The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer

by Thom Hatch

  At about noon, swarms of warriors from the villages downstream began massing to fire from the surrounding bluffs, which placed Custer in a precarious position. Fortunately, Lieutenant Bell bravely fought his way through the Indians with a critical resupply of ammunition. Custer formed his men into a defensive perimeter while the burning of the village was completed.

  Additional warriors continued to arrive—perhaps as many as fifteen hundred now rimmed the bluffs—and the cavalrymen were for all intents and purposes surrounded by this superior force. It was approaching dusk, and Custer realized that he must withdraw.

  Major Elliott and his men, however, had not returned. Custer dispatched Captain Edward Myers to scout downstream for any sign of the missing men. Myers reported that he ventured about two miles without success.

  By this time, Custer’s outnumbered Seventh Cavalry was under attack by bands of warriors from the villages downstream and it was imperative that they withdraw without delay. It was assumed that Elliott had simply become lost and would eventually find his own way back to the supply train.

  Custer could not risk sacrificing his command by waiting any longer for Elliott, who had disobeyed orders and ridden away of his own accord. He mounted his troops and, in a bold tactical move, ordered the band to play “Ain’t I Glad to Get Out of the Wilderness” while marching down the valley toward the downstream villages. When the surprised warriors hurriedly fell back to defend their families, Custer, with darkness as an ally, countermarched his command and escaped to the supply train.

  Two days later, the Seventh Cavalry arrived triumphantly at Camp Supply—without Major Joel Elliott and his missing troopers.

  Fifty-three women and children had been taken prisoner at Washita, including a girl named Mo-nah-se-tah, who would act as an interpreter throughout the remainder of the campaign and become a subject of controversy in Custer’s personal life.

  One of the most enduring and debated rumors about Custer concerns the nature of his relationship with Mo-nah-se-tah, the Cheyenne Indian girl. The question under debate has been whether or not this teenage daughter of Chief Little Rock, who was killed in the battle, also served as Custer’s mistress and perhaps bore him a son.

  The truth at times does not matter—there has always been a certain percentage of the public who would believe anything, resulting in a person’s reputation being tarnished forever. And that was what has happened to George Armstrong Custer.

  The female subject of the scurrilous accusations, Mo-nah-se-tah, also known as Me-o-tzi, which translated means “Young Grass That Shoots in Spring,” was strikingly beautiful. Custer described her in the most glowing of terms. She was about seven months pregnant at the time of the Washita battle and gave birth to a son on January 14, 1869, who assuredly could not have been Custer’s child. Cheyenne oral tradition, however, contends that Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to another child in the fall of 1869, a boy named either Yellow Tail or Yellow Swallow—common names among the Cheyenne—and that Custer was the father. No documentation of this birth exists in reservation records at Fort Cobb, where she resided.

  The accusations of Custer’s infidelity have been based solely on the assertions of the notorious Custer critic Captain Frederick W. Benteen and Ben Clark, who blamed Custer for his dismissal as an army scout, in addition to Cheyenne Indian oral tradition. Oddly enough, apparently no other written source at that point in time bothered to document what would appear to be an exceedingly titillating and noteworthy allegation.

  Benteen’s hatred and resentment of Custer would make any accusation he made, which was for the most part merely a repeating of camp gossip, highly suspect. Benteen had hated Custer from their initial meeting, with the captain who was five years older barely masking his resentment for the younger and famous Custer whom he dismissed as a creation of the press. Benteen possibly disliked Custer due to the captain’s loyalty and respect for his former Civil War commanding officer General James H. Wilson, who had been a Custer rival. Benteen apparently interpreted a statement made by Custer during their introduction as an insult toward Wilson. However, Custer and Benteen were very much like each other—brave under fire, attuned to military discipline, and possessing a strong character—and that in itself could have caused Benteen’s bitterness.

  Frederick William Benteen was born in Petersburg, Virginia, on August 24, 1834, and moved at age seven to St. Louis, where he attended a private academy and began working alongside his father painting houses and signs. Surprisingly for a young man with Virginia roots, Frederick turned his back on the South and entered the Civil War in September 1861 as a first lieutenant in Bowen’s Battalion, which later became the Tenth Missouri Cavalry. His slave-owning father, Theodore C. Benteen, was furious at this betrayal by his son and, in addition to disowning Fred, was alleged to have said, “I hope the first bullet gets you!”

  Benteen, who was promoted to captain on October 1, 1861, distinguished himself in eighteen major engagements, including Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge, the Siege of Vicksburg, and the fight with Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest at Tupelo. Most of Benteen’s action took place in the Western Theater and in the deep South.

  Benteen’s “defection” to the North was probably not entirely due to philosophical reasons, rather encouraged by a young Unionist lady from Philadelphia named Catherine Norman, whom he would marry on January 7, 1862. Perhaps part of his bitterness could be traced to the fact that the Benteens would lose four children to spinal meningitis and raise one son, Fred, who would become a major in the army.

  While his side fought for the Union cause, the elder Benteen was employed as chief engineer on a Mississippi steamboat named the Fair Play, which supplied the Confederacy. On August 18, 1862, Captain Benteen’s company was part of a Union flotilla that captured his father’s boat. The civilian crew members were soon released—except for T. C. Benteen, who was imprisoned for the duration of the war.

  Benteen was appointed major in December 1862 and the following year fought in skirmishes at Florence and Cane Creek, at the Siege of Vicksburg, at Iuka and Brandon Station, and at the capture of Jackson. He was appointed lieutenant colonel in February 1864 and placed in command of the Fourth (Winslow’s) Brigade of General Pleasonton’s Cavalry Division. Benteen led his brigade in actions at Bolivar and Pleasant Hill, engagements on the Big Blue and Little Osage Crossing in Missouri, and in the assault and capture of Selma and the raid on Columbus. During the October 1864 Federal Pursuit of Confederate general Sterling Price, who had invaded Missouri, Benteen’s brigade spearheaded the decisive charge at the Battle of Mine Creek that shattered the Rebel lines. On June 6, 1865, he was recommended for the brevet rank of brigadier general, but the recommendation was not accepted. Benteen was mustered out in Chattanooga on June 30, 1865.

  After the war, Benteen was appointed colonel of the 138th United States Colored Volunteers and served in that unit from July 1865 to January 1866. He received his regular army commission as a captain in July 1866 and was assigned to the Seventh Cavalry.

  Frederick Benteen was known as a solder’s soldier, one who could be singled out as a role model for younger officers. He was a stocky man, with gray hair, blue eyes that can appear cold in photographs, and a smooth-shaven, round face. He quickly transformed H troop from a group of ragged civilians into the finest outfit in the Seventh Cavalry. But Benteen, like most other officers at frontier posts, had an affection for the bottle.

  Along with Benteen’s accusation about Mo-nah-se-tah were the questionable memories of Ben Clark, who did not refer to the girl by name and whose memories can be dismissed for the same reason—resentment of Custer. Therefore, it would seem that the credibility of the story hinges on Cheyenne oral tradition.

  Plains Indian oral tradition has provided many valid details about nineteenth-century events but must be viewed under the same scrutiny as the writings of whites, which were often tainted by prejudices, failing memories, or other human factors such as camp gossip—boastful, malicious, or otherwise.
Indian testimony was also often misinterpreted by accident or on purpose and occasionally swayed by a willingness to say what someone would want to hear or by a biased translation. And, in the case of Custer and Mo-nah-se-tah, there are known discrepancies in the Cheyenne stories.

  Most Custer scholars deem the Cheyenne account nonsense. Common sense would point to the fact that a man of Custer’s stature and prominence as a national hero would not be foolish enough to flaunt such behavior where any number of soldiers, much less correspondents—such as De B. Randolph Keim, who mentioned nothing about it in his book about the campaign—would have knowledge of it. In addition, Custer was said to have been sterile, which was likely the reason he and Libbie were childless.

  Most important, however, given Custer’s known moral discipline in other areas, was that his marriage to Libbie—based on their letters and testimony from those who knew them—was one of the great romances of all time. It would have taken more than a comely Indian girl to cause him to compromise his wedding vows.

  Sadly, Captain Frederick Benteen was a good soldier whose deep resentment of Custer would contribute to the downfall of the Seventh Cavalry in the future and would sully his own legacy. Benteen would go down in history as Custer’s most outspoken critic, making any information he provided about events or battles come under scrutiny and skepticism.

  In early December, Sheridan and Custer, reinforced by the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, returned to the Washita battlefield. On December 10, downstream from the site of Black Kettle’s village, they found the mutilated bodies of Major Joel Elliott and his detachment.

  Although Custer clearly had acted prudently at the November battle by withdrawing his command after making an attempt to locate the missing troopers, the tragic death of the popular Major Elliott provided his friend and former Civil War superior Captain Frederick Benteen with fuel to fan the flames of another controversy.

  Benteen wrote a letter to a friend in St. Louis that made the accusation that Custer had “abandoned” Elliott, and included an evaluation of Custer’s conduct at Washita that could only be called slanderous. This letter was published, anonymously and apparently without Benteen’s permission, in the St. Louis Democrat newspaper and reprinted by The New York Times on February 14, 1869.

  A copy of the newspaper found its way to Custer, who had officer’s call sounded and allegedly threatened to horsewhip the author of the letter. When Benteen readily admitted that he had written the letter, Custer was surprised and somewhat befuddled. He reportedly dismissed his officers without another word.

  Benteen related a different version of the incident in Custer’s tent. The captain allegedly shifted his revolver to a ready position on his belt, and “at a pause in the talk I said, ‘Gen. Custer, while I cannot father all the blame you have asserted, I guess I am the man you are after, and I am ready for the whipping promised.’ He stammered and said, ‘Col. Benteen, I’ll see you again, sir!’”

  Benteen claimed that he later returned to Custer’s tent with newspaperman and author DeB. Randolph Keim as a witness and that Custer “wilted like a whipped cur.”

  Whatever the circumstances, some scholars have reasoned that Custer backed off his threat for the good of the outfit; others have questioned Custer’s fortitude, which was absurd.

  There is a good possibility that Benteen’s accusation of abandonment, if there even was any abandonment, was misdirected. No evidence exists, but there is a distinct possibility that Captain Edward Myers could have provided the information necessary to answer the question at the time of the battle about the disposition of Elliott and his men.

  Myers was dispatched by Custer to search for Joel Elliott and the missing troopers. The report by Myers that he rode about two miles without observing any sign of them has been taken for granted. At that time, Elliott was possibly within two miles of the battlefield—pinned down or already dead and remaining the subject of Indian interest. It is suspect that Myers could have ridden two miles without noticing anything suspicious—no heavy firing, no assemblage of aroused Indians nearby or up ahead.

  Captain Myers had been known to disobey orders in the past and had in fact been convicted a year earlier at a court-martial and sentenced to be dismissed from the service but was later restored to duty. Could Myers have, in the face of an overwhelming number of Indians advancing from that direction, failed to ride those two miles or adequately search for Elliott and simply reported that he had? The immediate area was teeming with warriors, and human nature may have played a part in Myers being overly cautious and less than zealous in carrying out his orders. His patrol would certainly have kept their mouths shut about any deviation from Custer’s orders.

  Consequently, was it actually Myers and not Custer who had abandoned Elliott? Benteen should have questioned Myers—and the troopers in his patrol—with respect to how far they had ventured downstream looking for Elliott and why they had not kept searching until they had found the major and his men.

  If the possibility exists that Myers could have been derelict in his duty, why then would Benteen choose to bypass Myers to place the blame on Custer?

  Perhaps Benteen chose his commander as his target for practical reasons. Myers was known to be a hot-tempered man who had once pulled his pistol on a fellow officer. To add to the intrigue, Myers had been the officer who rushed into Custer’s tent on June 8, 1867, during the Hancock Expedition to report that Major Wickliffe Cooper had just taken his own life. That ruling of suicide was years later changed to “died by hand of person or persons unknown.” Myers was the last man known to be present with Cooper in that tent.

  Could it be that Benteen wanted no part of the dangerous Captain Edward Myers and instead thought he had found an easier mark in Custer, whom he already hated and who it could be presumed—in the name of proper military order—would not publicly confront Benteen?

  Regardless, Benteen’s accusations that Custer had abandoned Elliott created dissension for years to come among the officers of the regiment who chose sides along loyalty lines.

  And, strangely enough, the real blame in the matter has been completely overlooked as people chose sides—it was Elliott’s own fault for riding off on his own, without orders from Custer. Elliott placed himself and his men in a dangerous situation, and when orders are disobeyed in combat soldiers often pay for it with their lives.

  This controversy brewed within the Seventh Cavalry while Sheridan and Custer resumed their December march toward the remnants of the various Indian villages. Farther downstream from Black Kettle’s village, Sheridan and Custer found a most disconcerting sight in an abandoned village reportedly belonging to Kiowa chief Satanta.

  While preparing for this Winter Campaign of 1868–69 Phil Sheridan was nagged by the number of settlers, especially white women, who had fallen into the hands of the hostile Indians raiding across Kansas. One instance that particularly haunted Sheridan and later George Armstrong Custer was the fate of a young woman named Clara Blinn.

  Richard and Clara Blinn and their infant son, Willie, had been traveling by wagon train to Franklin County, Kansas, when they were attacked on the Colorado plains by Arapaho or Cheyenne warriors. During the ensuing skirmish, Clara and Willie were somehow taken captive. The circumstances surrounding the abduction are unknown, although the wagon train was said to have been carrying eleven armed men, only one of whom was wounded, and no other members were killed or captured—including Blinn’s husband. Clara soon managed to smuggle a heartrending letter out of an Indian camp beseeching someone, anyone, to help save her and her little boy.

  Sheridan had been informed of Clara Blinn’s captivity when he received a letter from her father, W. T. Harrington, who pleaded with Sheridan to rescue his daughter and grandson. The ultimate mission of Sheridan’s Winter Campaign had now taken on a more personal chivalrous purpose—if not rescuing Clara Blinn, then protecting others from suffering the same fate.

  Now Sheridan and Custer had returned to examine the battlefield.
Downstream, at the site of a village determined to be Kiowa under Satanta, they encountered a grisly discovery—the bodies of Clara Blinn and her son, Willie. Mrs. Blinn had been shot twice in the forehead from point-blank range, her skull crushed, and her scalp taken. Willie, who had been reduced to skin and bones, had likely been picked up by the feet and bashed against a tree. It was speculated that the two captives had been killed at about the same time that Custer had charged into Black Kettle’s village, perhaps because the Indians, as Custer reported, feared “she might be recaptured by us and her testimony used against them.”

  Sheridan and his seven-hundred-man force continued to follow the Indian trail for another seventy-five miles until happening upon a large band of Indians. The chief of these Kiowa, none other than Satanta, rode out to display a message from Colonel Hazen—who had the unenviable task of determining the status of Indians—that indicated that he and the other chief present, Lone Wolf, were friendly and should not be disturbed. Sheridan challenged Satanta to demonstrate his tribe’s friendliness by accompanying him to the reservation at Fort Cobb. When Satanta hesitated, Sheridan seized the two chiefs and threatened to hang them if the tribe did not submit to the reservation. Most of the Kiowa grudgingly complied to save the lives of their chiefs.

  In January 1869, Custer swept through the Wichita Mountains with only a detail of forty sharpshooters and convinced an Arapaho village of sixty-five lodges under Chief Little Raven to surrender. Another tribe had been subdued, which it was hoped would make a difference with bringing peace and tranquility to the plains.

  On March 15, 1869, while campaigning with elements of the Seventh Cavalry reinforced by the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Custer was notified by his scouts that they had located two Cheyenne villages consisting of a combined 260 lodges under Chiefs Medicine Arrow and Little Robe at Sweetwater Creek, Texas.