CHAPTER II - FOOTNOTES

'New York Times, 17 September 1866.

²New York Times, 6 March 1876; Edgar I. Stewart, Custer’s Luck (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955), pp. 120-121.

¹U. S. Congress, House, Index to Reports of Committee of the House of Representatives, Serial No. 1715, 44th Cong., 1st sess., 1876.

'New York Times, 6 March 1876; Monaghan, Custer, p. 368; John

S. Gray, Centennial Campaign, the Sioux War of 1876 (Ft. Collins, CO: The Old Army Press, 1976), p. 59.

⁵Bismarck Tribune, 21 July 1875.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷John Gray, Centennial Campaign (Ft. Collins, CO: The Old Army Press, 1976), p. 61.

* Reports of Committee, p. 157.

"Gray, Centennial Campaign, p. 60. ^u>Ibid., p. 61.

"Monaghan, Custer, p. 362.

¹²Merrington, Custer Story, p. 278.

‘^Whitakker, Complete Life of General George A. Custer, p. 638. ^Department of Dakota, Miscellaneous File: Little Big Horn Expedition, 1876, Record Group 93, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D C.

^lsStewart, Caster’s Luck, p. 121.

''’New York Times, 3 March 1876.

Gray, Centennial Campaign, p. 61.

,_Qi^D^^partm<;^{nt ot Dakot}a, Letters Received, 1876, Record Group - '3, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

New York Herald, 6 May 1876.

thlM /v" ^H“^gh“’ ^Thf Campaign Against the Sioux," Journal of tbe MMtary Service Institution 17 (January 1896V8 New York Times, 3 March 1876.

“McFeeley, Grant. A Biography, p. 433.

²³Reports of Committee, p. 153; Stewart, Custer's Luck, p. 126. ²⁴/bid., p. 154.

²⁵Ibid., p. 154; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, pp. 127-128.

^2GIbid., p. 155; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, p. 129; Gray, Centennial Campaign, p. 60.

²¹ Ibid., p. 179-

^2tiThe Nation, 16 March 1876.

‘Reports of Committee, pp. 155 and 158; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, p. 129-

⁵⁰Ibidp. 159; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, p. 128. ^ilIbid„ p. 164.

³²Ibid., p. 162.

³⁵Ibid., pp. 230 and 234; Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 65-66. ⁱ⁴Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 65-66. ⁱ⁵Ibid., pp. 162-163. ^i(,Ibid.

³⁷Ibid., p. 163.

³⁸New York Times, 5 April 1876; Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 64-65.

³⁹New York Times, 5 April 1876.

⁴⁰Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 63-65.

^'Merrington, Custer Story, p. 284.

⁴²Charles Francis Bates, Custer’s Indian Battles (Bronxville, NY: By the Author, 1936), p. 28.

^Department of Missouri: Letters Sent, 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

^New York Herald, 18 April 1876.

⁴⁵Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 8.

⁴⁶Missouri Letters Sent, RG 393, #266.

⁴~Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 8.

⁴⁸Merrington, Custer Story, p. 292.

⁴⁹Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 9. ^l0Monaghan, Custer, p. 367; Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 67-68; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, pp. 132-134.

’’Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 9.

⁵²General George A. Custer, Note to President Ulysses S. Grant, 1 May 1876, William J. Ghent, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

^Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 10.

⁵⁴New York World, 2 May 1876; New York Herald, 2 May 1876.

^Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 10.

⁵⁶J. P. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains. A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West 1815-1875 (New York: Archer House, 1886), p. 513; Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 70-71; Monaghan, Custer, p. 367; Stewart, Custer’s Luck, pp. 133-134.

“’’Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 11.

⁵⁸New York Herald, 4 May 1876.

⁵⁹Ibid., 6 May 1876,

^wlHughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,” p. 13.

⁶¹Ibid., p. 13.

⁶²Ibid., pp. 13-14.

^Department of Dakota, Letters Received, 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D C.

THE 1876 SIOUX CAMPAIGN: CUSTER MARCHES TO THE LITTLE BIG HORN

The Bismarck Tribune on May 10, 1876, informed its readers: It now seems certain that General Terry will command in person the Black Hills expedition, General Custer detained in Washington as a witness in the impeachment case. The expedition will consist of twelve companies of cavalry under command of Major M. A. Reno.¹ Shock and disappointment must have registered on Reno’s face when Custer strutted into his Fort Lincoln headquarters the following day and signed General Order Number Seven, thereby assuming command of the regiment.²

Impetus for the 1876 expedition against recalcitrant bands of Sioux and Cheyennes lay in Custer’s 1874 Black Hill expedition. Ostensibly, that expedition was organized for the purpose of charting the basically unknown region for potential fort locations and possible routes for the erection of telegraph lines. Unofficially, the trip was a quest for confirmation of gold deposits.

For the Sioux who owned the Black Hills, that region was the sacred “Pa Sapa,” the hunting ground of the “Great Spirit,” and they adamantly refused to relinquish title to the territory. In 1868, when the United States government had no use for the Black Hills, it was ceded to the Sioux as part of the Great Sioux Reservation under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Article twelve of the treaty required approval by three-fourths of all adult male Sioux before any part of the reservation could be ceded. In response to government requests, approximately twenty thousand Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapaho met with a government commission near Camp Robinson, Nebraska, September 1875. The military representative on the commission was General Terry, and for the Sioux, Spotted Tail (Brule) and Red Cloud (Oglala) were spokesmen. Conspicuously absent were the Sioux’s most prominent war leaders, Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa) and Crazy Horse (Oglala); they refused to be enticed by the government’s promise of free gifts. For mineral rights to the Black Hills the Sioux were offered four hundred thousand dollars per annum, and for outright sale the offer reached six million dollars. Speaking for the Sioux, Spotted Tail indignantly rejected both offers; the Black Hills were not for sale at any price.³

In order to achieve control of the Black Hills, an ingeniously simple plan was adopted by the War Department in cooperation with the Department of the Interior and President Grant. First of all, mining areas in the Black Hills were opened for prospectors; the army would remain neutral and no longer evict trespassers on the Sioux Reservation. Logically, the government assumed that increased intrusions into their territory would induce the Sioux to retaliate, whereupon the government could claim previous treaties to be violated.⁴

In order to ensure success, on December, 3, 1875, Secretary of Interior Zachariah Chandler addressed a request to Secretary of War Belknap requesting action be taken against hostile Sioux who roamed outside their reservation. Those errant groups, the largest of which were the Hunkpapa band led by Sitting Bull, and an Oglala band led by Crazy Horse, were delivered an ultimatum: move to the nearest agency January 31, 18⁷6, or military force would be dispatched to compel them to obey the order.¹ As expected, the plan progressed, and on February 1 Chandler notified Belknap that since the Sioux under Sitting Bull s leadership had failed to comply with the 3rd of December directive the date specified (January 31, 1876) the War Department would direct the army to force Sitting Bull into compliance.⁶

Overall, responsibility for organizing the plan of attack was given to General Philip H. Sheridan, Commander of the Military Division of the Missouri. Within his division were the Department of the Platte under General George Crook and the Department of the Dakota under

eneral Alfred H. Terry; they were notified by Sheridan on February

SPOTTED TAIL Courtesy Mercaldo Archives

RED CLOUD Courtesy Mercaldo Archives

SITTING BULL Courtesy McrcaJdo Archives

1*1^    -x- w

10, 1876, from the Secretary of War to initiate hostilities against the Sioux. At that point Sheridan’s only advice to Terry was that Crook would move from his base in Wyoming north towards the headquarters of the Powder and Big Horn Rivers. In addition, department lines were to be disregarded by the commanders and operations were not to be in concert.⁷

Originally, Sheridan’s plan was based on the same idea that had proven successful in 1868 and had resulted in Custer’s attack on Black Kettle’s village along the Washita River.⁸ As before, strategy called for a winter campaign with an incursion of three attacking columns into Indian territory. Planning could not be precise because the exact location of the two main hostile camps was not known, but at least during winter they were less likely to be roaming the wilderness. Possibly, then, the hostiles could have been anywhere in a vast triangular region encompassed by the Yellowstone, Big Horn, and Little Missouri Rivers.

The best early intelligence reports placed Crazy Horse on the Rosebud River and Sitting Bull on the Little Missouri, and so plans were made accordingly. Crook’s responsibility was Crazy Horse, so he was to march from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, northward into the Powder River-Rosebud River area. Colonel John Gibbon, with a small force, was to move eastward from Fort Ellis, Montana, along the \ ellow stone. Custer, with twelve companies of the Seventh Cavalry, w as to move westward from Fort Lincoln to the Little Missouri River where it was believed Sitting Bull was waiting for him. Eventually, t e Dakota and Montana columns united, but two elements delayed t e Dakota column - bad weather and the absence of its scheduled ie d commander, Custer, who was in Washington.

rook s Wyoming column was first into the field on March 1. With ^comP^ani^{es an}d two infantry companies, approximately _H ^tn’ ^e ^^eP^arted Fort Fetterman northwards towards the Big fumed!?^Unta«^{S Aittlou}8*¹ ^e ^{was in} charge of the expedition, Crook I i»_P f^f 1/^{eCliV C comman}d of the column to elderly General John

temn<-r it ^ ^Cal*^{ler was ni}ghtmarish with blinding blizzards and mperatures of 25 degrees below zero; however, on March 16, a

village was detected on the Powder River. Crook ordered Reynolds to take three battalions, surround the village, and attack at dawn. Initially, the surprise attack was successful, but the stunned Sioux and Cheyennes quickly regrouped and provided strong resistance. After suffering only four killed and with frigid temperatures approaching 30° below zero, Reynolds decided to retire from the field and reunite with Crook. The combined columns then struggled back to Fort Fetterman where the disgruntled Crook promptly preferred court-martial charges against Reynolds.⁹

While Crook procrastinated at Fort Fetterman, Terry prepared to march with Custer as his cavalry commander. Terry informed Sheridan of his plans in a May 15 letter:

Information from several independent sources seems to establish the fact that the Sioux are collected in camps on the Little Missouri and between that and the Powder River.

I have already ordered Colonel Gibbon to move eastward and suggest that it would be very desirable for General Crook’s column to move up as soon as possible. It is represented they have 1500 lodges, are confident, and intend to make a stand. Should they do so, and should the three columns be able to act simultaneously, I should expect great success. We start tomorrow morning.

Although Terry preferred to plan cautiously, Sheridan was less concerned about their opposition. He telegraphed Terry on the 16th: Your telegram received. I will hurry up Crook, but you must rely on the ability ofyour own column for best success. I believe it to be fully equal to all the Sioux which can be brought against it, and only hope they will hold fast to meet it. Keep me as well posted as you can, and depend upon my full assistance in every respect. You know the impossibility of any large number of Indians keeping together as a hostile body for even one week.^{! 1} Sheridan’s belief in the superiority of the American soldier over his Indian counterpart and his opinion that any large number of Indians could not remain together for very long were typical of the

PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN Courtesy New York Historical Society

GEORGE CROOK

^(:nun**y Utovty of Confess Bnufy-Hatuty Collection    ^M ° ^M°^{WR TEKBY}

Courtesy National Archives Brady Collection

stereotyped and ethnocentric views that contributed greatly to the Little Big Horn disaster.¹²

In answer to Terry’s request, Sheridan informed Crook on the 16th that Terry was departing and urged him to move into action as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Crook, he did march on May 29- On June 17, in the Rosebud valley, his thirteen hundred-man column was struck by a numerically inferior force of Sioux and Cheyennes directed by Crazy Horse. The battle was a definite moral victory for the hostiles who were intent on stopping Crook’s advance on their encampment which was less than fifty miles away. Staggered by the loss of nine men killed, Crook retreated to the familiar sanctuary of Wyoming. To make matters worse, Crook failed to communicate with Terry concerning the battle, location of hostiles, or, most importantly, their newly revealed aggressive tactics.¹³

On May 17, 1876, the Dakota column marched out of Fort Lincoln as the regimental band played "Garry Owen and The Girl I

Left Behind Me.” Libbie accompanied her husband for the first day’s journey and camped with him that night. In the dawn light of the following morning, she waved farewell to her beloved Autie for the last time.¹⁴

If Custer was depressed about his “humiliation” at the hands of Grant, it was not discerned by reporter Mark Kellogg. Although the president had warned Armstrong to stay away from newspapermen, Kellogg, who represented the Bismarck Tribune and New York Herald, was allowed by the expedition’s commander, General Terry, to join them. The intrepid reporter was doomed to die with Custer at the Little Big Horn, but much of his correspondence was published posthumously by the papers for which he wrote. From camp on the Heart River, May 17, 1876, he described Armstrong:

General Custer is full of life and spirit, the same true soldier, exhibiting the dashing bravery of a man who knows no fear, true to the life in him. His energy is unbounded. Fatigue leaves no traces on him, and whatever care passes him is hidden within his inner self.

His men respect him, and will do brave things under his

leadership.¹⁵

Perhaps Armstrong was merely acting carefree, but in reality he had every reason to be happy. Washington, with its byzantine politics, was far behind him and ahead was his greatest thrill - the promise of battle. Although Terry was in overall command, Armstrong did march at the head of his Seventh Cavalry, and accompanying him were his brothers, Tom and Boston, and nephew, Autie Reed. Financially, his prospects were at their zenith, thanks to the Redpath offer. Two developments of which he was never to learn would have perhaps pleased him the most. On May 29, 1876, U. S. Grant formally announced that he would not seek a third term, a decision partially induced by revelations of the Belknap scandal. In mid-June the House passed a bill authorizing the president to retire Colonel William H. Emory, Fifth Cavalry, with the rank of Brigadier General. Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Merritt replaced Emory as Colonel of the Fifth; consequently, the next senior lieutenant colonel and first on the promotion list was G. A. Custer. Ironically, whether Custer found his quarry or not, he soon would have received his first promotion in ten years.

By^r May 29 it became obvious that Sitting Bull was not to be found

on the Little Missouri River. Terry then moved west paralleling the

Yellowstone River to join with Colonel Gibbon who had been in the

field since April 1 with his Montana column. On the evening of June

8 aboard the supply steamer Far West, Terry received reports from

Gibbon’s chief scout, Lieutenant James Bradley, of the presence of

a large \ illage containing about four-hundred lodges in the Rosebud valley.¹⁶

Acting on that information, Terry dispatched Major Marcus A. Reno on a scouting mission down the Powder River and across to the Tongue River Reno discovered an old trail and followed it to the Rosebud, in clear violation of Terry’s specific orders. The hapless major further complicated his difficulties by not following the trail ar enough to ascertain if it diverged westward from the Rosebud towar s t e Big Horn River. Terry expressed his disgust at Reno’s course of action in his diary entry of June 19:

In the afternoon received dispatches from Major Reno in forming me that he had been to the mouth of Rosebud

CAPTAIN THOMAS W. CUSTER Courtesy of Custer Battlefield Mrs. E.B. Custer Collection

LT. COLONEL G.A. CUSTER Courtesy of the National Archives

BOSTON CUSTER Courtesy of Custer ttattieftek/

HARRY ARMSTRONG REED Courtesy of Custer BattlefieUi

^1*1

.... sent Hughes to meet Reno .... Reno gave him no reason for his disobedience of orders.¹'

★

Custer, as per Special Field Order Number 12, was impatiently awaiting Reno’s arrival at the mouth of the Tongue River.’⁸ Terry’s original plan called for him to march up the Tongue with nine companies of cavalry and then across and down the Rosebud, while Gibbon moved up the Rosebud.¹⁹ Reno’s reconnaissance invalidated that plan, so in order to coordinate a new effort, Terry called for a conference.

On June 21 aboard the Far West the final planning session took place with the chief officers, General Terry, Lieutenant Colonel Custer, Colonel Gibbon, and Major Brisbin, in attendance. General Sheridan, in Philadelphia for centennial festivities, received news by telegram via Chicago of Terry’s plan on the 4th of July:

No Indians have been met with as yet, but traces of a large and recent village have been discovered 20 or 30 miles up the Rosebud. Gibbon’s column will move this morning on the north side of the Yellowstone for the mouth of the Big Horn, where it will be ferried across by the supply steamer, and where it will proceed to the mouth of the Little Horn, and so on. Custer will go up the Rosebud tomorrow with his whole regiment and thence to the headwaters of the Little Horn, thence down the Little Horn.

I only hope that one of the two columns will find the Indians. I go personally with Gibbon.™

I hose last two sentences are very important. They indicate that the exact location of the hostile village was not known, that Terry expected the columns to operate independently, and that Custer cer-tamly had permission to find the Indians with his column of twelve ca\ alr\ companies. W hen that statement was released two days later < t e eastern newspapers, the last two sentences were mysteriously

^efr' ^{S WaS} *^^e ^^ast °®cial information received by Shendan and .he War Department prior to news of Custer s defeat which occurred on June 25, 1876.

Lieutenant Janies Bradley, who served with Gibbon’s column, entered in his diary on June 21, 1876:

It is understood that if Custer arrives first, he is at liberty to attack at once if he deems prudent. We have little hope of being in at the death, as Custer will undoubtedly exert himself to the utmost to get there first and win all the laurels for himself and his regiment.¹¹ Bradley described Custer’s subsequent behavior accurately, and implicit in his statement was the belief that Custer had authorization to attack the hostiles if he discovered their village.

On the morning of June 22, Custer wrote his last article for the New York Herald. By previous arrangement with that paper he agreed to supplement Kellogg’s reports. Like a voice from the grave Custer dramatically informed the Herald readers of his plan in an article that was published over a month after his death:

Yesterday, Terry, Gibbon, and Custer got together, and with unanimity of opinion decided that Custer should start with his command up the Rosebud valley to the point where Reno had abandoned the trail, take up the latter and follow the Indians as long and as far as horse flesh and human endurance could carry his command. Custer takes no wagons or tents with his command, but proposes to live and travel like Indians; in this manner the command will be able to go wherever the Indians can.

Gibbon s command has started for the mouth of the Big Horn. Terry, in the Far West starts for the same point today, where, with Gibbon’s force and the Far West equipped with thirty days' supplies, he will push up the Big Horn as far as navigation of that stream will permit, probably as far as Old Fort C. F. Smith, at which point Custer will reform the expedition after completing his present scout.

Custer’s command takes with it, on pack mules, rations for fifteen days. Custer advised his subordinate officers, however, in regard to rations, that it would be well to carry an extra supply of salt, because, if at the end of

fifteen days the command should be pursuing a trail, he did not propose to turn back for lack of rations, but would subsist his men on fresh meat - game, if the country afforded it, pack mules if nothing better offered.²² His article revealed two important facts: his fierce determination to locate the village, and that his only tentative limitation was the fifteen days after which he was to rejoin the Terry-Gibbon columns around Fort C. F. Smith on the Big Horn. No mention was made of cooperating with the Terry-Gibbon columns at any specific destination for a coordinated attack on a hostile village.

Terry noted in his diary that he gave Custer his orders on the morning of June 22, and that he marched out around 12:00 noon.²³ Those orders were the final instructions received by Custer, and as such they remain supremely important. Because of their nature, although lengthy, they must be quoted.

The Brigadier General commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since.

It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose on you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for depart-wgfrom them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn toward the Little Horn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the ngue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling

constantly however, for your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing your left flank. The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course, its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly enclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible.

The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud that you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock’s Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon’s column, with information of the results of your examination. The lower part of the creek will be examined by a detachment from Colonel Gibbon’s command. The supply steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the river if found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration time for which your troops are rationed unless in the meantime you receive further orders.²⁴

Semantics aside, it appears that much was left up to Custer s discretion. Terry, not knowing of the village location, realized the necessity for flexible orders. Again, no rendezvous point was discussed other than the mouth of the Little Horn at the end of Custer s fifteen-day ration period. As Custer led his regiment out on the 22nd, he was not worried about the consequences if he encountered the enemy; his main concern was whether his column would be the first to discover the hostiles. It was the first, and by the afternoon of June 25, 1876, the bodies of Custer and five companies under his immediate command lay scattered along a ridge too far.

CHAPTER III—FOOTNOTES

'Bismarck Tribune, 18 May 1876.

²Seventh Cavalry Order Book, 11 May 1876, Record Group 391, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

¹Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), pp. 264-270; Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, pp. 503, 504, 510.

New York Times, 4 November 1875; Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 23-24; McFeely, Grant, pp. 437-438.

¹ Department of Dakota; Letters Received, 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D C.

^bIbid., 1 February 1876.

Ibid., 10 February 1876.

Stan Hoig, The Battle of the Washita (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1976), pp. 90-94.

Gray, Centennial Campaign, pp. 47-57; Dunn, Massacres of the ountams, P 511; John G. Bourke, On the Border with Crook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), pp. 254-280

_fr ^D™ⁿ °f Missouri, Letters Received, 15 May 1876, Record

¹⁸Department of Dakota: “General and Special Orders,” Special Order Number 12, Record Group 393, 1876, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

¹⁹Terry, “Diary,” 4 July 1876.

²⁰Secretary of War “Annual Reports,” 1874-1877, Washington,

D.C.

²¹Journal of James H. Bradley, vol. 2, Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, Helena, 1896, p. 215-²²New York Herald, 23 July 1876.

²³Alfred H. Terry, “Diary of 1876,” p. 29

²⁴General Alfred H. Terry, Secretary of War Annual Reports, House, Doc. 1, 44th Cong., 2nd session, 1876, pt. 2.

THE WEB WE WEAVE: PARTISAN POLITICS AND THE U.S. ARMY

In the early morning hours of June 26, Terry received his first news of Custer’s fate. His informants were three of Custer’s Crow Scouts who had fled the battle in its early stages, and Terry listened to their dire accounts of the events of June 25 with considerable skepticism. Terry, however, could not afford to ignore the possibility of the Seventh’s defeat. His forces were divided: Brisbin’s cavalry was five miles in the lead, while Terry, in the company of Gibbon’s infantry, lagged behind almost twenty miles from the mouth of the Little Big Horn. In his last orders to Custer, Terry had promised to bivouac at that location by the evening of the 26th, but the news from Custer’s scouts invalidated that plan. Acting on the Crows’ directions, Terry doggedly pushed forward towards the rumored battlefield. By 8:30 p.m. the infantry had been pushed nearly thirty miles, and with daylight fading, Terry bivouaced for the night. At 10:30 a.m. the following morning, after a nine-mile march, Terry reached the survivors of the Little Big Horn disaster.¹

Remnants of seven companies were entrenched on bluffs above the Little Big Horn about four miles southeast from the site of Custer’s last stand. Since the afternoon of the 25th, they had been surrounded and beseiged on what is now known as Reno Hill by hordes of Sioux and Cheyenne w^rarriors. The survivors were commanded by Major Marcus A. Reno and Captain Frederick W. Benteen; none among them professed to know the location or fate of their commanding officer, Custer. The joy and relief of their rescue was quickly transformed into despair with news from Lieutenant Bradley that he had discovered almost two hundred mutilated bodies, bloated by the hot summer sun, on a ridge only four miles distant.²

That evening after conferring with the principal surviving officers, Terry wrote his first reports of the battle. On the 27th, Muggins Taylor, a scout attached to Gibbon’s column, was entrusted to deliver this first set of official reports to Captain D. W. Benham, the acting commander of Fort Ellis, Montana. That fort was situated within a few miles of Bozeman, Montana, where the closest telegraph line to the battlefield was located.³ Enroute to Fort Ellis, Taylor passed through Stillwater, Montana, on the night of July 1 where he gave a brief version of the battle to W. H. Norton who represented the Helena Herald.⁴ On the afternoon of July 3, Taylor arrived in Bozeman on his way to the fort. In Bozeman he related another brief version of the battle, this time to the editor of the Bozeman Times. So, to the Bozeman paper belonged the honor of printing the first account of the events of June 25, 1876, which it did in a July 3 extra released at 7:00 p.m. The Times story was sensational and highly inaccurate; most significantly it contained erroneous information which appeared to make Custer the scapegoat. According to the Times:

The battle was fought on the 25th, 30 or 40 miles below the Little Horn. Custer attacked the Indian village of from 2500 to 4000 warriors on one side and Col. Reno was to attack it on the other. Three companies were placed on a hill in reserve. General Custer and fifteen officers and Every Man Belonging to the Five Companies was killed.

Reno retreated under the protection of the reserve. The whole number killed was 315. General Gibbon joined Reno ....

The situation now looks serious. Gen. Terry arrived at Gibbon’s camp on a steamboat and crossed the command over and accompanied it to join Custer, who knew it was coming before the fight occurred ....*’

What? Custer knew Gibbon’s command was coming before the fight occurred? That piece of information was neither accurate nor relevant, and it gave the reader the impression that Custer attacked without waiting for Gibbon’s forces to join him.

^w^^w^^w * ^w^^ww^w

Immediately after Captain Benham received Terry’s dispatches from Taylor, he rode into Bozeman in order to transmit them. Arriving around 6:00 p.m. he conferred with telegraph operator J. W. Taylor for over an hour on the message to be sent and then departed before its transmittal. Unfortunately, by the time Taylor began his transmissions, the line to Helena, south, had been closed for the evening by the Helena office. To complicate matters, the following morning Taylor learned that during the night the line had been broken around Ross Fork, Montana, and no messages could be sent.⁶ Ultimately, Terry’s supremely important Official Report arrived at the War Department around 9:00 p.m. on July 7.

In the meantime, the Helena Herald published an “extra” on July

4, thereby becoming the second newspaper to report the Little Big Horn disaster. Their version, since Taylor was the same source, varied little from the Bozeman Times’ )u\y 3 issue. More importantly, the Herald editor, Andrew Fisk, telegraphed the news to the “Associated Press in Salt Lake City. The east first learned of Custer’s death from the reports emanating out of Salt Lake City which were published in a few late eastern editions on July 5, 1876. By the morning of July 6 most of the nation was shocked by headlines such as The New York Times Massacre of Our Troops,” or The New York Herald’s “General Custer Killed-A Blood Battle,” but the accompanying articles were the same sketchy reports from the Bozeman, Helena, and Salt Lake City source—Muggins Taylor.

By the morning of July 7 the press had a new source of information, and the standard reports either criticized Custer or implied he had disobeyed Terry s final orders. Bismarck emerged as the new lountainhead of information. The army carefully controlled releases to the eastern newspapers from its nerve centers at Department of Missouri headquarters in Chicago, the War Department in Viashington, and the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia where

enerals Sheridan and Sherman were quartered. The army’s oracle in Bismarck was Terry’s Adjutant Captain E. W. Smith who had been assigned by his commander to answer inquiries concerning the recent disaster. Captain Smith had accompanied the Seventh’s

wounded aboard the Far West, while Terry and his forces remained in the field. At approximately 11:00 p.m. on July 5, the Far West docked in Bismarck, and Smith began his telegraph transmissions to the division headquarters in Chicago.

Terry’s official report, written on the evening of June 27, had been sent via Muggins Taylor. Because of a telegraph line breakdown, it had not been received by the army command or released to the public. At the mouth of the Big Horn on July 2, Terry prepared a second “confidential’’ report for Smith to telegraph to General Sheridan This report became the first official news from Terry and was released to most of the eastern newspapers on the morning of July 7. Terry’s confidential report was controversial in its content and intent: it focused responsibility for the Little Big Horn on Custer by claiming he disobeyed orders and attacked twenty-four to forty-eight hours ahead of schedule.

The very nature of the report’s release to the public was controversial. Smith telegraphed it to Chicago on the morning of July 6, and from there it was relayed to General Sheridan at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. Sheridan gave it to General Sherman to read, and in his haste to transmit the report to the Secretary of War, he reportedly entrusted it to a courier whofalsely represented himself as a proper messenger. (One would think a proper military messenger would have been easily recognized by his uniform.) In reality, the “messenger” was employed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, and before he delivered the dispatches to the telegraph office he took the opportunity to copy them for publication. Not only did the Inquirer print the report on July 7, but nearly all major eastern newspapers ran it.

Two curious elements of the “mysterious messenger story emerge. First, Generals Sheridan and Sherman never made any statements implicating a reporter for the Inquirer or any other newspaper as the culprit responsible for the release of the confidential telegram. Robert Hughes appears to be the subsequent source for that version, and he did not make that claim until 1896. Two public statements were made by Sheridan and Sherman which were perhaps related to the issue. On July 7, Sheridan claimed in the New York Herald that dispatches had either been lost or repressed, and that no word had been received from Terry since June 21^s Who had the opportunity to repress information? Army command and the War Department -no one else. Why suddenly the inclusion of the concept of repression of evidence? Terry’s official report was still circulating somewhere in the “twilight zone,” but there was no reason for Sheridan to believe it had been repressed. Most pointedly, if no news had been received from Terry, then what was the confidential report he had read and was that very day plastered on the front pages of newspapers everywhere? Sherman was equally vague in a statement to the New York Times on July 7:

Gen. Sherman says that he thinks the first dispatch giving the details of the battle was mislaid, or else some enterprising newspaper correspondent bought up the messenger and sent the account East, thus keeping the War Department in ignorance of the occurrence.⁹ For some reason he chose to mention an “enterprising newspaper correspondent in connection with the delayed original report from Terry, but not the confidential report just released.

It is possible that Terry’s confidential report was “leaked” to the press and not the result of deception by an unscrupulous correspondent. Perhaps the most compelling evidence is the fact that the report released to the newspapers differed in significant details from Terry’s report as it was originally written. As a result of the editing, Terry’s

report became even more critical of Custer. The newspaper version was as follows:

I think I owe it to myself to put you more fully in possession of the facts of the late operations. While at the mouth of the Rosebud I submitted my plan to Gen. Gibbon and Gen. Custer. It was that Custer, with his whole regiment, should move up the Rosebud till he should meet a trail Reno had discovered a few days before but that he should not follow it directly to the Little Big Horn; that he should send scouts over it and keep the main force further toward

the south, so as to prevent the Indians from slipping in between himself and the mountains. He was also to examine the head waters of Tollaska Creek, as he passed it, and send me word of what he found there. A scout was furnished him for the purpose of crossing the country to me. We calculated it would take Gibbon's column until the 26th to reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn, and that the wide sweep I had proposed Custer should make would require so much time that Gibbon would be able to cooperate with him in attacking any Indians that might be found on the stream. I asked Custer how long his marches would be. He said they would be at the rate of about 30 miles a day. . . .

The movements proposed by Gen. Gibbon ’s columns were carried out to the letter, and had the attack been deferred until it was up, I cannot doubt we should have been successful. The Indians had evidently prepared themselves for a stand but as I learned from Captain Ben-teen that on the 22nd the cavalry marched 12 miles; on the 23rd 25 miles; from 5 a.m. till 8 p.m., of the 24th, 45 miles, and then after night 10 miles further, resting, but without unsaddling, 23 miles to the battlefield. The proposed route was not taken, but as soon as the trail was struck it was followed. ... I cannot learn that any examination of Tollaska Creek was made. I do not tell you this to cast any reflection on Custer, for whatever errors he may have committed Custer s action is unexplainable in the case.'⁰

The original version concluded with:

I do not tell you this to cast any reflection upon Custer for whatever errors he may have committed he has paid

the penalty ....

In the action itself so far as I can make out, Custer acted under a misapprehension, and thought, I am confident, that the Indians were running. For fear that they might

get away he attacked without getting all his men up and divided his command so that they were beaten in detail,ⁿ

Logically, there would be no reason for a reporter who supposedly copied the report verbatim to change its wording, or for his editor to delete the very important last paragraph. That paragraph would have been, in the absence of Terry’s official report on June 27, the first definitive account from an officer in the field of Custer’s last battle. Surely it was information the newspapers would have been dying to publish, but it was not included in the report released to them by General Sherman.

In the coordinated effort by the army and the Grant administration (who controlled the army) to promote Custer as a scapegoat, the release of Terry’s confidential report was only the tip of the iceberg. Attempts were made to give the public the impression that Custer was not only rash in disobeying Terry’s orders, but practically suicidal in attacking an Indian village of such overwhelming numbers. "It is the opinion of Army officers in Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia, including Generals Sherman, and Sheridan, that General Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number of Indians. Sitting Bull’s force being 4,000 strong.”¹² That was followed by a dispatch from Chicago which estimated that 10,000 Sioux were in position waiting for Custer, and that “officers of experience” condemned the attack as rash.¹¹ That was an increase of 150 percent for the Sioux in the space of one paragraph.

Sheridan s headquarters in Chicago released information critical of Custer; most of that information originated in Bismarck with Terry s adjutant, E. W. Smith. Reports emanating from there claimed that Custer was guilty of “that foolish pride which so often results in the defeat of men.”¹* The principal theme was that General Gibbon with his force was known by Custer to be moving up to reinforce him, and that he knew Gibbon was to arrive by the day follow ing the battle. Terry had ordered Custer to march toward t it Little Big Horn and join with an infantry column moving diagonally across the country to that same point. After uniting, the two columns were then to launch a coordinated attack. Instead of marching twenty or thirty miles per day as ordered, Custer deliberately made a forced march of seventy miles in twenty-four hours in order to reach the destination point two or three days before the infantry, and foolishly attacked the enemy.¹⁵ None of the information contained in those releases from Chicago was true. Terry’s final orders to Custer only stated that he would be at the mouth of the Little Big Horn by the 26th, and Custer should join him there after the fifteen-day period for which he was rationed. Gibbon was not marching diagonally across the country to a specific destination point from which he would cooperate with Custer in an attack on the hostiles.

The source of information for the claim that the Seventh endured a forced march of seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours was the only man, who for personal reasons, hated Custer even more than Grant - Captain Benteen. Terry, probably innocently, included Benteen’s tale of the forced march in his confidential report, but Benteen had lied. Although participant’s accounts of the June 24—June 25 march do not agree unanimously on the number of miles traveled, the following numbers appear to have a consensus of opinion: until sundown of the 24th, twenty-eight miles; eight-ten miles during the night in a twenty-two hour march, six hour rest; maximum twenty miles on the 25th over a fourteen hour period. In a forty-eight hour period, with frequent rest breaks, the Seventh marched fifty-eight miles; not the seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours with no sleep that Benteen complained about. On the day of battle, neither soldier nor horse should have been incapacitated due to lack of rest

or forced march.¹⁶

July 8 was no kinder to Custer than the 7th had been. The New York Times included a special dispatch from Washington that concluded “the facts as now understood dispose most people here to lay the blame for the slaughter upon General Custer s imprudence and probable disobedience of orders. Cited again was the fact that Custer had pushed his men and horses to their physical limits by a seventy-eight-mile forced march.¹

One of the most curious articles appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the 8th released by army headquarters in Chicago via Bismarck. It was originally written on July 1 at the mouth of the Big Morn, and although it was published anonymously, certain facts contained in the article indicate it was probably written by someone who accompanied the Terry-Gibbon column. The most likely candidate is Major Brisbin, and he is the known author of several other articles which were published anonymously in eastern newspapers. According to the author:

At noon on the 22nd of June, General Custer, at the head of his fine regiment of 12 veteran companies, left camp at the mouth of the Rosebud to follow the trail of a very large band of hostile Sioux leading up the river and westward in the direction of the Big Horn. The sign indicated that the Indians were making for the eastern branch of the above named river, marked on the maps as the Little Horn. At the same time General Terry with Gibbon s command of five companies of infantry, four of cavalry, and the Gatling battery, started to ascend the Big Horn, aiming to assail the enemy in the rear. The march of the two columns was so planned as to bring Gibbon s force within cooperating distance of the anticipated scene of action by the eve of the 26th. In this way only could the infantry be made available, as it would not do to encumber Custer’s march with foot soldiers. ... It was

not expected an attack would be made earlier than the 27th . . .

... In closing my hasty narrative of this affair, in certain respects the most remarkable in modem history, I purposely refrain from comments. The naked facts, so far as they are known, must guide your readers to a conclusion as to the cause of the calamity. The force under General Terry 's immediate command was designed, not only to cutoff the retreat of the Indians, but to afford support

o uster if needed. Its march was made in accurate

accordance with the plan communicated to each of the subordinate leaders before the movement commenced. It had reached the point where the battle was expected at the time proposed, and had not the action been precipitated for reasons as yet unknown, a force would have been present on the field sufficient to retrieve any repulse of the attacking columns.¹⁸

This remarkable letter provided the first lengthy narrative account of the battle of the Little Big Horn. The intention of its author is clear: General Terry and his plan were not at fault - Custer was “the cause of the calamity.” Particularly obnoxious and inaccurate is the last sentence. Terry’s column had not reached the “point where the battle was expected at the time proposed” because the battle was not expected at any specific location or at any fixed time! The account was written one day prior to the writing of Terry’s confidential report. It indicated that between the dates of June 27 when Terry wrote his official report and July 2 when he wrote his confidential report,” the mood of Terry and his coterie of subordinate officers had changed. Terry was pushed by Hughes, Gibbon, Smith, and Brisbin to make Custer the scapegoat and protect his own reputation. If so, the army command aided and abetted that cause since it was responsible for the release of all information pertaining to the battle.

On July 10 the Secretary of War, J. W. Cameron, continued the army’s attack on Custer with this rambling release:

For some reason as yet unexplained, Gen. Custer, who commanded the 7th Cavalry, and had been detached by his commander, General Terry, at the mouth of the Rosebud, to make a wide detour up the Rosebud, a tributary to the Yellowstone, across to the Little Horn, and down it to the mouth of the Big Horn, the place agreed on for meeting, attacked enroute a large Indian village with only a part of his force, having himself detached the rest, with view to intercept the expected retreat of the Indians, and experienced an utter annihilation of his immediate command.

The forces of General Terry and Gibbon reached the field of battle the next day.¹⁹ The agreed place of meeting was the mouth of the Big Horn? Terry and Gibbon reached the field of battle the next day?

Like variations on a theme, the littany against Custer continued; but on July 9 a break occurred. Finally, Terry’s official report which the War Department had received the night of July 7 was released to the press. Terry’s report was not only benign, it was bland. No criticism of Custer’s action appeared. Included was general information on the battle garnered from eyewitnesses, and for once the simple truth about Terry’s plan. Custer’s commanding officer wrote: At the mouth of the Rosebud informed General Custer that I should take the supply steamer Far West up the Yellowstone to ferry General Gibbon’s column over the river; that I would in all probability reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn on the 26th . „ . ,²⁰ That was all. No charge that Custer had disobeyed his orders and attacked the hostiles before the two columns could cooperate as planned. Terry’s official report adhered to the facts. His confidential report exonerated Terry, his staff, and the army from contributing to the Little Big Horn debacle, and in the process placed the blame on Custer. It fit nicely into the army-Republican efforts to discredit Armstrong.

The army s assault on Custer slowed down after the first week’s media blitz. One final blast appeared in the New York Times on July 12, 1876. As usual, it followed the Bismarck-Chicago axis and contained the, by then, familiar charge of disobedience. However, a new dramatic twist towards the article’s end made it much more graphic than previous stories:

°ff*^cer informs me General Terry did not expect or desire General Custer to attack the Indians until he should reach the Little Horn and gain a position from which to upport him. Custer attacked forty-eight hours in advance t e time Terry was to reach that point. An officer injorms your correspondent when Custer came in sight

of the 1800 lodges, a village of 7000 Indians, he swung his hat and said - ‘Hurrah! Custer’s Luck! The biggest Indian village on the American Continent!’²¹ Who was the original source of information for that quote? At the time Custer supposedly made that statement, only four men who could possibly have been present to hear it survived the annihilation of his five companies. None of these men subsequently attributed to Custer the same quote, nor were they in Bismarck at the time the quote was released to the press. Captain E. W. Smith, Terry’s adjutant, was probably the author of the statement and manufacturer of Custer’s quote. A similar statement known to have been made by him appeared in the Bismarck Tribune on the same day: “. . . though the trail leading to it (the village) was five times as great as his own, he swung high in the air his hat, and congratulated those men near him that they were about to strike the biggest Indian village on the American Continent.”²² Smith could have been the source for much of the erroneous and disparaging information about Custer, but his releases were ultimately controlled by his superior officers.

A dead Custer was as useful to the Democrats as a live Custer, perhaps even more useful. As a result of his tragic death, he had become a martyr for the Democrats beyond even the scope of the Belknap Affair. With the 1876 presidential election pending, the issue of responsibility for Custer’s death was waved like a bloody shirt by the Democrats. Typical of the anti-administration barrages was the New York World’s editorial of July 8: “If Custer had retained his command of the Big Horn expedition, taken from him to punish him for his testimony before Clymer’s committee, he would yet be alive and victorious.”²³ The blood of Custer and his men was on Grant’s hands!

In contrast the Philadelphia Inquirer defended the Grant administration. They editorialized that not only was Custer at fault but the Democratic House was directly responsible because it reduced the size of the army and destroyed its efficiency. Congressional refusal to turn supervision and control of Indians to the VC ar Department was the chief cause of the Indian wars.

Perhaps the most effective and certainly the most vocal Democratic organ was the New York Herald. Its bold headlines inquired “Who Slew Custer?” and rhetorically answered: “The celebrated peace policy of Grant . . . that nest of thieves, the Indian Bureau, with its thieving agents and favorites as Indian traders . . that is what killed Custer. ²⁵ The following day it took aim at the pregnant silence of President Grant.

Had Sheridan been killed by the Indians instead of Custer, President Grant would have published an address on the subject. But for Custer, who made Sheridan, and did more than any one man to make Grant president, the Sitting Bull of the White House has never a word to offer.²⁶

Not until September 2, 1876, did the president break his public silence. With expected rancor towards Custer, he promoted the official army line and even contributed more erroneous elaboration: I regard Custer’s massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary - wholly unnecessary. He was not to have made the attack before effecting the junction with Terry and Gibbon. He was notified to meet them on the 26th, but instead of marching slowly, as his orders required, in order to effect the junction on the 26th, he enters upon a forced march of eighty-three miles in twenty-four hours, and then thus has to meet the Indians alone on the 25th,²⁷ Grant was not known for his charity towards political or personal enemies, and Custer qualified on both counts.

The army was content with its early version of the events of June 25, 1876, and had no desire to investigate the affair. Custer was readily sacrificed, Terry and Sheridan’s reputation defended, and Reno was eft on his own hook. Considering the Little Big Horn disaster and t e ismal tactical failures of the Centennial Campaign, the army emerged relatively unscathed. Custer’s head was the only one to roll, a eit posthumously; the recalcitrant bands of Sioux and Cheyennes eventually returned to their reservations because they were starving to death, and Sheridan finally received a S200_t000 appropriation from

Congress to build forts on the Tongue River and mouth of the Big Horn. On July 8, a bill was reported by the Committee on Indian Affairs that declared the country north of the North Platte River and east of the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming Territory open for exploration and settlement. This was a unilateral decision to cede previously unceded territory.

In the aftermath of the Little Big Horn, biased Republican attempts to discredit Custer were simply a continuation of their earlier response to his participation in the Belknap affair. From army headquarters in Bismarck, St. Paul, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., contrived releases obscured the facts and promoted Armstrong as a scapegoat. Despite the fog created by partisan politics and self-interest, a rational explanation of Custer’s decision to march into the valley of the Little Big Horn gradually emerged.

CHAPTER IV—FOOTNOTES

‘General Alfred H. Terry, Secretary of War Annual Reports, House, Doc. 1, 44th Cong., 2nd session, 1876, pt. 2, pp, 463-464.

²Edward S. Godfrey, “Custer’s Last Battle,” The Century Magazine XLIII, January 1892, p. 383; Fred Dustin, The Custer Tragedy (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Bros., Inc., 1939), pp. 170-176; Monaghan, Custer, p. 390.

'Department of Missouri: Letters Received, 5 July 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D C.

^Helena Herald, 4 July 1876.

’Bozeman Times Extra, 3 July 1876.

'’Department of Missouri: Letters Sent, July 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

Hughes, “Campaign Against the Sioux,’’ p. 20.

⁸New York Herald, 7 July 1876.

⁹New York Times, 7 July 1876.

“'Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 July 1876.

¹'Department of Missouri: Letters Sent, 6 July 1876, Record Group 393, National Archives Record Service, Washington, D.C.

^!2New York Times, 7 July 1876.

^l}Ibid.

^HIbid.

¹⁵Ibid.

‘''Godfrey, “Custer’s Last Battle,” pp. 358-370; Nelson A. Miles, Personal Recollections of General Nelson A. Miles (Chicago: The Werner Co., 1896), pp. 198, 205; “General Godfrey’s Narrative,” in The Custer Myth, ed. W. A. Graham (New York: Bonanza Books, 1953), pp. 147-148; Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, pp. 527-529;

New York Herald, “Statement by Scout George Herendeen,” 8 July 1876; Monaghan, Custer, p. 379; Frederick Whittaker, A Complete Life of General George A. Custer (New York: Sheldon and Co., 1876), p. 579.

^l7New York Times, 8 July 1876.

¹⁸Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 July 1876.

¹⁹Ibid., 10 July 1876.

²⁰New York Times, 9 July 1876.

^2lIbid., 12 July 1876.

²²Bismarck Tribune, 12 July 1876.

²³New York World, 8 July 1876.

^Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 July 1876.

^2,New York i/eraW, l6july 1876.

²⁶Ibid._t 17 July 1876.

²ⁿIbid., 2 September 1876.

tW

r    CUSTER AT THE CROW’S NEST: V    “THE BEST LAID SCHEMES

Y    O’ MICE AND MEN”

Unless one took it for granted that Custer callously disregarded Terry’s orders and pursued a mono-maniacal, suicidal charge merely for the sake of glory, the question of why Custer attacked the hostiles still was unanswered. Critical information from Seventh Cavalry survivors favorable to Custer was slow to be released. The Reports of November 1876 to the House of Representative 44th Congress, 2nd Session, contained the official reports of Terry, Gibbon, Reno, and Benteen. Terry’s dispatches to Sheridan were included, but his confidential telegram was noticeably absent.

In his expanded report Terry basically contradicted earlier army releases to the press and the various statements made by “officers in the know.” According to Terry the plan agreed upon called for Gibbon’s column to arrive at the mouth of the Little Big Horn on the 26th of June. Custer was to allow time for Gibbons to reach that point by following the Rosebud south of the Indian trail before turning toward the Little Big Horn. Somewhere on the Little Big Horn the Sioux should be found, but there was no known fixed objective point. By the use of scouts it was hoped the two columns could cooperate, but it was necessary to divide the command because Gibbon s slow-moving infantry would only hinder Custer’s movement.¹

Reno’s official report was written while in camp on the 'Yellowstone River, July 5, 1876; therefore, it predated his August 8 article for the New York Herald and was his first written account of the battle. His report reveals that in spite of the lenient treatment of his commanding officer in the Herald article, he was guilt\ from the

beginning of disseminating misinformation. He alluded to the truth but managed to dance around it when he described Custer’s actions and instructions on the 24th and 25th of June. According to Reno, around 9:25 p m. on the 24th, Custer called an officer’s meeting to report that his scouts had definitely discovered a village in the valley of the Little Big Horn, and to reach it they would have to cross the divide between the Rosebud and Little Big Horn Rivers. Since that would be impossible to do in the daytime without being discovered by the enemy, they would be forced to march that night After marching from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the scouts informed Custer the divide could not be crossed before daylight, so they rested for three hours. The march was resumed, the divide crossed, and about 8:00 a.m. on the 25th the command was in a valley of one of the branches of the Little Big Horn. Around that time Indians were seen, and it is certain they could not be surprised, so Custer attacked at once. Reno attributed Custer’s demise to the number of opposition, his rapid marching for two days and one night before the engagement, and the daylight attack around 12:00 noon instead of in the early morning.²

The facts surrounding Custer’s march into battle were finally

published, though obscurely, in the report of Lieutenant George D.

Wallace, Custer’s engineering officer and itinerist of the June 22-25

march. After a leisurely march of twenty-eight miles on the 24th, the

Seventh went into camp at 7:45 p.m., and Custer awaited word from

his advance scouts concerning the direction the Indian trail they were

following headed. Around 9:00 p.m. Crow scouts returned to camp

with the eagerly anticipated information that the trail crossed the

divide towards the Little Big Horn; however, the village’s location

^ as not known at that time as Reno’s official report would have us believe.⁵

From his Crows Custer learned of a vantage point, a small hill on the divide between the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn Rivers now known as the “Crow’s Nest.” It was possible from the Crow’s Nest to peer unseen into the valley of the Little Big Horn which was fifteen miles away. With a little luck in the dawn's early light, the village

could be visually located, or at least tell-tale smoke from its campfires would reveal its presence. Custer dispatched his chief of scouts, Lieutenant Charles A. Varnum, and a group of Crow and Ankara scouts on this mission. Varnum was to inform him immediately if the village was located, but if by noon his scouts could not discover it, the group was to return.⁴

Realistically, Custer knew that if a village was camped in the Little Big Horn valley, it would be impossible for his column to reach it during the night and equally impossible to approach it undetected during the daylight of the 25th. He therefore gave his men notice that they would begin a night march at 11:30 p.m. towards the Crow's Nest. Before a gathering of his officers he announced his plan as Lieutenant Godfrey later related:

The General said that the trail led over the divide to the Little Big Horn and the march would be taken up at once, as he was anxious to get as near the divide as possible before daylight, where the command would be concealed during the day, and give ample time for the country to be studied, to locate the village, and to make plans for the attack on the 26th.⁵ Based on the information available to him, Custer’s plan was rational, logical, and the best he could have implemented. It allowed for his scouts to reconnoiter the area and send back their intelligence information, If the village was in the valley, he planned to surround it during the night and launch a surprise attack at dawn on the 26th. It was the same scheme he had used effectively against the Cheyennes

at Washita in 1868.

As ordered, the Seventh marched approximately eight miles from 1:00 a.m. to daylight following along either Davis Creek or Thompson Creek. At the head of the creek they camped in a ravine to await word from Varnum.⁶ Varnum arrived at the Crow’s Nest aroun 2:30 a.m. accompanied by half-breed scout Mitch Bouyer, experience frontiersman “lonesome” Charley Reynolds, three Crow an ive Arikara scouts. Waiting for the approach of day light, \ arnum napped. He was soon awakened by the excited clamor o is n lan

scouts. As he recalled:

Another (stream) led down to the Little Big Horn. On this were . . . two lodges . . . which I understand were filled with dead bodies of Indians, probably front Crook’s fight of the 17th . ... I crawled up (the hill) and watched the valley till the sun rose. The Crows tried to make me see smoke from the village behind the bluffs on the Little Big Horn and gave me a cheap spy glass but I could see nothing. They said there was an immense pony herd out grazing and told me to look for worms on the grass and 1 could not see worms or ponies either.... About 5 o ’clock I sent the Rees back with a note to Custer telling him what the Crows reported, viz-a tremendous village on the Little Big Horn.'

Reynolds and Boyer agreed with the Crows that a large village was somewhere in the valley as the smoke and pony herd indicated; however, due to intervening bluffs the village itself was not actually visible.⁸

The two Arikara scouts, Red Star and Bull, whom Varnum had sent to Custer as courier, had not long departed the Crow’s Nest when Custer's plan began to go awry. From the Crow’s Nest Varnum and the remaining scouts spotted two hostiles less than two miles away who were riding towards Davis Creek where the Seventh was camped. Vt ith disgust the scouts marked the location of Custer’s camp easily because of smoke from a campfire. They judged that if they could see it, then the Sioux could see it. Soon, six other Sioux were spotted northeast of the hill; and as the scouts watched, the Sioux abruptly changed course and dashed towards the valley of the Little Big Horn.⁹

Custer received Varnum’s message around 8:00 a.m. and immediately decided to ride to the Crow’s Nest to verify the information firsthand. With Fred Girard, his Arikara interpreter, Red Star, and three other Arikaras, Custer rode the eight miles to the observation point. \\ hile their commander w^ras thus occupied, the remainder of the column moved to within a mile of his destination.¹⁰ Shortly before 9.00 a.m., Custer had his first look at the valley of the Little

LIEUTENANT CHARLES A VARNl M Courtesy of the Custer BaaHfleU Mustum

Big Horn, but in spite of the assistance of field glasses, he could not perceive the same objects viewed earlier by his scouts. Varnum recalled later that:

Custer listened to Bouyer while he gazed long and hard at the valley. He then said, “Well I’ve got about as good eyes as anybody and I can’t see any village, Indians, or anything else, ” or words to that effect. Bouyer said “Well General, if you don't find more Indians in that valley than you ever saw together you can hang me. ” Custer sprang to his feet saying, It would do a damned sight of good to hang you, wouldn’t it. ” And he and I went down the hill together. I recall his remark particularly because the word damn was the nearest to swearing I ever heard him

come.¹¹

There is still confusion as to whether Custer actually admitted seeing the evidence of a village from the hill. According to Red Star: Girard called back to the scouts: “Custer thinks it is no Sioux camp. ” Custer thought that Charley Reynolds had merely seen the white buttes of the ridge that concealed the lone teepee. Charley Reynolds then pointed again, explaining Custer s mistake, then after another look Custer nodded that he had seen the sign of a camp. Next Charley Reynolds pulled out his field glasses and Custer looked through them at the Dakota camp and nodded his head

again.¹²

Then Custer was given the unwelcome news that several separate groups of Sioux had been observed, and they probablv had discovered the cavalry _s presence. Big Belly, a Crow, asked Custer through the

Custer repHed^tef ^    ^th°^Ught °^{f thc Si}°^{UX Camp}

This camp has not seen our army, none of their scouts ave seen ust Big Belly replied.■ “You say we have not nseen. hese Sioux we have seen at the foot of the hill, two going one way, and four the other, are good scouts, they have seen the smoke of our camp. ” Custer said,

speaking angrily: “I say again we have not been seen. That camp has not seen us, / am going ahead to wait until dark and then we will march, we will place our army around the Sioux camp. ” Big Belly replied: "That plan is bad, it should not be carried out. ” Custer said: “I have said what I propose to do, I want to wait until it is dark and then go ahead with my plan. ”¹³ In contrast to his alleged reckless nature, Custer appears to have planned cautiously and conservatively.

To further confuse the situation, Fred Girard, Custer’s Arikara interpreter, stated that they reached Varnum around daybreak and . could see the large mass moving in front and down the Little Horn and a dense cloud of dust over all and behind. The camp we had found was the smaller camp (the larger camp was downstream farther), and was on the way to the larger camp and this led us all to believe that the Indians were stampeded.”¹⁴ If Girard s statement is true and that moving mass was the exodus of a small camp where the “lone teepee” was earlier sighted by Varnum, then Custers greatest fear was coming true: the quarry was escaping! That called for a cancellation of his previous plan and necessitated quick action

to prevent their escape.

Any doubts Custer might have had about marching into the valley should have been dissipated by the news he received when he returned to his command. He was promptly informed by his brother

Tom that during the night march, men of Company F had lost some

crates of hard tack along the trail. When a detail had gone to retries e it, they surprised an Indian in the process of opening one of the boxes, and he managed to elude them.^H From all indications, then, the presence of the Seventh Cavalry in the proximity of the Little Big Horn Valley was not the world’s best kept secret.

An officer’s conference was convened at which Custer expressed his belief that their presence had been discovered and therefore it was not necessary to further conceal their movements. The\ wou at once attack the village. Although he originally planned to ^^tta^ on the morning of the 26th, the likelihood of their discovery by the

Sioux made it imperative to march in order to prevent the hostiles from scattering and escaping.¹⁶ Probably the Indians would not make a stand against a regiment of cavalry, and he expected them to flee.¹ In retrospect, one of the officers present at the meeting confirmed that none of them expected the Indians to make a stand anywhere; nobody expected any hard fighting. Custer firmly believed that the Indians would scatter in all directions with the approach of his troops. In a belated vote of confidence, Edgerly confessed that he thought Custer’s plan was all right considering the information he had.¹⁸

Even with the fear that the hostiles were escaping Custer did not dash recklessly into the valley after them. He ordered Lieutenant Luther S. Hare to reconnoiter in the advance with the Arikara scouts and Lieutenant Varnum to do the same with the Crow scouts; Custer acted on their information as he marched.¹⁹ After the column crossed the divide, it averaged barely four miles per hour in covering the next eight miles. Not until Indians were actually sighted did their pace quicken.²⁰ Up until then Custer was feeling and probing as he marched, and in his last analysis of the situation he acted on the misconception that his opposition was attempting to flee rather than fight.

Many who have criticized Custer have no concept of the challenge Indian warfare presented. One who did know was Lieutenant Godfrey and he vividly described it in 1892:

It is a rare occurrence in Indian warfare that gives a commander the opportunity to reconnoiter the enemy’s position in daylight. This is particularly true if the Indians have a knowledge of the presence of troops in the country. When following an Indian trail the signs ’ indicate the length of time elapsed since the presence of the Indians.

When the signs indicate a hot trail’, i.e., near approach, the commander judged his distance and by a forced march, usually in the night-time, tried to reach the Indian t illage at flight and make his disposition for a surprise attack at daylight. At all events his attack must be made