The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer

by Thom Hatch

  The Kansans were certain that these were the Indians who held two white women, Mrs. Anna Belle Morgan and Miss Sarah C. White, whose rescue was a major reason the unit had mobilized the previous fall. Mrs. Morgan, a bride of one month, had been taken from James Morgan’s homestead on the Solomon River near Delphos. Her brother, Daniel Brewster, had accompanied the expedition to search for her. Eighteen-year-old Sarah White had been seized at her family homestead on Granny Creek near Concordia at the same time that her father was killed.

  In advance of his weary command, Custer, in the company of only First Lieutenant William W. Cooke, brazenly entered the Cheyenne village unannounced and was escorted to the lodge of Chief Little Robe. Custer shared the pipe ritual with the chief and was the subject of incantations and ceremonies by a holy man that, unknown to Custer, were intended to signify that if he acted treacherously toward the Indians he and his command would be killed. In spite of this attempted intimidation, which ended with ashes from the pipe bowl being dropped on Custer’s boot, he confirmed that the two white women in question were indeed captives in the village.

  Custer returned to announce the news to his command. The Kansas cavalrymen were elated, and demanded that an immediate attack be launched. The fate of Clara Blinn and her son, however, was foremost on Custer’s mind. He had agonized over those deaths and feared that these captives would also be killed if he initiated an attack.

  Much to the outrage of the Kansans—many of whom branded Custer a coward and a traitor—he decided that they would attempt to parley for the release of Mrs. Morgan and Miss White before taking any military action. It was all Custer could do to restrain the irate volunteers from taking matters into their own hands.

  Opportunity arose, however, when Chief Little Robe and a delegation visited the cavalry bivouac under a flag of truce. Custer ignored the flag, seized three minor chiefs as hostages, and threatened to hang them if the white women were not released.

  Three days later, when intense negotiation failed to break the stalemate and a battle loomed, Custer looped three ropes over the limb of a large willow tree and paraded his hostages beneath. At that point, the Cheyenne relented and released their white captives.

  Custer also demanded that the Indians report to Camp Supply, but the chiefs argued that their ponies were too weak and could not travel. Instead, the Indians would report when their ponies grew stronger. Custer reluctantly agreed and offered as an incentive for compliance the release of the women and children captured at Washita.

  The incident serves as an example of Custer’s growing maturity as an Indian fighter, that bloodshed was not always the correct course when dealing with the enemy.

  The participation of the Seventh Cavalry in the Winter Campaign quietly concluded on March 28, 1869. At that point in time, however, not all Cheyenne had submitted to the reservation.

  On July 11, the Fifth Cavalry under Major Eugene Carr—about 250 troopers and 50 Pawnee scouts—swept down on an unsuspecting encampment at Summit Springs. The surprised Cheyenne dashed from their lodges, many running to reach the cover of nearby ravines, while others were cut down in the initial charge. When the smoke of burning lodges had lifted, fifty-two Indians had been killed, among them Chief Tall Bull.

  Seventeen women and children were taken prisoner, including Tall Bull’s wife. A pony and mule herd estimated at four hundred was confiscated, and then the entire village—weapons, food, and clothing—had been destroyed. The village also revealed the presence of two white women who had been captured on May 30 on the Saline River—one of them was killed when Carr charged; the other was severely wounded but survived.

  The Battle of Summit Springs broke the will of the Indians and finally accomplished General Sheridan’s mission of clearing all hostiles from between the Platte and Arkansas rivers.

  But the conflict that had gained the most publicity and criticism was the Battle of the Washita. This conflict was considered a great victory in the estimation of the military establishment. Eastern humanitarians, however, called the action a massacre.

  Newspaper editorials and a deluge of letters criticized the army and condemned George Armstrong Custer—unfairly comparing him to militia colonel John M. Chivington, who had attacked a Cheyenne village on November 27, 1864.

  The Sand Creek affair had been a deliberate and indiscriminate slaughter. The undisciplined militia, with the blessing of their commander, killed, mutilated, and scalped at least 150 Cheyenne—two-thirds of them women and children—who had been promised safety at that location. The triumphant militiamen were hailed as heroes in Denver when they later displayed Indian scalps and other trophies during a parade and to an appreciative audience between acts at a theatrical performance.

  Sand Creek had been motivated by the political ambitions of John Chivington and Colorado governor John Evans and could not remotely be called a battle or anything but a massacre based on three separate government investigations, each of which condemned this rogue attack. There was simply no comparison between Sand Creek and Washita.

  Interested parties decried in particular the death of Black Kettle, whom they called a fine example of a peace-loving Indian. Indian agent Edward W. Wynkoop resigned his post in protest over the killing of the Cheyenne chief. Peace commission member Major General W. S. Harney and member Samuel F. Tappan, along with Superintendent of Indian Affairs Thomas Murphy, attested to the fact that Black Kettle was truly friendly and his death was an outrage.

  Division commander General William T. Sherman summed up the army’s sentiments in a letter to General Sheridan dated December 3, 1868: “This you know is a free country, and people have the lawful right to misrepresent as much as they please—and to print them—but the great mass of our people cannot be humbugged into the belief that Black Kettle’s camp was friendly with its captive women and children, its herds of stolen horses and its stolen mail, arms, powder, etc.—trophies of war.”

  Sheridan went on the offensive to refute the assertion that Black Kettle was on a reservation at the time of the attack, and blamed the wanton raiding of the Indians for the army’s retaliation. He listed as evidence items found in the village, such as mail—including a military dispatch carried by one of Sheridan’s couriers who had been killed—daguerreotypes, bedding, and other domestic goods taken from settlers’ cabins.

  The contention that Black Kettle was a proponent of peace was true. He made a mistake, however, by harboring members of his band who had participated in recent raiding parties. The peace chief paid for it with his life.

  The Battle of the Washita was without question a one-sided affair but does not by any means fit the definition of a massacre. Black Kettle had been warned prior to the attack by Hazen that his safety could not be guaranteed unless he surrendered to Sheridan, which he failed to do. The village contained captives and items taken by resident armed warriors who had recently skirmished with the soldiers and had been on raiding parties against white settlers, which was evidenced by the fact that Custer’s Osage scouts tracked them to Black Kettle’s doorstep.

  Furthermore, Custer did not order a slaughter, rather issued specific orders to spare noncombatants. In fact, Custer followed his orders from Sheridan to the letter: “To proceed south, in the direction of the Antelope hills, thence towards the Washita river, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies; to kill all warriors, and bring back all women and children.” Custer was a soldier following the orders of his superiors.

  Incidentally, although the battle at Summit Springs was similar in most respects to Custer’s victory at Washita, there was no public outcry condemning the destruction of this Cheyenne village or employing the term “massacre” to describe the battle.

  The inability of the army to catch the Indians on the open plains and the failure of the government to clearly state specific hunting grounds in the provisions of the peace treaty at Medicine Lodge made necessary the implementation of “Total War,” and the Battle of the Washita was t
he tragic result.

  George Armstrong Custer may have borne the brunt of criticism from minority voices, but he understood that war was an unpleasant business and there were bound to be detractors in any conflict. However, he could take pride in the knowledge that the campaign had established him as the premier Indian fighter in the land.

  Five

  Battling Sioux in Yellowstone Country

  Armstrong and Libbie settled in for the summer of 1869 at the Seventh Cavalry regimental campsite at Big Bend, two miles east of Fort Hays, Kansas. Much of the time was whiled away enjoyably entertaining a succession of guests—including P. T. Barnum, who wanted to meet Custer and accompany him on a buffalo hunt. Detachments of the Seventh Cavalry were stationed at various posts along the Kansas Pacific Railway. Custer would occasionally accompany patrols, but for the most part his summer was leisurely, with evenings spent enjoying horseback rides with Libbie.

  One famous neighbor of the fort was the notorious gambler and gunslinger James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. Wild Bill has been the subject of so many tall tales and dime-novel exaggerations that it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction. One of those colorful stories at issue concerns Tom Custer, Armstrong’s younger brother, while the Seventh Cavalry was stationed at Fort Hays, Kansas, in 1869 and Hickok was the marshal of nearby Hays City.

  Tom Custer was a wild and reckless young man, who frequently drank to excess. On one of those inebriated occasions, Tom was said to have ridden through Hays City shooting out lights and windows, then urging his horse into a crowded saloon, which caused considerable damage. This apparently had not been the first time Tom had sent the patrons of a saloon scrambling with his horse. Although Wild Bill was a friend of the elder Custer, enough was enough. Tom was promptly dragged off his mount by Wild Bill, hauled before a justice of the peace, and fined for his rash act. Tom was incensed with Hickok over the arrest and vowed revenge.

  On New Years’s Eve, Tom returned to Hays City with three burly soldiers and hung around the saloon to wait for Hickok. When Wild Bill strolled into the establishment, the soldiers cornered and disarmed him and it appeared that physical revenge for Tom’s arrest was about to be exacted. A friendly bartender, however, tossed a loaded pistol (or shotgun) to Wild Bill and he commenced firing. When the smoke had cleared, the three soldiers lay sprawled on the barroom floor, wounded but from all accounts still very much alive. Tom Custer lit out for Fort Hays to seek the assistance of his brother.

  George Armstrong Custer, however, had departed for Fort Leavenworth to spend the holiday. Tom then sought out General Phil Sheridan, who ordered the arrest of Hickok.

  Word of the impending arrest reached Wild Bill before the soldiers whom Sheridan had dispatched. Hickok thought it prudent to vanish for the time being and hopped a freight train headed for Ellsworth and Abilene until cooler heads prevailed.

  The impetuous Thomas Ward Custer was born on March 15, 1845, in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel and Maria Custer, the third of five children. At the outbreak of the Civil War he attempted to enlist in the army from his home in Monroe, Michigan, but was thwarted when Emanuel notified the recruiter that his son was only sixteen and therefore too young for service. Tom, however, would not be denied. He crossed the border to the town of his birth, New Rumley, Ohio, and on September 2, 1861, was sworn in as a private in Company H of the Twenty-first Ohio Infantry. He fought as a common foot soldier for the next three years, participating in such battles as Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign. His distinguished service gained him duty as escort for various generals, and he was promoted to corporal on January 1, 1864.

  Tom, however, craved the excitement and notoriety that the cavalry had provided for his famous brother. On October 23, 1864, Tom accepted an appointment as second lieutenant, Company B, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, and he was soon detailed as an aide-de-camp to his older brother. Armstrong showed Tom no favoritism and often chose him for extra assignments—which evoked grumbling from the sibling, who swore it was not fair. Nevertheless, the hardened veterans of the unit were skeptical of their commanding officer’s sibling—until early April 1865. Tom, in the tradition of his brother, was about to make some history of his own.

  On April 3, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, with eighty thousand men, was retreating west through the Appomattox River Valley and happened to pass just north of General Custer’s campsite. Custer followed until reaching Namozine Creek, where the bridge had been destroyed. Rebel fortifications could be observed across the river, and Custer, not knowing he was greatly outnumbered, ordered one detachment to outflank the position while men with axes were detailed to remove fallen trees from the creek in order to permit the remainder of his troops to charge across.

  Tom Custer, however, became impatient, and spurred his horse to brazenly streak across the creek toward the enemy position. His action inspired the other troops to follow, and the Rebels quickly broke under the surprise pressure. Tom chased the retreating enemy and unhesitatingly charged directly into a skirmish line near Namozine Church. In the end, Tom presented his brother with a Confederate battle flag, which at that time was considered quite a prize, and fourteen prisoners, including three officers. Major General Philip Sheridan recommended that Tom be brevetted to major and awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery.

  Three days later when Lee’s exhausted army inadvertently split into two columns, General Custer’s opportunistic cavalrymen plunged into them at a place called Sayler’s Creek. Tom Custer was at the front of the Third Brigade when it led the charge against enemy fortifications. The Rebels once again broke but continued to fight as they withdrew. Tom spotted an enemy standard-bearer and was about to capture another prized flag when the Confederate soldier fired point-blank at the charging Custer’s head. The bullet struck Tom in the cheek and exited behind his ear, knocking him backward against his horse’s rump. Tom’s face was blackened with powder and blood poured from the severe wound. Tom righted himself, coolly drew his pistol, shot the standard-bearer, and grabbed the coveted banner.

  Colonel (later General) Henry Capehart had witnessed the scene and later said that “for intrepidity I never saw this incident surpassed.” Tom wheeled his horse and raced to show his trophy to his brother. The general took one look at Tom’s face and ordered him to the rear for medical attention. Tom, however, refused, stating that he would not leave the field until the battle was over. Armstrong Custer placed his younger brother under arrest and had him escorted to the surgeon who had set up a hospital at a nearby plantation. For this demonstration of courage, Tom was brevetted lieutenant colonel and awarded his second Medal of Honor.

  Thomas Ward Custer became the first person in history to be distinguished with two awards of our nation’s highest military medal and was the only double honoree during the Civil War.

  Tom served with his brother in Texas until being officially mustered out on April 24, 1866. After a brief appointment as second lieutenant, First Cavalry, he accepted an appointment to first lieutenant, Seventh Cavalry, effective July 28, 1866.

  During the 1867 Hancock Expedition, Tom was involved in the shooting of deserters and his brother’s mad dash across Kansas, which led to the elder Custer facing a court-martial. The following year he participated in the Battle of the Washita, where he was slightly wounded in the right hand and assumed command of Company C when Captain Louis Hamilton was killed.

  Tom, who worshiped his older brother, endeared himself to Libbie Custer and was a prominent member of the Custer “royal family” at the various frontier posts where the Seventh Cavalry was garrisoned. He did, however, have an affinity for playing cards and was known to habitually drink to excess. It has been rumored that he had fathered several children in Ohio. He apparently was prepared at some point to marry a New Jersey woman named Lulie Burgess, but she died before the union took place and Tom remained a bachelor for the remainder of his life.

  After wintering at Fort Leavenworth, George Armstr
ong Custer returned to the field. The summer of 1870 was bloody in Kansas, and he was kept busy chasing marauding bands of Indians who terrorized the homesteaders and railroad.

  The monotony of military life and frontier duty, however, gnawed at him, and he had begun to question his future in the army. The Seventh Cavalry was scheduled to be dispatched in small units on Reconstruction duty to various areas of the South, and Custer desired to test the civilian waters before that assignment. In fact, Armstrong and Libbie discussed the prospect of his retirement from the service.

  Rather than make a hasty decision, Custer decided to obtain a leave of absence in order to investigate opportunities in New York, where he was a well-known and popular figure. On January 11, 1871, he sent Libbie to Monroe by way of Topeka and traveled east on a leave that would extend until September of that year.

  Custer quickly cultivated his friendships with wealthy investors such as John Jacob Astor, August Belmont, and Jay Gould. He traveled comfortably in this circle of high financial and influential political society and had soon developed an idea that would interest these men—and, he hoped, make himself rich.

  The lure of silver and gold from rich strikes in Western mines had been the reason for many of the desertions that had plagued the Seventh Cavalry from its inception. For Custer, these mines held the prospect of an investment that could reap great rewards. He had at one point taken the time to investigate the potential of one such silver mine, the Stevens Lode, which was located about ten miles from Georgetown, Colorado.

  Custer, whose famous name gained him entrée to the most reclusive tycoon, pitched his confidence in the Stevens Lode to potential investors with the fervor of one of his cavalry charges. Two thousand shares of stock were issued at fifty dollars a share with a valuation of one hundred dollars each. Astor handed over ten thousand dollars, Belmont was in for fifteen thousand dollars, others chipped in thousands more, and Custer subscribed to thirty-five thousand dollars, although likely not in cash but rather a promoter’s share.