17
Apotheosis
Petite Libbie Custer found the winter of 1864–1865 in Winchester gayer than Armstrong had pictured it. General Custer established his headquarters in a Southern mansion and she presented dozens of red “Custer ties” to her husband’s men. Armstrong assigned Pennington to one of his brigades and recommended him for a promotion. Dinners, dances, parties at camp and in the little village enlivened military life. At the Michigan Brigade’s ball each dance on the program was given a name. There was “Kilpatrick’s Lancers,” “Pennington’s Quadrille,” and a galop called “Custer’s Charge.”1 Sheridan enjoyed the “hops,” bobbing around the room holding his partner like a guitar. People gossiped about his interest in a certain young lady. Some also gossiped about the appearance in camp of Corporal Tom Custer with a lieutenant’s commission and an assignment to his brother’s staff. This was nepotism, yes, but it was also the army. Look at Sheridan’s brother, Michael, on his staff and Lincoln’s son on Grant’s. . . .
In public the two boys treated each other with stiff-backed dignity, and Tom said, “If anyone thinks it is a soft thing to be a commanding officer’s brother he misses his guess.”* However, within the spacious mansion Autie and Tom tussled like the boys they were. And no matter how noisy and how rough, Libbie laughed at their antics—not with reluctant indulgence but with genuine enjoyment.
Why not be gay? The war was coming to an end. Sheridan had conquered the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman had taken Atlanta, and Will Cushing, brother of Armstrong’s classmate Allie, had sunk the Confederate Albemarle, down in North Carolina. The war produced no greater heroes than those Cushing brothers, both of them grim and unhappy, yet in courage and reckless gallantry a perfect match for the gay and carefree Custers.
An odd request came from another of Custer’s old acquaintances. General Wilson, the “imbecile” who had irritated Armstrong, now applied for his services in his new western command. This was not the last time officers who disliked Armstrong personally would ask to have him transferred to their commands. But Sheridan prized Custer’s talents too much to let him go.2
Camp gossip took a new turn on November 7 when a 5th Michigan trooper came into the lines with a grim story. The fellow said that he had been captured by Mosby’s men and had escaped. Some twenty-two other prisoners, he said, had been forced to draw lots to determine which seven of them should be hanged in retaliation for the hanging, without trial, of Mosby men caught by General Custer.
Four days later Mosby confirmed this account by sending a letter to Sheridan in which he said that he had hanged seven Union men to pay for six of his men killed by Brigadier General Custer at Front Royal and one man killed by “Colonel Powell” on his Rappahannock raid.
This was an odd letter, strangely full of misstatements. The hanging at Front Royal had occurred immediately after the fight at Milford where Rosser held back the Union cavalry which had gone to cut off Early’s retreat. At the end of the engagement Torbert sent an ambulance train of wounded northward in charge of Lieutenant Charles McMaster. This train was intercepted at Front Royal on September 23 by a gang of Mosby guerrillas. They had hardly begun looting when the Reserve Brigade—not Custer’s—appeared. The freebooters fled but six of them were caught red-handed. Amidst the wreckage lay Lieutenant McMaster, mortally wounded. He said that he had surrendered, been robbed, then shot by his captors as they retreated.†
All Union soldiers were under orders from Sheridan to hang guerrillas without trial. Infuriated at the sight of the wrecked ambulance train, squads of soldiers led off the six prisoners. They shot four of them at the edge of town, and duly hanged the other two. A note was pinned on the coat of one of the hanged men. What it said is controversial. According to Mosby, who was not present, it said this would be “the fate of Mosby and all his men.” Perhaps it did say this, but another pro-Confederate remembered its words later as: “Hung in retaliation for the death of a Federal major, killed in an ambulance this afternoon.”
The reader may take his choice. The important thing is that Custer’s brigade was not in Front Royal on September 23. Instead, it was following the retreating Confederates through New Market and on to Harrisonburg.‡ Thirty-three years later, after Mosby’s letter was well known and tradition had made Custer a principal in the lynching, two old-timers in Front Royal claimed they had seen him there. One of them described his gold braid, resplendent “suit of silk velvet,” and the long hair on his shoulders. Since Custer at this time wore neither long hair nor a braided uniform, it should be remembered that the memories of the best-intentioned men play tricks. It should be borne in mind, too, that Mosby was careless in his statements about hanging seven men, himself. He hanged only three. The rest bribed their executioners, were released because they were Freemasons, feigned death when shot, or escaped in the dark. Moreover, those executed were not hanged, as Mosby said, “on the Valley turnpike.”
Another Mosby prisoner who escaped the hanging was Captain Charles Brewster of Custer’s staff. When forced to draw lots for his life he told Mosby that he knew nothing about the Front Royal hangings, and was not there. Mosby cut him off with “That will do—it will not help your case.”3 Whatever the true facts may be, it should always be remembered that it was Grant and Sheridan who gave the order to hang guerrillas without trial. Had Custer hanged them he would have been obeying orders, and enhancing his own military record; yet he did not report killing any, while Colonel Powell, whom Mosby designated as a secondary antagonist, reported officially that he had killed four between October 3 and 13.4 Custer’s conspicuous activity undoubtedly brought him undue blame from his enemies. Certainly he, with Tom at his side, was indefatigable in destroying all crops and food which might be used either by the guerrillas or by Lee’s army. This was total war and Sherman, following the pattern in the deep South, boasted this same autumn that he was preparing “to make Georgia howl.”
The scorching of the Shenandoah Valley lasted until after Thanksgiving, certainly one time of the year when Armstrong preferred to be with Libbie. Since they had met first at that Seminary party in late November, for the rest of their lives they celebrated Thanksgiving as their “anniversary.” When unable to be together on that day they always wrote. Yet perhaps the greatest joy of their first Thanksgiving season came from a petition signed by three hundred and seventy soldiers in the 1st Michigan asking to be transferred to Custer’s division. And as orders came for a midwinter expedition up the Valley, one hundred and two boys in the Michigan 7th also petitioned to join his outfit.5
The weather turned very cold in December, with rain, hail, snow, but Sheridan determined to find and destroy Early if men and horses could stand the exposure. He sent Torbert with two divisions, Merritt’s and Powell’s, east of the Blue Ridge toward Gordonsville and Charlottesville. Custer was glad to be sent on an independent expedition with his one division, for he always preferred to operate alone. He was to ride up the Valley and draw attention from the larger force.§
This was the first time Autie and Tom rode out together in the war. With them was Pennington, commanding a brigade. As they marched south into the trough between gloomy ridges at the upper end of the Valley, the wintry sun set early. Daily the snow drifted higher and the temperature lower. Even the houses in this upper country looked different. The area had been settled by Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch. The folk here lived not in pillared mansions but in steep-roofed brick buildings with double chimneys on the end-walls. At Lacey Spring, nine miles from Harrisonburg and seventy-five from Winchester, Custer bivouacked in the snow. He knew of no enemy within miles, and a strange silence settled over the encampment. Large moist flakes soon covered men and horses. Before daylight Armstrong called his sentries in from the snowstorm’s trembling chaos, and prepared to resume the march.
Shots rang out from behind the black curtain of night. Armstrong heard wild cowboy yells from hundreds of throats. Almost four years had passed since Tom Rosser had shouted this same staccato challenge from a window at West Point. Custer replied with his shrillest cavalry commands. Pennington’s brigade at the rear was already in the saddle, so they spurred front to meet the enemy.
The battle was short and indecisive, with charge and countercharge through snow-laden underbrush, red flashes in the blue-white air, dead men lying on their faces in wet leaves, hot blood melting splotches in the snow. Custer reported capturing two battle flags and thirty-three prisoners, but then he “skedaddled” down the Valley, many of his soldiers riding bareback. As in the Charlottesville raid last year, he believed that he had accomplished his mission by diverting attention.6
By the time his column got close to Winchester many of the men were badly frostbitten. Five miles from headquarters Armstrong left them. Eager to get home, he let his black horse go—wild hoofs throwing mud recklessly over staff members who tried to keep up. Libbie met him in the hall. His wool clothes and mustache smelled of the cold outdoors as she kissed him. Tom stamped in behind. Both boys brimmed with exciting stories. The funniest one was about a Dutchman who refused to let them use his house for headquarters because “the Old Lady” was “agin it.” Armstrong, and Tom too, began calling Libbie their Old Lady, especially when she disapproved of anything they wanted to do.7 Henceforth, for the rest of their lives, this was her nickname, and Libbie always enjoyed it.
During Armstrong’s absence Libbie’s father, stepmother, and a cousin had arrived for a visit. They were accompanied by the Reverend Dr. Matson, who had helped officiate in the Custer wedding. With these distinguished guests, Armstrong arranged a special religious service for his bedraggled column. Evangelistic revivals had become popular during the later war years. Armstrong, always sensitive to music and impassioned oratory, knelt at this service and “accepted Christ as his savior.”8
As soon as men and horses were rested, Sheridan prepared them for another march. Important orders had arrived from Washington. The Middle Military District, no longer a danger area, had been given to General Hancock, a now famous and thoroughly dependable soldier, but one who seemed to have lost his old aggressiveness after being wounded at Gettysburg. Sheridan was to retain the cavalry corps and lead them to Lynchburg, one hundred and twenty-five miles west of Richmond. After destroying the railroads there, he was to go on into North Carolina and join Sherman, who had marched across Georgia to the sea and was now coming north. In case Sheridan found this infeasible, he was to return to Winchester.
Custer, as well as Sheridan’s aides, saw that their chief did not like the order. They had learned to be quiet when the little bullethead gritted his teeth.9 They all knew that the war was almost ended and that Lee could not survive the coming summer. Obviously Sheridan felt outraged at the prospect of trailing off behind “Sherman’s bummers” instead of being with Grant at the kill. Custer had always been impressed by the manner in which some officers in high command evaded distasteful orders. What would his idol, Sheridan, do now?
The column was ordered to start on February 27, 1865. Before leaving, Custer attended another evangelistic service, explaining his conversion later by saying, “Years of reflexion and study had convinced me that I was not fulfilling the end of my Creator if I lived for this world alone. Life is at all times uncertain, but to one in my profession it is particularly so.”10
The day of departure dawned warm and cloudy—one of the first mild days of the winter. The column contained nine thousand horse. Custer led the 3d Division. Adjutant Greene had been exchanged since his capture at Trevilian Station and was with him again,11 still carrying the flute about which Armstrong liked to joke. Edward A. Paul, the New York Times correspondent, also accompanied the column. Custer began the march riding his favorite mount, Jack Rucker. The first day they advanced thirty miles up the pike, going through Strasburg and bivouacking at Woodstock, familiar to them all since Custer’s triumph at the Woodstock Races. The ground was muddy. Melted snow gurgled in the brooks. Officers and men warmed their fingers around fires and speculated on their destination. Were they headed for Sherman’s army or would they come back to Winchester? Many prophesied that Sheridan would find some way to circumvent the order and join Grant.‖
Next day they marched twenty-nine miles—a blue ribbon of riders undulating along the turnpike. They passed through New Market and camped at Lacey Spring, where Custer could show Edward Paul the site of his narrow escape. The men were happy, singing as they rode, shod hoofs rippling along the hard pike. On muddy byroads they saw squads of lurking horsemen but the fellows did not attack. Sheridan called them his “provost guard.” Soldiers would not stray from his lines with those cutthroats at large.
On the third day’s march they came to Harrisonburg, a typical Pennsylvania Dutch town. The hard-surfaced pike ended here. The next twenty-six miles, to Staunton, were bottomless red Virginia clay, and from there on to Lynchburg lay another seventy-five miles of mud. Icy cold rain made the roads more impassable daily. The column slipped and sloshed along, Custer’s 3d Division at the rear now. Word came back to Armstrong that the enemy had been in Staunton but was moving over to Waynesboro, just west of Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. That night the cavalry camped in the Staunton streets, which were still tracked deep with the enemy’s footprints. Tomorrow, March 2, Custer would take the lead.¶ Rain still slanted down. The road was knee-deep in slime. Sheridan watched the column start, floundering along. He said that he could hardly recognize men he knew among the mud-caked soldiers. Horses lurched and wallowed, sometimes to their bellies. Armstrong worked constantly to keep intervals closed between his fifteen hundred men. He was determined to catch up with the enemy, and Sheridan promised to send Devin with a thousand reinforcements in case “Jube” Early stopped to fight. At noon, after struggling along for sixteen miles, Custer spied through the downpour the squalid buildings of Waynesboro. Already they had been fortified by the Confederates. Rockfish Gap must be two miles beyond, but it was invisible in the rain.
Custer immediately displayed the characteristic which made him both famous and despised. A cautious officer would have waited for his army to come up. Several hours would have been consumed studying through field glasses the enemy’s positions and placing troops to advance properly against them. Not Custer! He attacked immediately with the first brigade that arrived, and while the enemy was busy repelling them he sent three regiments, under Pennington, to circle the village and occupy the road through the gap. Then, before the enemy had time to make countermoves, Custer deployed the next two brigades that trudged in, and renewed his frontal attack. Within three hours the Union soldiers occupied Waynesboro and Custer was leading a pursuit party after fugitives who had evaded Pennington’s regiments at the gap. On the road, he stopped long enough to scratch off a note to Sheridan telling of his success, saying he had captured three pieces of artillery, three battle flags, a large train of wagons, ambulances, and four hundred prisoners. His men, in pursuit of the enemy, splashed past him while he wrote. Armstrong ended the note with: “Am in hopes of catching Early. I am pursuing him through the gap. My loss is slight.” In a postscript he added: “Another handsome battle flag is just captured.”
That evening Custer led his men through Rockfish Gap and camped on the edge of Virginia’s piedmont, a rich agricultural country rolling some hundred miles toward Richmond. After dark Custer called Chaplain Holmes to his tent and with him knelt to thank God for the victory. He had failed to catch either Early or Rosser, and suspected that they must have stayed behind, hidden in some residence in Waynesboro, but he had captured seventeen battle flags, eleven guns, and sixteen hundred prisoners.12 Tom Custer had shown exceptional gallantry—a chip from the Custer block—and received a promotion.
During the night Sheridan rode in. That man Custer had done it for him again! Little Phil inspected the bivouacs where the men rested. He congratulated them, and they made the night echo with cheers.
In the morning a drizzle of rain misted the encampment. The Blue Ridge wore a cap of new snow. South and east, beyond the curtain of rain, the sun shone on the piedmont hills, least touched of all Virginia by marching armies. Charlottesville stood only twenty miles away. Sheridan counted off fifteen hundred men to take the prisoners back to Winchester. He, with the rest of his horsemen, would march down into the sunny Virginia countryside, into the land of the Tuckahoes so rich in the romance of colonial America, a land where handsome gates stood guard on country roads and pillared mansions crowned the hills. To hell with that order to get back into the mud! It would ruin all his horses and put him helplessly afoot. Custer, riding proudly with his division, led the way toward Charlottesville. Once more he realized that commands were evaded by generals powerful enough to take the risk.
On the road, a mile from Charlottesville, the mayor met the column and handed Custer the keys to the buildings. The faculty of the University of Virginia stood on the campus under a white flag as the horsemen passed. Armstrong established his headquarters in a fine colonial mansion and sent a guard to protect Monticello. Sheridan arrived and selected another mansion for his headquarters. Pennington said later that he, Armstrong, and Tom with other aides were sitting on the gallery of their mansion when a civilian was brought to them—obviously a Confederate officer in disguise. The fellow insisted that he was not a spy—only a soldier come to see his kin. Custer let him visit the family without a guard and then, before sending him on to Sheridan, he noticed that the fellow was wearing pumps—certainly unsuitable footwear. Custer pulled off his own boots and gave them to him.13 A small gift—forget it! He’d capture a new pair from a reb on his next successful charge.
Here in the comforts of Charlottesville Sheridan abandoned his last opportunity to go to Lynchburg. As he had anticipated, many of his horses were already unserviceable with “grease heel” caused by the mud. Moreover, the change from oats to corn scoured them badly. These circumstances made it impossible for him to go back into the mountains. All he could do now was strike east into familiar country, get supplies, and rest under the gunboat protection at White House Landing on the Pamunkey. The best horses were given to Merritt and Custer for side raids to destroy crops needed by Lee’s embattled army. The raiders were also ordered to tear up railroads and destroy locks on the James River canal, which carried Confederate supplies. They must move quickly because Lee, holding off Grant with his Petersburg fortifications, could still strike out in his rear.
Custer raided to within eleven miles of Richmond. Marching back, he was surprised by Early and Rosser, who had mustered some men since the Waynesboro retreat. In the skirmish Custer’s Jack Rucker fell, pinning him down. Fortunately the horse was stunned and lay still. Chaplain Holmes thanked a merciful God while aides pulled Armstrong out from under. Custer replied with “Amen,” leaped on a fresh mount, continued to direct the fight, and ended it with a prayer of thanks and a resolution to “glorify Him and keep His commandments.”14
On March 19, 1865, Sheridan reached White House Landing and rested five days. Custer quartered himself in a comfortable house, placed his flag over the gate and arranged the captured ones—seventeen in all—along the fence. Correspondent Paul showed Armstrong the report he was sending the New York Times. It said, “General Custer deserves the credit for planning and executing one of the most brilliant and successful fights in this or any other war.” Chaplain Holmes came to headquarters and bade Armstrong good-by with the assurance that God had created him, Custer, as the special military genius of the war. Armstrong liked the Reverend Mr. Holmes and didn’t think he would deceive a fellow. Reveling in the flattery, he wrote Libbie: “Your Bo has won new laurels. . . . Oh, my angel, I have the most glorious Division. They behaved splendidly.” He told her, too, that he had not sworn a single oath since he left her, not “even in thought.”**
The march from White House Landing across the Peninsula was tedious. Half of Sheridan’s cavalrymen walked, their horses unfit for service. At the James River they tramped over a pontoon bridge spanning the broad waters, and on March 26 joined Grant’s army near Petersburg. The Union line extended west of them for fifteen miles behind elaborate fortifications of logs, sandbags, and wickerwork, with side trenches, bombproofs, bristling abatis, and chevaux-de-frise. In this muddy maze of defenses the Union Army had stagnated since Sheridan’s cavalry rode away last summer. But as soon as the roads dried this spring a decisive offensive was sure to start.
Sheridan, as well as Custer, wanted to join the final chase, but Armstrong’s immediate concern was mail from Libbie. A bundle of letters and a package containing socks and underwear awaited him. Here was a letter from Judge Bacon, who had been slow to approve of his son-in-law but who now joined in the general adulation, writing that even a horse which had been owned by the Boy General was worth more than other animals.
A letter from Libbie said that the Waynesboro flags had arrived in Washington and she had gone to the War Department to see their formal presentation. The Secretary of War had been most kind to her, and at the end of the ceremony she told Stanton that she had been waiting a long time for a letter but felt recompensed after witnessing this presentation. She said Secretary Stanton replied: “General Custer is writing lasting letters on the pages of his country’s history.”††
Yes, indeed, and Secretary Stanton must know what he was talking about. The same thing was being said by Sheridan, by Chaplain Holmes, by Judge Bacon, by the national press, and by many others. Unquestionably they were right. No doubt about it!
* Private Tom Custer became a corporal shortly before being assigned to Armstrong’s staff as a lieutenant on November 8, 1864. He received a captain’s commission, February 11, 1865. The quotation is from E. B. Custer, “Beau Sabreur,” p. 298.
† He died on October 15, Heitman, Historical Register, p. 442, O. R., I, XLIII, pt. 1, pp. 105, 441, 519; pt. 2, pp. 566, 909–910, 920, 922. J. J. Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers, pp. 292–293, and Southern Historical Society Papers, XXV, pp. 239–244, give details of both sides of the fight. There is nothing official to indicate that Custer was present, much as he may have wished to be.
‡ Custer might possibly have ridden through Front Royal September 23 but if so he took a 10-mile detour on a 40-mile march. The Michigan 1st passed through Front Royal that day but it was commanded by Col. Peter Stagg, not Custer. (See O. R., I, XLIII, pt. 1, pp. 99,463.) J. S. Mosby in his Memoirs, pp. 300–302, admits getting the facts from a Richmond newspaper report, which said Generals Torbert, Merrill, and Custer were present. Notice that Mosby carelessly transcribes the date incorrectly. On p. 368 he says Custer hanged the men, not on account of his orders, but for revenge. This is psychology, not history, and Mosby’s qualifications in the new profession may be questioned. Also note, p. 372. Pending the discovery of more tangible proof, Custer must be deemed innocent until proved guilty. See also R. B. Irwin, History of the Nineteenth Army Corps, pp. 400–401; G. N. Bliss, “Cavalry Service,” p. 18.
§ Note contradiction, or change in the plan to have Custer go on to Lynchburg, in O. R., I, XLIII, pt. 2, pp. 803, 810.
‖ Lieutenant S. M. Thompson, in his diary, p. 536, says the day was warm and cloudy. Major F. C. Newhall, Sheridan’s aide-de-camp, in With Sheridan in Lee’s Last Campaign, says it was cold and drizzly. Although the column presumably headed for Lynchburg, Thompson told his diary they were going to join Grant.
¶ F. Whittaker, Complete Life of . . . Custer . . . , p. 273, recounts this differently from the O. R., I, XLVI, pt. 2, pp. 735, 778.
** The Times article was published March 20, 1865. Armstrong made a similar boast about not swearing in mid-August, 1864. M. Merington, Custer Story, pp. 114, 141–142. During the buffalo hunt in 1872 with the Grand Duke Alexis, Custer is reported as being fluently profane. Others say not. Like accounts of Lincoln’s smutty stories, the fact is controversial.
†† The New York Times, March 22, 1865, reports 17 enemy flags coming with Custer to Washington. Libbie told the incident about Stanton in a letter to Armstrong, March 26, 1865. In her “Beau Sabreur,” p. 301, she seems to have confused it with the reception of Custer’s flags after Saylor’s Creek.