the institute was good for him. He had dinner conversations with the likes of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and historian George F. Kennan. But his heart was in Cambridge, and only the correspondences with his friends and mentors there kept him buoyed. The anonymity, along with his loneliness, inspired him to work on a subject that would have “great consequence” and win him a name equal to or greater than any of his mentors. The institute also provided Milgram with the setting for what he described as his “incandescent moment.”

It occurred during the spring of 1960. Milgram had promised a draft of his dissertation to his committee but had found it difficult to meet his goals. He'd been offered a teaching position at Yale, and he already knew that his interest in conformity had formed during that Cold War era into an interest in why people obey authorities. “Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life,” he would later write, “as one can point to. Every power system implies a structure of command and action in response to the command.”2 He identified with the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, and he wanted to understand why ordinary German people had colluded with the Nazis to help commit genocide. As a Jew, he felt pressured by the possibility that such a thing could occur again. But he knew he would need an experimental design as elegant as the one that Asch had created. That was the rub—how does one set up conditions to get people to obey an authority figure who clearly demands that they do something unconscionable?

He describes what led up to his aha! moment in letters, as well as in a book he later wrote, Individual in a Social World. Contemplating Asch's experimental design for conformity, Milgram had thought that too little was at stake. He wondered whether group influence could push someone toward an act in which a subject would knowingly behave aggressively toward others. This upped the stakes. It wasn't just observing four lines and going along with the majority; it was actually acting, and doing so in an improper manner. Milgram realized that to make a comparison that would reveal the group's influence, he would first have to know how the person would perform away from the group. As he looked each day across the wide expanse of the institute's manicured lawn, with trees budding with leaves or flowers, he considered the problem from different angles. At first, nothing clicked. Still, he sensed something was there. He just had not yet figured it out. Then one day it hit him. In an exciting fast-action flash, the design budded and bloomed.

“At that instant, my thought shifted,” Milgram recalled, “zeroing in on this experimental control. Just how far would a person go under the experimenter's orders? It was an incandescent moment.”3

He sensed that he had a brilliant idea that could command international attention and give him lasting fame, but he exercised restraint and kept it to himself. On the day he said good-bye to Asch, he mentioned in a low-key manner that he planned to study obedience. He gave little hint of the scheme he had in mind, but as he prepared to join the ranks of academic professors, he contemplated what lay before him. He offered the pilot project to his graduate students, and they accepted. Milgram polished it and began the project in earnest.

He believed that the subject had to be ordered to perform specific acts, and that the acts should be personally significant to the subjects, as well as having some association with important social themes. Thus, he could win notice beyond the walls of academia. To achieve this, Milgram designed a “shock box” prop and a set of commands that he considered appropriate within a laboratory setting.

The setup was this: Milgram placed an ad in the New Haven Register to request participation in research at Yale University; he also mailed his request to people he'd randomly selected from the phone book. For an hour of their time, he offered $4.00, plus fifty cents for travel. He selected adult male volunteers between the ages of twenty and fifty (although a later experiment included some females). They ranged in profession from blue to white collar, and all received a check prior to the experiment, which they could keep, no matter what transpired. (Thus, the fee would not be the primary motivator.)

During the summer of 1961, Milgram had set up four rounds of his experiment. The subjects were told they would be participating in an experiment about learning and memory, specifically to test a theory that people learned best when punished for mistakes. They met a fortyish confederate named “Mr. Wallace,” who posed as another volunteer. Although the assignment of teacher and learner was preset, the scientist in the gray lab coat who paid the subjects and explained the experiment pretended to make a random assignment.

Each “teacher” would be seated in front of the prop's three-foot-long control panel, which consisted of a row of thirty switches, each of which progressed in severity in fifteen-volt increments. In addition, all the switches were labeled according to their shock level, starting with Slight Shock and ending just after Severe Shock with the 450-volt sign, XXX. None was actually attached to a shock mechanism, but the subjects heard the accompanying buzzer, saw a red light, and watched the voltage meter dial move, so they thought the prop was real. In fact, each “teacher” was allowed to feel a 45-volt shock. Subjects were to administer shocks to the “learner” (whom they had seen strapped to a chair in another room) whenever he got an answer wrong, ramping up the voltage each time. When he failed or refused to answer, they were to count this as a wrong answer and continue to administer shocks. The learner was not actually hooked up to the shock mechanism, but his script offered wrong answers at preset intervals, and a tape of his reactions was played. As the shocks grew stronger, his responses grew more agonized and hysterical. He'd shout about his heart condition, demand to be released, pound on the wall, and then go silent.

Once the subject hesitated or resisted (which Milgram anticipated), the authority figure—the stern scientist wearing a gray lab coat—would insist that he continue. This “scientist” had a succession of standard scripts, all of which were designed to exert authority and to remind the subject of his commitment. If the teacher made it all the way to 450 volts, the scientist told him to administer that same charge two more times.

Although Milgram's colleagues (including a group of psychiatrists) had predicted that only the rare sadist would go to the most extreme levels—less than 1 percent—they were mistaken. Even Milgram was surprised. No subject refused to participate in an experiment involving electric shocks, and none stopped until the level had reached 300 volts, the first time the learner showed real distress. Yet only five ended it. Over 65 percent obeyed the scientist and inflicted what they believed were painful shocks. Although some of these subjects showed symptoms of anxiety and nervous strain, they nevertheless obeyed the command to continue.

Over eight hundred subjects participated in the full range of experiments, and Milgram found no variation when he included women. They, too, obeyed. He varied the design, and in one, the learner sat next to the teacher, who was required to physically place the learner's hand on a shock plate. Predictably, there was a lower rate of compliance, but 30 percent of the subjects still went the distance. Milgram reported that he found it quite disturbing, since the learner was crying out and strenuously resisting.

Of course, when published, this study roused great controversy over the ethics of subjecting people to such a cruel deception. Some reviewers were certain that psychological scars would remain for a lifetime, but Milgram sent questionnaires to all the subjects to see what they might say. With a 92 percent response rate, over 85 percent were happy they had participated, and none expressed any sense of having been harmed by it.

However, Milgram's bold pursuit of his own curiosity did have risks. Considered one of the most controversial figures in social psychology, he lost his tenure bid at Harvard (having been lured there from Yale), and this decision meant that he had to leave. To his surprise, no other Ivy League university stepped up to claim him—a serious blow to his ego. However, he landed on his feet. Thanks to a colleague's intervention, the City University of New York offered him a home and the directorship of a new graduate program, as well as a considerable amount of space to conduct research. He was in the midst of a flourishing career there when he had a heart attack at the age of fifty-one. He died late in the afternoon of December 20, 1984. Despite the controversy he raised, he is still considered one of the most important social psychologists in the history of the discipline. “Milgram sensitized us to the hidden workings of the social world,” biographer Thomas Blass states.4

Milgram once told an interviewer, “I believe that Pandora's box lies just below the surface of everyday life, so it is often worthwhile to challenge what you most take for granted.”5 It was this attitude that led the way for most of his groundbreaking projects. For our purposes, Milgram provides a great study. Like a tunneling mole that hits a rock, he would rapidly shift paths and keep going. Intrinsically motivated, he had a rich imagination, kept detailed track of whatever he was thinking for reevaluation, and pursued many interests simultaneously. He also mingled with other profound thinkers and nurtured a sense of humor, even about himself. He wrote fiction and poetry alongside his science and kept his eyes open for new ideas. He understood that his creative impulses had sometimes run contrary to his professional career, and he responded to them anyway. Milgram was an intellectual risk taker. His “incandescent moment” was a guiding light that led him into a thorny place but ultimately enlightened the world and gave him a lasting legacy.

AUDENTES FORTUNA JUVAT

Developing motivation as its own reward is the central feature of snapping. Innate abilities and gifts mean nothing if the person does not engage them toward a meaningful purpose. Along the way, decisions must be made about how best to use time and resources, and the more expertise one develops, the faster these decisions are resolved. However, it often takes a person who not only knows what to do but also has the audacity to snap to the occasion. The military would certainly appreciate a person like this, especially when the outcome of a battle depends on it.

Some interpretations of the Civil War's pivotal battle in Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 hold that General Robert E. Lee made some bad decisions during an off day. Others say he simply underestimated the enemy or overestimated his own strength. Thus, his army suffered a stunning defeat. Most notable was the high level of casualties from General Pickett's ill-fated charge across a mile-wide open field that included the hurdle of climbing over a fence. Lee mentioned later that the attack had not been supported as he'd intended, but he'd left his meaning open to interpretation.

Several historians believe that Lee's plan included an attack from General J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry, which was to come in from what is now known as East Cavalry Battlefield. Historian Tom Carhart offers a version of events in which we find a seemingly suicidal snap-against-all-odds that features none other than the flamboyant George Armstrong Custer.

In fact, Carhart himself had an aha! experience that launched his idea. “During the mid-nineties,” he wrote,

I was in the West Point library stacks, researching West Point-related issues in the [nineteenth] century for my dissertation. And somehow, I stumbled over some Civil War maps made by Jedediah Hotchkiss. I knew that Hotchkiss had made maps for Lee after Stonewall Jackson died, and I wondered how good his maps of Gettysburg were. So I looked. Parenthetically, I had always wondered why J. E. B. Stuart had ever fought on East Cavalry Field in the first place—he even started the fight himself. But why? Even if he had won, as you can see on any map, there would be no way for him to get back to Lee on the main battlefield off to his southwest, as his passage would be completely blocked by Lake Heritage, one mile north-to-south and a quarter mile east-to-west.6

Then I found Hotchkiss's Gettysburg maps, which were, for the time, quite excellent. But, to my great surprise, Lake Heritage appears on none of them. Rather, at the heart of the space now taken up by that lake was Bonnaughtown Road, leading southwest from East Cavalry Field to Baltimore Pike and then up into the Union rear! Aha! So that's what they were trying to do! And everywhere I turned I found more evidence supporting the idea and virtually nothing precluding it. Bonnaughtown Road, of course, was covered by man-made Lake Heritage in 1965. So what a stroke of luck it was for me to see that Hotchkiss map! And when that happened, how the scales did fall.

We know George A. Custer best for a tragically poor set of calculations he made later in his career at Little Big Horn in Montana, which ended his life and wiped out his command, but on this day in 1863, his rapid insight during the heat of a three-hour battle could not have been more surprising—especially for the other side. Although to carry it out Custer defied a direct order, his action was later considered one of the most gallant cavalry charges of this war.

Seventy thousand troops from the Army of Northern Virginia—the Confederates—had advanced through southern Pennsylvania that June, apparently moving with aggressive intent toward Harrisburg. President Lincoln, alarmed, sought a buffer of safety for Washington, DC, so he put General George Meade in charge of the Army of the Potomac—the Union—and urged him to move forth. They, too, marched toward Gettysburg. On the hills and in the fields surrounding the small community, the armies converged, Lee from the north and west, and Meade from the south.

Fighting commenced on July 1. Two days later, Carhart and others surmise, on Lee's orders, General Stuart was to lead his cavalry division (over 4,800 strong) around the Union lines. Coming in from the east, he was to break through in the center and join General Pickett's divisions, which would already be on the main field of battle. If successful, this strategy would cut the Union line in half, making each side of it more vulnerable. (While no officer's notes spelled out this plan, none contradicts it, and those on East Cavalry Field had witnessed Stuart moving a large column of mounted soldiers in the direction of the main battle just as it had commenced.)

At one point near the Rummel farmstead, Stuart ran into an enemy contingent. Since his men outnumbered them, he led a charge to breeze past them. As he'd anticipated, they pulled back. All of them, that is, except Custer and his four hundred troops from the First Michigan. Despite being outnumbered ten to one, they were lined up in fifteen columns, ready to go.

Custer was an unusual leader, and how he arrived at this daring moment deserves examination, because his personal development demonstrates the traits and behaviors that lay a foundation for effective snaps. Not much of a thinker, he had plenty of high-spirited gumption. He was also a keen observer, courageous, and prepared for opportunity. For him, life was a series of forward motions, being alert for each new opportunity.

Born in 1839 into a large family, the mischievous little “Autie” was a pampered boy. His father, a blacksmith, had a hard time keeping the children fed, so he sent the boy, then ten years old, to live in Michigan with his married half-sister. Custer was able to attend a prestigious school, and it was here that he developed a love for military biographies, history, and fiction. He excelled as a student, which later helped him to win an appointment to West Point, the US Military Academy. This was a rare and highly valued opportunity, as well as a free education among America's elite. While there were considerable hurdles for him to acquire the requisite congressional recommendation, Custer persisted until he succeeded. Despite the fact that his father was a staunch Democrat, he persuaded a Republican congressman to sponsor him. Just seventeen, he made it through the rigorous screening to become one of sixty-eight recruits in his entering class. That was the easy part.

Lest anyone has the impression that snaps come only to those who work hard all the time, Custer is a clear counterexample. A zealous young man, he could be impulsive and reckless, but he had a great sense of humor that won loyalty. For four years, Custer did what he must to get by in his classes, but he still found time to pull pranks on fellow cadets or plan ways to test the school's many rules. He had a way with people and soon became one of the most popular cadets at West Point, though his impetuous nature often pushed him into trouble. Custer's record of demerits stands as one of the worst in West Point history, but during each six-month accounting period, he always managed to stop short of the number that would ensure his expulsion. He was determined to graduate and become an officer, so he was able to control himself when it counted. Although he was a perpetual disciplinary problem, once he faced the dire circumstances of combat, this same temperament would be his strength. He was bold, quick, and charismatic, a natural leader who took initiative and loved the spotlight.

Custer was at West Point when the War between the States broke out with the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter. Although Custer's mediocre academic performance and list of demerits had ranked him last in his class (not to mention a de facto court-martial for a broken rule that detained him on his very last day), he became in July that year a second lieutenant in the Second Calvary. His exuberance was such that he told his sister that if it were his lot to lay down his life, he would do so as freely as if he had a thousand lives to give. He'd been preparing hard over the past four years for an opportunity like this, and he intended to experience it to the fullest.

Unexpectedly, if one judges by his past performance, Custer distinguished himself several times during the war, rising quickly in rank and responsibility. Before he even got to the battlefield, he proved himself to General Winfield Scott. Upon Custer's arrival in Washington, DC, he met Scott, who asked whether he would rather train new troops in a safe place or get close to battle. Without missing a beat, he chose the latter. When it proved difficult to find a horse to take him to his first assignment, he worked out a deal with a West Point acquaintance to ride a horse that was being taken to Manassas. Thus, he proved himself to be enterprising and alert. In addition, if he had to change his ways to achieve a goal, he did so. On temporary sick leave in Michigan, he met Elizabeth Bacon, daughter of a judge. Custer hoped to woo her, but during one drunken evening he made a fool of himself in front of both of them. Thereafter, he vowed he would never drink again. He kept this pledge.

With a reputation for being both fierce and fearless, Custer had no trouble transferring his flamboyance to the battlefield. The first time he led his troops occurred after he received an order to push back a line of Confederate pickets. He requested the honor of fulfilling it, which meant taking his men directly against the enemy. His request was granted. Eagerly, he led the way. When he saw Confederates in disguise up on a ridge, he ordered his men to spread out and walk their horses forward side by side, spread over several hundred yards. He urged them to keep moving forward, despite gunfire that whistled uncomfortably close. To prevent his men from using pistols that might thwart a charge, he told them to fire one shot and then holster their weapons. Drawing his saber, he told them to do the same. Then he spurred his horse forward with a bold command, “Charge!” They raced in a line up the ridge, went over, and came down the other side. To their surprise (and relief), the enemy had vanished behind bushes. Although gunfire ensued, no one was hurt. Custer had accomplished with distinction, and without mishap, his first mission under fire. Excited by his success, he remained alert to more such opportunities. In fact, when riding as a scout, he spotted a burning bridge before anyone else noticed and rushed to save it, even as Confederates shot at him.

Custer found the battlefield quite stimulating, writing to a friend that despite the carnage he would be sorry to see the war end. He wished he could be in a battle every single day. For him it was quite the sport, and he seemed to have enormous luck escaping death even as numerous horses were shot out from under him. He envisioned himself winning fame and honor and could think of no better way than valor in warfare. He took this to an extreme at times, but it worked for him.

During one encounter with the boys in gray, Custer saved the day. General Winfield Hancock's brigade froze as Confederates charged at them with their piercing rebel yell. Hancock could not get them to fix bayonets and move, so Custer rode directly into the path of the approaching enemy, making himself a clear target, and urged the Union soldiers to follow him into battle. They did, and since the South was outnumbered, the rebels' finest retreated in haste. On that day, the North captured its first enemy flag.

Custer enjoyed being singled out for honors, and thanks to the luck that accompanied his bold spirit—dubbed “Custer's luck” by his friends—he continued to find opportunities. Now a regular scout, he honed his observational skills and accepted the enormous load of responsibility for spotting the most subtle telltale sign of the Army of Northern Virginia. He enjoyed the honor.

In May of 1862, the Union took the banks of the Chickahominy River across from Richmond, Virginia. Rumor had it that in places the river was shallow enough to ford on foot, and Custer was now the go-to guy for daring exploits. He readily agreed to test the waters. Holding his pistol over his head, he waded in. The rushing water came up to his waist, his chest, his shoulders, but his head and the pistol in his hand remained dry. He kept going. When he reached the other side, he moved into the woods and looked around for weakness in the enemy's picket line. Finding it, he waded back and reported to General McClellan a strategy that he believed would work with minimum casualties for the North.

McClellan sent Custer back across with the Fourth Michigan Infantry. They managed to capture thirty-seven enemy soldiers while losing only two of their own men, and Custer received his first promotion. Becoming a captain, he also gained a post on McClellan's staff.

On June 9, 1863, when his commanding officer was killed during the Battle of Brandy Station, Custer took charge at once and led an aggressive saber charge at the Confederates. (He adored the image of the saber-wielding cavalry officer.) The unerring sense of timing he'd developed as a prankster served him well in battle, as did his honed athleticism. But he was also an observant man, writing down everything in the narcissistic belief that others would want to know what he saw and felt. This kept his senses prepared and ready.

That same month, Lincoln had given General Meade the authority to promote anyone he wanted, so at the young age of twenty-three, Custer had gathered enough attention for his feats of bravery to rise to the rank of brigadier general; he was the youngest general in the Union Army. On June 29, he received his star and took command of the Michigan Calvary Brigade—a group that he'd recruited himself while on leave. In just three days, he'd face his greatest challenge in Gettysburg. The boy general, nicknamed “Curly,” couldn't have been more elated.

Now that he was a general, he could wear a uniform of his own design. So to help his soldiers spot him in battle (and attract attention from reporters), he wore his blond curls long and donned a black velvet uniform with rows of gold buttons and wide gold lace at the wrists. Topping it off, he chose a wide-brimmed hat and wore a crimson cravat around his neck—a “red flag” of visibility. Although his men were initially uncertain what to think of him (some called him a circus rider), he proved himself cool in the hottest of circumstances and asked nothing of them that he would not do himself. Within days, he had won their respect and devotion. (They still thought he was a bit strange, though.) And there was never any mistaking where he was—usually at the head of the charge. Custer knew that his visibility was a factor in maintaining morale.

Fighting began the very day after Custer's promotion with skirmishes here and there, mounted and dismounted. His brigade consisted of the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Michigan, totaling about 1,800 soldiers. As usual, he led with ease, looking for “sport.” He arrived on the George Rummel farm outside Gettysburg to support other Union regiments. A brigade of two thousand, including the First Michigan, were the first to clash with Stuart's cavalry. The Yankees held the ground, but eventually Stuart forced them to retreat to the southern end of the field.

Custer sent the Fifth Michigan out against Stuart on foot. They held for a while until Stuart ordered a charge. Custer was not about to let the Confederates succeed, so he mounted a horse and rode in all his velvet glory in front of the men of the Seventh Michigan. He drew his saber from its scabbard and held it high. Above the persistent rattle of gunfire, he shouted, “Come on, you wolverines!” He spurred his horse into action, trotting four lengths ahead, visible and vulnerable. His men followed. They rode as eighty horsemen abreast, five rows deep, an intimidating sight. However, at the Rummel barn, a solid fence stopped them. As the horsemen in back moved in, they were all squeezed together in a chaotic mass. Confederates took advantage, firing at this stationary target. Custer led those who survived to safer ground, disheartened at this embarrassing rout. But he did not let it demoralize him. He watched for his next opportunity. Vigilant, eager, and aware of his command, he was about to enter the aha! arena.

Stuart gathered his forces into a long and intimidating column. He could see clusters of Union troops at various places around the open field, but none seemed threatening. Most were dismounted. Stuart's column came at a trot, in rigid formation, and the Union soldiers who were in their path pulled back. The Union artillery made a few dents, but like a self-healing wound, Confederates closed the holes.

Custer saw this spectacle advancing toward him and recognized the opportunity. He had the First Michigan in reserve, standing ready. He could see well enough that he was vastly outnumbered, but he also knew it was not the first time in history that a battle had presented such terrible odds.

At West Point he'd studied many successful military strategists who had beat overwhelming numbers. They hadn't backed down; instead, they'd gotten creative. Carhart suggests that Custer was inspired by an incident from 331 BCE. Alexander the Great had faced the enormous Persian army of Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela (200,000 men to his 47,000), and his chance of success had looked impossible. But he'd anticipated what Darius would likely expect him to do in response to Darius's movements, so he'd figured out a way to do the unexpected. Darius bore down, expecting Alexander to meet his army straight on as most enemy armies would, but instead Alexander moved to the right. This threw Darius's advancing army off balance when it could not maneuver as quickly as Alexander's smaller force. This presented a brief opportunity at their weakened center, which Alexander had exploited. Despite the enormous odds against him, he'd won.7

Likewise, as Custer watched the tight formation of an enormous column of Confederate cavalry approach, he snapped a plan: create an illusion that would surprise them and allow him to use the same trick. With fewer troopers, he had more flexibility, so he could try to throw the larger force off-balance.

Custer raced to the front of the First Michigan, saber raised again, and once more shouted encouragement, “Come on, you wolverines!” They fell into columns of sixteen abreast as he galloped ahead of them straight at the wall of enemy soldiers. Just a few hundred yards from a seemingly inevitable wipeout, Custer ordered the columns to spread out, with some in the back coming forward, so that his formation appeared to enemy eyes to be three times its actual number. He retained his flexibility while presenting an imposing facade.

“As the charge was ordered,” a colonel who had watched this attack later wrote, “the speed increased, every horse on the jump, every man yelling like a demon…. Staggered by the fearful execution from the two batteries, the men in the front of the Confederate column drew in their horses and wavered. Some turned, and the column fanned out to the right and left…Custer, seeing the front men hesitate, waved his saber and shouted, ‘Come on, you wolverines!’ and with a fearful yell at the First Michigan rushed on.”8

This wild attack took the Confederates by surprise. Sections of the First Michigan hit them head-on, while others raced down either side, firing their weapons. As the Confederates tried to make a responding maneuver, they lost their balance and momentum, similar to what had happened to Darius. Custer's men raced into the exposed cracks, supported by the remounted Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Michigan, which came at the enemy's flanks.

By this time, Union regiments from Pennsylvania and New Jersey had recognized Custer's ploy and rallied, attacking the massive Confederate column from other angles. The column disintegrated as individual soldiers defended themselves. One participant later recorded that the Confederates resembled a herd of sheep looking for a hole through which to escape. Although Custer's own horse was shot out from under him during the fierce engagement, he had effectively delayed Stuart from crossing the field. What had seemed a suicidal assault had in fact been brilliant, snapped in a split second when military training converged with desperate reality. As the enemy divisions fought hand-to-hand, distant cannon sounded, signaling to Stuart that Pickett's charge was underway. If there were some plan for him to assist, Stuart would have known he was now too late. In any event, Custer had stalled him from joining Lee's efforts in any form. After a stretch of fighting, he withdrew his men back to the ridge from whence he'd come, and the Yankees took control of the field at Rummel's farm. On the main battlefield, Pickett's charge became a bloodbath with over 50 percent casualties, and Lee realized that he was losing the Battle of Gettysburg.

Custer received numerous commendations, and by the age of twenty-five, he'd been promoted to major-general. He had also won the heart of the woman he loved. When the war ended in 1865, Custer and his new wife received the surrender table from the Appomattox Court House, a gift from General Sheridan.

Risk analysis can be a time- and energy-consuming process of sorting through options. However, the idea of “snapping” involves such a deep trust in one's perceptual set that decision-making becomes instinctive. One accrues a feeling for the right direction and can snap it faster than the speed of ordinary thinking. Audentes fortuna juvat: fortune favors the bold. Custer, for all his crazy stunts, was certainly in this category.

INTO THE FRAY

Also at the Battle of Gettysburg, another Union officer should be recognized for his flash of genius. Another man who had diligently prepared, Joshua Chamberlain had been a passionate student of military strategy. Once he received his commission, he read whatever he could get his hands on, asked questions of his superiors, watched what they did, and listened to their instruction or advice. He had told the governor of Maine that whatever he did not know, he knew how to learn. Not one to sit passively for whatever lessons were dished out, he seized them with gusto. Like Custer, he took a top-down approach. A firm believer in a united government, Chamberlain had developed a passion for the Union's cause, leaving his teaching post at Bowdoin College to become a soldier. His colleagues had scoffed and thought he lacked the right stuff to be a proper soldier. When they learned that he'd received the rank of lieutenant colonel, they'd been astonished.

Joining the army in 1862, Chamberlain gained command of the Twentieth Maine Infantry in May 1863. This regiment had started with one thousand soldiers, but after five major engagements, they were down to just over one-third of that number. In short order, Chamberlain received charge of 120 disgruntled mutineers. A humanitarian, he listened to their grudges, fed them, and hoped they might yield to his leadership. By the afternoon of July 2, they were all engaged together in a fight for their lives.

As both armies marched toward Gettysburg, Chamberlain's men took over the high ground on a hill called Little Round Top, placing them at the extreme left of the Union line. Some seven hundred troops from the Fifteenth Alabama, who had aimed to take that hill, attacked within twenty minutes. They came at the Twentieth Maine in successive waves, so Chamberlain spread his men out farther to protect the flank. Although this surprised the Confederate commander, he urged his men to keep at it. Both sides gained and gave back ground as bodies piled up and ammunition ran low. Within two hours, the Confederates had rushed up the hill five times. Their fury was astonishing, but each time the Twentieth Maine beat them back.

As evening approached, Chamberlain realized that some of his men had only their bayonets, and yet the soldiers in gray or butternut showed no sign of retreat. He knew they were preparing for yet another assault—one that could well succeed. He'd lost one-third of his soldiers, and very few had even one bullet left. But retreat was out of the question. Chamberlain considered his dire position. In the midst of a “medley of monstrous noises,” he heard the undulating rebel yell that sent chills down his spine. The Fifteenth Alabama charged up the hill through the trees. Bullets ricocheted every which way. Then another force of confederates charged from a different angle. Chamberlain's men were outnumbered, and their only advantage was being uphill. Some of them scrambled among the dead to find whatever ammunition they could. Many looked to him for a solution. If he failed to offer a workable plan, they would all die.

“The roar of all this tumult reaches us on the left,” he later recorded, “and heightened the intensity of our resolve.”9

Chamberlain flashed through several maneuvers but dismissed each. He waited, unsure. Then he snapped on a strategy—straight from a textbook. He was ready. They would take the offensive.

Quickly, he gathered his officers and ordered them to charge down the hill with the only thing they had left—their bayonets. But they couldn't just charge in a line, because they might get separated. He told them that the right end of the line would remain fixed in place while the left wing swung toward the Confederates like a giant hinged gate on a post. Thus, in this “right wheel” formation, the remaining two hundred soldiers would come together and sweep down into the enemy line at a right angle.

There was no time to debate. They had to move. The officers shouted orders. The troops responded. Against all odds, the charge succeeded, surprising the Confederates. Many retreated, but Chamberlain took several hundred prisoners. More important, he had preserved the Union's line. His spontaneous decision contributed significantly to the ultimate Union victory, and he later won a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Chamberlain, Custer, and Milgram had been voracious learners and disciplined thinkers. They had trusted fully in their knowledge and training. Even under the most dire of circumstances, without a shred of self-doubt, they could choreograph risky maneuvers that paid off.

KEY POINTS