Steve Alexander will bring his portrayal of George Armstrong Custer to Butler during an appearance at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Butler YWCA. The program will be hosted by the Butler County Civil War Roundtable.

In the lakeside city of Monroe, Mich., Steve Alexander inhabits a house previously owned by George Armstrong Custer.

After many years as a living historian, Alexander also has settled into Custer's persona, offering presentations about the U.S. Army cavalry commander who served in the American Civil War and Indian Wars.

Proclaimed the Foremost Custer Living Historian by the U.S. Congress, Alexander has appeared in films, re-enactments and parades.

He is also set to appear at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Butler YWCA.

Hosted by the Butler County Civil War Roundtable, the program will include a first-person account of Custer's life with questions and answers to follow.

"My hopes are that as people come to see this program, they're going to see what it was like — as close as they could — to actually meeting Gen. Custer in person,"Alexander said.

Although audience members often initially address Alexander as an impersonator, he strives to deliver an authentic experience by answering their questions from Custer's perspective.

"Often I've had people come up to me and say, 'Why did Gen. Custer leave the Gatling guns behind and not take them to the Little Big Horn?'

"The reason I left them behind was my scout suggested they would not be effective," Alexander answered.

Alexander said subsequent questions might evolve to "Why did you disobey your order?" and "Where are you buried?"

"The audience eventually suspends their disbelief," he said.

Born in Jackson, Mich., about 60 miles from Monroe, Alexander developed his fascination early in childhood."I grew up in a rural area. We had dairy cows. My vacations were one-day vacations. At one point the only thing that allowed for us to have a vacation was to go to Monroe to see the Custer Museum.""I grew up in a time when there were a lot of westerns on TV. Probably the image of Custer at that time was a positive image," he said, describing how Custer later came to symbolize the government's harsh treatment of Indians."I think, if anything, I've been somewhat of a counter balance,"Alexander said."In all truthfulness, he had a real interest in the American West, but he was also a soldier. ... He was a lieutenant colonel, so he didn't make government policy. He just acted out the assignments that were given to him."Bill May, founder of the Butler County Civil Roundtable, said the group decided to host the event based on Custer's complex story and Alexander's skill at telling it."Gen. Custer is such a mythical figure in American history — and probably its most controversial hero," May said."In seeing Steve Alexander and talking to him, he makes Custer come alive. It makes a fascinating trip back in time to meet someone of such mythical proportions."Alexander has appeared in more than a dozen docudramas as Custer, most recently in the Discovery Times' "Only in America."His work for the History Channel includes "Command Decisions," "History Hogs: On The Trail with General Custer," and "Little Big Horn — The Untold Story."An A&E biography of Custer and Bill Kurtis' New Explorers "Betrayal at Little Big Horn" received awards in 1998 and 1999, according to Alexander's Web site.Alexander also received the Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association's Editor's Choice Award.Alexander said one of his greatest honors, however, was receiving the Crow name Ika Dieux' Daka, or Son of the Morning Star, from tribal historian Joe Medicine Crow. The name was previously only held by Custer.