A Terrible Glory

by James Donovan

  In July 1866, Congress decided to expand the mounted service and approved the creation of four more cavalry regiments bound for the western frontier. Custer was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. (He had been offered the colonelcy of one of the two new black regiments, the Ninth, but had turned it down. He had specifically requested a command of white troops.)32 Though no longer a General, he had a command again, since the regiment’s Colonel would remain on detached duty. And he would see combat once more, this time against the original inhabitants of the continent.

  OVER THE NEXT decade, Custer became the army’s best-known — and, to many Americans of the time, best — Indian fighter. He fought Indians on both the southern and northern plains, though not nearly as often as his reputation suggested. He led the Seventh in only one major battle before 1876, and after that never engaged in more than a skirmish until the last day of his life. But a fawning press, still in love with the Boy General, embraced his new image, for no one looked better sitting on a horse, in a frontier scout’s buckskins, than the tall, ramrod-straight soldier with the golden locks — and no one was more accommodating. Custer seemed to have an intuitive grasp of the importance of celebrity. On his frequent leaves of absence, which often stretched to months, he socialized with prominent actors, writers, politicians, businessmen, other military men, and the occasional society belle, for his wife did not always accompany him on his trips to New York or Washington. Newspapers and magazines responded enthusiastically. And of course there was Custer’s own scribbling: the former schoolteacher had become a good writer, fashioning a clean style that was far less ornate than that of the typical scribe of the period. Before long, articles detailing his frontier experiences began appearing under a nom de plume, and by 1872 he was publishing regularly under his own name.

  For these reasons and others, he was in the public eye more often than his counterparts, and — his ambition, ego, and confidence boundless — he enjoyed his celebrity enormously. There were other fine fighting leaders in the field, all former Union Generals, including George Crook, Eugene Carr, Ranald Mackenzie, and Nelson Miles. But none captured the fancy of the American public like George Armstrong Custer.

  In October 1866, Custer and his wife traveled to Fort Riley, Kansas, to organize and train his new regiment. The regiment’s commanding officer, the older Colonel Andrew Jackson Smith, was soon given an administrative position (in the small postwar army, a lot of doubling up occurred), as was his successor, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis. For the next decade, Custer assumed de facto command of the Seventh. Several of his officers were men who continued to serve with him to the last day of his life. All of his senior officers and most of his Lieutenants were Civil War veterans. Most were older than he, and drinking men, as was a good portion of the “Old Army” of the next few decades.

  Captain Frederick Benteen, five years older, was a cantankerous, moonfaced Virginian who was much like Custer in several ways — brave to a fault, confident in his opinions, and possessed of a healthy libido.33 Brevetted a Colonel for bravery in the war, he had served under General James H. Wilson, a bitter rival of Custer’s. Wilson had recently recommended Benteen for an appointment in the regular army,34 and the grateful Captain planned to name his firstborn son after his former commanding officer (CO). Not surprisingly, Benteen took an instant dislike to Custer upon their first meeting in January 1867, put off by what he perceived to be the bluster and braggadocio of a press-created peacock.35 What Benteen saw as a tactless put-down of Wilson during their initial conversation likely didn’t help matters. It galled the Virginian to lead a mere company when others he felt were inferior to him led regiments, and that bitterness would infect the entire Seventh. (Benteen, ironically, had refused a Major’s post in the Ninth Cavalry, the same black regiment Custer had refused to command.)

  Benteen liked his whiskey, but he was not a particularly heavy drinker. Some of the other officers made up for his measured approach. Captain Myles Keogh, an Irish soldier of fortune, had served in the Pope’s Irish Battalion before coming to America and joining the Union army. He and Custer had served together briefly on McClellan’s staff. Handsome, brave, and a bit of a dandy, he drank too much and occasionally became melancholy, though he largely kept that trait hidden. As tough a critic as the abstemious Libbie Custer found the Irishman charming, even when he was in his cups.36 Keogh was a more than capable officer, and most of the men in his troop appreciated his colorful antics. Captain Thomas Weir was another steady imbiber, but as a University of Michigan graduate, he was prized by many of the Seventh’s officers and their wives for his engaging conversation. He became a good friend of Custer’s and, some would later claim, even more intimate with Libbie.37

  These were the civilized drinkers; there were plenty worse. One officer would even kill himself within a few years in a fit of delirium tremens.38 The rare individual who did not imbibe at all was often the subject of ridicule among his fellow troopers. Whiskey was also one of the chief “medicines” prescribed by the army’s doctors. Payday on a post was usually the scene of unbridled drunkenness, with virtually every trooper not on duty thoroughly inebriated and penniless in no time.39

  The Seventh’s job was to establish the young country’s presence on the frontier and to protect settlers and railroad crews pushing westward. Early in the spring of 1867, the Seventh joined General Winfield Hancock’s 1,400-man expedition of foot, horse, and artillery troops. The westward-heading campaign was intended as a show of force and to punish any raiding Indians, if necessary. But the effort was an abject failure, compounded by the heavy-handed Hancock’s mishandling of a potential peace parley when he ordered a deserted Sioux-Cheyenne village destroyed. The result was increased hostilities and months of futile Indian chasing throughout western Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska Territory.40

  This was Custer’s first experience with an enemy that could not be caught and would not stand and fight if it were. Supply problems, inferior rations (some of the hardtack they were given had been boxed before the war), increased desertion (thirty-five men in one twenty-four-hour period),41 unbearable heat, a deceitful half-Indian guide,42 and Custer’s increasing worry and longing for his wife (during their three-year marriage, they had never been separated for this long) exacerbated the situation. A moody Custer again imposed strict discipline, and officers and even a newspaper correspondent took notice of his tyrannical ways. In mid-July, he left his command at Fort Wallace and galloped eastward with an escort of seventy-six troopers. Fifty-seven hours and 150 miles later, he burst into Fort Riley and promptly leaped upstairs to his quarters for an ecstatic reunion with his wife. The official CO of the Seventh Cavalry, Colonel Smith, preferred several charges against him — “absent without leave from his command” and “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline” among them — and another Seventh officer, already under charges preferred by Custer for repeated instances of drunkenness on duty, filed even more, including the accusation that Custer had ordered that deserters “be shot down” without trial.43 Custer’s defense was shaky. Although he would later claim that he was worried about his wife’s safety because of a cholera epidemic spreading through the area and the threat of Indians, it appears that the real reason for his wild ride was simply a desire to see her — and perhaps his fear that Libbie was spending too much time with the engaging Captain Weir.44

  A court-martial was convened two months after the event. Custer pleaded not guilty to all charges. (As a defense for riding so far from his command, he claimed that before the campaign, General Sherman had told him that “he was not to restrict himself to any orders. . . . he could go to hell if he wanted to.”)45 It appears that few of the officers — many of whom he had alienated over the previous several months with his imperious command style — were willing to speak up for him.46 Both he and Libbie professed the charges to be a plan by Hancock to cover up the failure of the expedition — “the trial has developed into nothing but a plan of persecution for Au
tie,” she wrote to a friend — and others also spread this rumor. But though it was true that several of the court’s members were on Hancock’s staff, or below Custer’s rank, Custer’s errors were well documented, and the conspiracy would need to have been wide-ranging indeed. (His claim of innocence is contradicted by a letter from Libbie to a friend in which she admitted that “when he ran the risk of a court-martial in leaving Wallace he did it expecting the consequences.”)47

  The court bent over backward to grant Custer every allowance available to defend himself, but after almost a month of deliberations, Custer was found guilty on all but three charges. The court ruled that he should be “suspended from rank and command for one year, and forfeit his pay for the same time.” All things considered, it was a relatively mild sentence, since he could have been dishonorably discharged. After reviewing the verdict, President Grant termed it “lenient” and added that “the court must have taken into consideration his previous services.”48 Custer reacted by charging one of his officers with drunkenness on duty, and in that trial the regiment’s officers were further forced to take sides in the manner of their testimony. The resulting rent would never be completely mended as long as Custer commanded the Seventh.49

  AT THE TIME, a court-martial was not the career-ending humiliation it would later become, but a much more common occurrence that usually involved significantly less important charges. After coming to terms with the sentence, the Custers treated it (or at least pretended to) like a yearlong vacation. While they wintered at their friend General Sheridan’s quarters at Fort Leavenworth and then headed east to Monroe in the spring, the relative peace that followed the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 began to fracture just months after its signing. In July 1868, the Southern Cheyennes, angry at the government’s initial refusal to issue their annuities and likely frustrated by the increasing number of whites in their country, raided, killed, and raped at white Kansas homesteads and along trails. As summer turned to fall, the attacks increased, and the army seemed powerless to stop them. In August the Seventh, along with other army units, was ordered out after the marauding bands, but by mid-September the campaign was over, virtually barren of results. If anything, raiding increased in the area.

  The chief reason for the failure was ineffectual leadership. The Seventh’s new field commander, Major Joel Elliott, had earned brevets for bravery as an officer of volunteers during the war. Later, as a member of Custer’s staff, he had impressed Custer so much that Custer had endorsed his application for a commission in the regular army. Elliott had repaid him by testifying on his behalf at his court-martial. Major Elliott was handsome and smart; legend had it that he had scored so high on the application tests that despite his lack of experience, he had been given a Major’s commission in the Seventh.50 (The fact was that the governor of his home state had secured Elliott’s commission before his board examination.)51 Elliott clearly had a bright future ahead of him, but he was young and inexperienced, and he found few Indians on the plains of Kansas. Subsequently, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Sully, a veteran of the botched 1865 Powder River campaign on the northern plains, was assigned command and ventured afield with a force of cavalry and infantry. But Sully was equally ineffectual, returning after only a week, most of it spent issuing orders from an ambulance wagon.

  A desperate Phil Sheridan — the new commander of the Department of the Missouri — needed someone to get the job done. Since August 1868, 110 whites had been killed, 13 women had been raped, more than a thousand head of livestock had been stolen, and much personal property had been destroyed.52 Sheridan requested that the rest of Custer’s sentence (two months) be remitted so he could assume command of his regiment. Sheridan’s superior, Sherman, sent a telegram to the Adjutant General near the end of September: “Gen. Sheridan needs active young field officers of cavalry and applies for the restoration to duty of Gen. Custer.”53

  In the meantime, Sheridan sent a telegram to Custer in Monroe that read: “Generals Sherman, Sully, and myself, and nearly all the officers of your regiment have asked for you, and I hope the application can be successful. Can you come at once?” Custer had been so disillusioned of soldiering that he had asked banking tycoon John Jacob Astor for an agent’s job abroad. (Astor’s reply was sympathetic but negative.)54 Upon receiving the request, an ecstatic Custer packed quickly and took the next train west.

  Sheridan gave him carte blanche, according to Custer: “I rely on you in everything, and shall send you on this expedition without orders, leaving you to act entirely on your own judgment.”55 With a command, on his own hook — that was how Custer liked it.

  He found eleven companies (all but one) of his demoralized regiment at their camp forty-two miles south of Fort Dodge. They were clearly in need of the kind of leadership that only he could provide. Most, if not all, of his officers and men were happy to see him, and Custer apparently mended bridges with one officer who had spoken out against him during his court-martial.56 Benteen and Weir were there, but Keogh was on detached service with Sully’s staff. Several other officers who would serve with Custer until the end also were present. The tough and capable Lieutenant Myles Moylan was a “ranker” who had joined the army as a Private and worked his way up to officer not once but three times. Moylan had fought alongside Custer in the war, and after he had enlisted in the Seventh in 1866, Custer had recommended him for a commission — and requested that he be given a second chance at the officer’s examination after he failed it the first time. He was an able officer but for some reason beyond mere snobbery was not well liked. Second Lieutenant Algernon “Fresh” Smith had been severely wounded in the war and left with limited mobility in one arm. He had joined the Seventh the previous year, and soon after his comrades had given him the moniker “Fresh” to differentiate him from another Seventh Second Lieutenant who had once been a merchant seaman, H. W. “Salty” Smith. “Fresh” and his wife, Nettie, were part of the extended Custer family.

  Second Lieutenant Edward Mathey was French-born but had served with distinction in the war. He was nicknamed “Bible Thumper” for his fondness for profanity. Captain George Yates, reliable and efficient, was a Monroe friend of Custer’s who had served with him on General Pleasonton’s staff. Custer had been instrumental in furthering his career. First Lieutenant William Cooke was another of Custer’s friends — a tall Canadian from a wealthy family who had fought with the cavalry in the war. At twenty, the good-looking Second Lieutenant Francis Gibson was one of the youngest officers in the regiment and was known for his sense of humor. First Lieutenant Edward Godfrey was only a year out of West Point, but previous to that he had served as a Private during the early part of the war. Although he was still a bit of a pup as an officer, he was smart and not the type to take sides in regimental politics. Another First Lieutenant was a familiar face: Custer had wrangled a transfer in late 1866 for his brother Tom, who, like so many of his fellow officers, had acquired a wretched drinking habit.57

  These men and others in the Seventh saw a different Custer upon his return. Whether it was the ten months of idleness or plenty of time to see the error of his ways, their commander was a changed man — energetic, purposeful, and itching to find some hostile Indians again. He made peace with the officer who had preferred charges against him and instituted a regimen of drilling, target practice, and tough scouting expeditions to sharpen the Seventh into a crack outfit. Sheridan provided Custer with everything he requested: plenty of fresh recruits; new horses, rifles, pistols, and equipment; winter clothing; and more than enough ammunition.58 The new Custer was still a disciplinarian. When a few officers were tardy in getting ready to move out, he had their tents set on fire. “After that there was no tardiness,” remembered Custer’s wagon master.59 A month after his arrival, they set out.

  Sheridan’s plan was perceived (by him at least) as something of a novelty: a winter operation. Although U.S. troops had directed winter attacks deep into enemy territory before, with varying degrees of success, Sheridan seems
to have been unaware of them, as he always spoke of the strategy as a new one.60 Overriding the protests of guides and advisers, such as the legendary mountain man Jim Bridger, who believed that the harsh blizzards of the plains would swallow up soldiers unused to such conditions, he decided to send three columns from different directions into the heart of the Indians’ cold-weather sanctuary. Sheridan figured that the army could not catch the Indians during the summer, when their ponies were well fed, so striking them while they were settled into riverside campsites was a risk worth taking. In addition, the southern plains hostiles, having spent several months living on pemmican and other stored foods and rarely venturing far from the warmth of their tepees, also would be more vulnerable than they would be come the spring’s first shoots of grass.

  Sheridan wanted to visit a kind of “total warfare” on the Indians, much like he and Sherman had inflicted on the Confederates in the war. The army’s crippling dependence on supply wagons would be solved by setting up and stocking a base camp much closer to Indian country. From the camp, the strike forces, headed by the Seventh Cavalry, could sally forth relatively unfettered. The Seventh Cavalry reached the chosen site within six days and erected Camp Supply in less than a week. Custer had carried out Sheridan’s directives in the Shenandoah Valley with grim efficiency, and Sheridan hoped for the same on the southern plains.