At Richfield, George Armstrong Custer was first introduced as a general to the troops he would command. On June 28, 1863, the first order signed by Gen. George G. Meade as the newly appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac promoted three young captains, Custer, Elon J. Farnsworth, and Wesley Merritt, to brigadier-general at the request of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, commander of the Union Cavalry Corps. Custer, age 23, and Farnsworth, age 25, were notified of their promotions at the City Hotel in downtown Frederick and were assigned as brigade commanders to the newly formed Third Division of cavalry camped here on June 28-29. On June 29, Custer and Farnsworth arrived to take command of their respective brigades, and some troopers who saw Custer for the first time called him "the boy General of the Golden Lock." From Richfield, Custer and Farnsworth rode north to Gettysburg. Farnsworth died in the battle on July 3, while Custer went on to become one of the Civil War's great cavalry generals before dying on June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana Territory. Also on June 29, 1863, the I and XI Infantry Corps of the Army of the Potomac passed Richfield on their march to Gettysburg, and Meade rode by while returning from Gettysburg on July 7.