Custer did a lot of things, but what he didn't do was ride willy-nilly into that battle.
Actually, that's exactly what he did. Custer was not a strategist or tactician. His favored tactic was a headlong charge into the enemy. He was a brave man but was last or nearly so in his class at West Point. As Shrapnel said, this tactic served him well at the Washita and he hoped to re-create that success at the Little Bighorn. Before the Washita, Chivington had used it successfully at Sand Creek in Colorado during the war. The US Army specifically targeted the hostile's families and commissary.
