Novelist, journalist, biographer. Best known as the author of the first biography of George Armstrong Custer, Whittaker's 2-volume work remained definitive for generations, elevating an idealized Custer to mythic status, while his vilification of Custer's subordinate, Major Marcus Reno, drove that officer to request a military Court of Inquiry to clear his name. Whittaker was also a prolific and popular author of "dime novels", and an influential contributor to the Army and Navy Journal. Born in London to Henry Whittaker, a solicitor, and the former Catharine Maitland, he was eleven when his father's financial troubles forced the family to immigrate to New York City. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in a Union cavalry regiment, and subsequently participated in some of the fiercest fighting of the American Civil War. Wounded at the Wilderness in 1864, he rose to the rank of 2nd lieutenant by the time of his discharge in 1865. Having formerly been employed as a law office clerk and a teacher, an inheritance from an English relative enabled him to write full time and to buy a house in Mount Vernon, NY. In 1870 he wed educator Elizabeth Day, and three daughters were born to the couple. He became inspired by Custer after the two met at his publishers' office during the winter of 1875-76, and the latter's death at the Little Big Horn several months later spurred him to finish "The Complete Life of George Armstrong Custer". The book benefited from the cooperation of Custer's widow, a nationally-revered figure who was determined that her late husband not be blamed for the 7th Cavalry's disastrous defeat, and whose long life effectively stifled public criticism of his actions for more than half a century. During the 1880's, Whittaker became a staunch advocate of Spiritualism, and professional success notwithstanding, fell into debt. A complex, passion-driven man, he was fifty years old when he died on the stairs of his home, the victim of a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. Despite speculation that he committed suicide, his death was ruled to have been accidental.