George Herendeen, civilian scout, testified and added nothing new.
Each evening, after the court adjourned, Reno found himself alone. None of the officers wished to fraternize with him, not only because of the inquiry, but because he was a man on suspension from duty, and a man once convicted. While that suited Lyman Gilbert fine, Reno ofttimes peered across the smoky hotel saloon at knots of men in blue, yearning to rejoin them, wanting their esteem, wanting to slap them on the back, see a smile in their faces. But for the moment he was a pariah.
He downed a rye whiskey and fired up a cigar, breathing pungent blue smoke into the air, which drifted under the gas lamps on the wall.
Gilbert, the quiet and urbane Yale College man, ignored them, and focused entirely on the day’s testimony and what might come next, while barely touching the glass before him.
“Lyman, there’s something those judges should know. They mostly are not Indian fighters. They’re men who fought bravely in the War of the Rebellion. But Indian fighting’s not like that.”
“What’s different, major?”
“There’s no surrender. In a war between white men, you can run up a white flag, lay down your arms, put your hands high. You can’t do that fighting the Indians, Lyman. You surrender, and you’re dead. You put up a white flag, you put down your arms, you raise your hands, and you die. That affects command, sir. There are no prisoners of war. The Indians won’t take you off to a camp, feed you and then release you when the war’s over. No. In the Indian wars, you fight, flee, or die. Those are the choices.”
“How did that affect your command, Marcus?”
“When the warriors weren’t running, the way Custer said they always did, when they kept coming and coming and surrounding me and turning my flank, Lyman, I was exactly in the position Custer got himself into. But he still believed they would run, so he kept on, kept on, kept on going until he was engulfed. He couldn’t retreat in my direction because they’d already cut him off. They all fought to the death because they had to.
“In the valley I saw the handwriting on the wall, and I knew there was no prison camp waiting for us, no prison camp, only the end of everything, and it was my duty to save my command from annihilation.
“I think I saved not only my command, but Benteen’s. If I had charged onward, the way Whittaker wants, I would not be here, nor any of those who are testifying. And then, with Custer finished off, and Reno finished off, and Benteen on exhausted mounts, those two or three thousand warriors would have finished the rest, without one prisoner.
“So I think what I’m saying is, when you know there’s no way to surrender to an Indian, your tactics are a little different. I saved over three hundred troopers from certain death.”
“I’ll make note of it. You look drawn. What’s worrying you the most, Marcus?”
“That I’m here alone, and after we win this, I’ll still be here alone.”
“That the court won’t matter?”
“It matters. But something is let loose in all this, something I see in Whittaker’s conduct. He’s in a rage, and he’s going to vindicate his hero, Custer, and no court of inquiry will satisfy him unless I get thrown out of the service.”
Gilbert reached across the dim-lit table and caught Reno’s arm. “One thing at a time, Marcus. First, your honor, your record in the War Department. Then your reputation. And little by little, you’ll win your friends back. Those men are not your enemies. They don’t want to destroy you. Not a one of those officers has torn into your conduct. Not a one has called you a coward. Those men at the other end of the saloon can’t come here or talk to you because propriety prevents it; you wouldn’t come here, if you were in their shoes. Give it time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE NEXT DAYS WENT WELL ENOUGH. WHITTAKER APPLIED TO THE court to assist Lee in the prosecution, but the judges declined. This was a military inquiry, not a civil court. Lieutenant Lee did, however, recall the scout, Herendeen, and asked him some questions submitted by Whittaker about Reno’s courage. What was Reno’s reaction when Bloody Knife was killed a few feet from him? Was Reno under the influence of fear? The scout hedged his responses to Lee, but when Gilbert examined him, Herendeen said, “I am not saying he is a coward at all.”
That, coming from a civilian who despised Reno, was satisfying to the major. He was starting to feel that he would emerge from this ordeal in good shape. Gilbert was quick to bore into any negative or hostile statement, and as often as not the witness backed off.
Lieutenant Hare, in the main, supported Reno, saw no evidence of cowardice, and expressed the belief that if the troops had remained in the timber they would have been annihilated.
Lieutenant DeRudio said he saw no evidence of cowardice in Reno, and had admired Reno’s conduct. He said the command would have been butchered if it had ridden five hundred yards further instead of dismounting and forming a skirmish line.
An enlisted man followed, Reno’s orderly, Sergeant Davern, and then Sergeant Culbertson, who served under Moylan. Asked about Reno’s cowardice, both men said they saw nothing of the sort.
Asked if Reno could have held his position in timber, Culbertson said no; only for a few more minutes.
Then it was Benteen’s turn. He testified emphatically that he saw no cowardice on Reno’s part; indeed, he had cautioned Reno not to expose himself to fire on the hilltop.
Lieutenant Edgerly described Reno as cool and collected on the hilltop, and saw no evidence of cowardice there.
So far, so good. But on the twentieth day of the inquiry, things suddenly changed.
One of the civilian packers, B. F. Churchill, testified that when he and another civilian named Frett had gone to the pack train area to get food the evening of the twenty-fifth, Reno found them there, demanded to know why they were there and not on the line.
Churchill said that when Reno tried to strike Frett he spilled whiskey, and that Reno was under the influence of liquor.
That was serious business, and Gilbert bored into it, as he always did. At lunch he raised the issue.
“Marcus, did you have whiskey?”
“A pint flask, Lyman. I always carry it.”
“You’re a drinker?”
“Yes, but I never impair myself. I didn’t have enough whiskey with me to get drunk.”
“Were you drinking when you went after the packers?”
“I don’t recollect it. I was angry. Those men were skulking, hiding among the mules and supplies instead of defending the perimeter like the rest, and I tore into them.”
“You made enemies.”
“In the heat of battle, you don’t make friends, Lyman. I was damned if I’d let them skulk in safety.”
“Is this liquor testimony going to crop up again?”
“I doubt it. The officers know I have a flask. Benteen knew it. He takes a nip too, when he can.”
“Were you impaired?”
“Absolutely not. I didn’t even finish that flask until a day after the battle. You know when I really drank? When we saw all those naked, mutilated corpses of friends, of people we know, our brothers, the life gone from them, lying all over that hill. Yes, that’s when I really downed a swallow or two, and when every man in the command wished he could have.”
“All right. I’m going to pursue this. I’m going to put my bulldog canines into it. I hope your officers agree with you, because this is damaging to you, and needs to be dealt with.”
Reno paid the restaurant bill, stubbed his cigar butt, and the two returned to the courtroom, which stank of sweat and wet wool.
Edgerly: He was perfectly sober.
Gilbert: Did any officer or men suspect Reno was not sober?
Edgerly: Not the faintest, I never heard of it until I came to Chicago at this time.
Gilbert to Benteen: Was Reno sober the night of the twenty-fifth?
Benteen: He was as sober as he is now … I think he’s entirely sober now and he was then.
Gilbert: Could
he have been staggering and stammering at this time?
Benteen: Not without my knowing it.
That seemed to settle that, at least for the moment. But Lieutenant Godfrey was next, and Godfrey thought little of the major. He said he wasn’t impressed by Reno’s conduct, and thought the real command was being exercised by Benteen. He thought Reno displayed “nervous timidity.”
The second civilian mule packer, John Frett, testified that Reno had slapped him, and had a bottle of whiskey in hand, which flew over Frett, and that Reno staggered. “If any other man was in the condition he was, I should call him drunk,” Frett said, and added that Reno had to brace himself against a pack horse because he was incapable of walking.
Gilbert let it go, for the time being, but Reno knew this was not the end of the question of drunkenness.
Captain Mathey, who had been in charge of the pack train, testified that Reno seemed somewhat excited when the pack train arrived, but thought that was natural, given the fight Reno had just been through. He added that he saw no evidence of cowardice.
Gilbert: Was Reno drunk?
Mathey: I saw no evidence of it, and never heard of it until the spring of 1878, when Girard mentioned it.
Captain McDougall followed. He said that when he arrived at the hilltop, after guarding the pack train and commanding the rear guard, he had found Reno perfectly cool and “as brave as any man there in my opinion.”
As for Reno’s conduct, “I thought after he came to me the next afternoon and asked me to take a walk with him, he had plenty of nerve. The balls were flying around and the men in their entrenchments firing away.”
Gilbert: Was Reno drunk?
McDougall: There was no whiskey in the command that I knew of, and if Reno had been staggering and stammering, someone would have found out.
Gilbert to Lieutenant Wallace, back on the stand: Was Reno drunk?
Wallace: I never heard of it till the second day of this month … .
Gilbert: Did you observe Reno, at any time, failing to do his expected and required duty as a commanding officer?
Wallace: No, sir, I did not.
The inquiry was winding down, and Reno wanted to testify. He thought the court should receive his own account of the battle, and he was willing to be cross-examined as a witness. Gilbert set about achieving this and found it was no easy task. He could not simply call Reno to the stand. But finally the court agreed, and Reno, at last, offered his account of the struggle, slowly reading from a prepared statement.
This was his moment. This was his chance to correct misimpressions, explain himself, and maybe even put that ravening wolf Whittaker out of his life. The testimony had fallen strongly on his side, save for the civilians. His fellow officers had, except for Godfrey, found little wrong in his conduct, and had even discovered some gallantry.
And yet the cloud seemed to hover about him, and only he could dispel it once and for all.
He had worked a long time on his prepared testimony, and Gilbert, playing devil’s advocate, had poked holes in it, and he had gradually evolved what he wanted to say into a strong and coherent whole.
Now he read, taking his audience through the preliminaries, the order to charge, the promise of support, the engulfing flood of warriors on his flanks, the realization that he was in peril of annihilation, his retreat to the woods, his stand there as the woods were surrounded, the chaotic breakout—which happened in spite of the best efforts of his staff to break for the hilltop in an orderly way.
Quietly he read the story of the hilltop fight, the attempt to reach Custer, the utter ignorance of the fate of Custer’s command, and the struggle that lasted through the next day.
It was a good account of the fight.
There remained only Lee’s summation of the case against Reno, and Gilbert’s summation of the evidence in Reno’s favor.
Recorder Lee quietly probed everything that put Reno in an unfavorable light. But there wasn’t a whole lot, perhaps because the young man had not probed deeply into the conduct of the battle. The judges listened carefully. There was not a word that was not being registered in their minds.
Gilbert, as usual, did a masterful job, probing into each area, especially the testimony of civilian packers who had grudges against Reno. The court sat transfixed when Gilbert went straight to the heart of hostile testimony, pulled it out for all to see and showed it to be motivated by malice. He didn’t dwell long on the support Reno had received from most of his fellow officers.
When at last it was over, the reporters dashed for the exits, writing their stories in their minds even before they set pen to paper, while the courtroom slowly emptied. Reno noted that some of the reporters had corralled Whittaker, who was talking in animated whispers. Reno knew what the novelist was saying: that some of the officers had changed their tunes, and it was all a whitewash, and Reno would still be guilty of gross cowardice no matter what all those colonels, protecting the officer corps, would say to the public.
“Well, Marcus, what do you think?” Gilbert asked.
Reno shook his head. He wished he could know for sure, but a dread haunted him. “I think you did a fine job, Lyman,” he said at last.
It was as fine a job as any lawyer could do. If there was trouble ahead, it wouldn’t be the failing of his lawyer, he thought. And meanwhile, all one could do was wait for the inquiry to reconvene, and listen to the conclusions.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
RENO WAS SURE THIS COURT OF INQUIRY WAS THE STRANGEST EVENT in military history. He was put before a body of judges to determine his courage or cowardice. He was the subject of an investigation into his state of mind. Did he cringe when under fire, expose himself to the enemy, issue orders based on the alleged flaws in his character? Witness after witness had been sworn in to testify to the nature of Reno’s emotions during a pitched and desperate battle. There was something so bizarre in all this that it defied reason.
And yet, that afternoon of February 10, 1879, when the court reconvened, he found himself listening to the conclusions of three senior army officers empowered to probe his soul and decide whether he should remain in the service or be subject to court-martial for any of the various charges they might concoct. It struck him as the oddest moment of his life, but a man who had faced bullets and shot and shell and the cries of howling savages could, indeed, weather the judgment of his superiors.
They exonerated him, after a fashion.
The wind gusted against the windows, eddying cold air through the room now and then, as the court’s conclusions about the nature of the battle were read to the reassembled tribunal.
“The conduct of the officers throughout was excellent and while subordinates in some instances did more for the safety of the command by brilliant displays of courage than did Major Reno, there was nothing in his conduct which requires the animadversion of this court.
“It is the conclusion of this court in view of all the facts in evidence, that no further proceedings are necessary in this case, and it expresses this opinion in compliance with the concluding clause of the order convening the court.”
And so it ended.
The reporters leapt away, hot to write their story. They would want to talk to him, he supposed. He didn’t know what he would say to them. Smile, lift a glass, light a cigar, tell the world he had won. Even if he hadn’t. He had hoped for more.
Frederick Whittaker whipped his scarf around his neck, jammed his hat down, buttoned his overcoat, and stormed away. Reno knew that with the novelist, it would never be over.
Lyman Gilbert shook his hand and patted him on his arm.
The judges vanished from sight. The clerks and recorders folded up their ledgers. Benteen paused to shake his hand; the rest of the old command had slipped into the hallway, and out of sight.
“We won,” Gilbert said. “And I’m deeply pleased that you’re exonerated, Marcus. You’ll be able to start over in a few weeks. That’s when the suspension ends, doesn’t it?”
Reno nodded.
“Good, you’ll be glad to be earning your salary again,” he said. “Your honor is returned to you. Your life may begin again. You’re a man with a fresh slate, and I’m grateful to have played some small part in it all.”
Reno nodded again. Gilbert would be getting some of his salary for many months to come. Reno didn’t have the bill, but he knew he was going to be in hock for years. That sort of lawyer didn’t come cheap.
“Well, back to the humdrum in Harrisburg,” Gilbert said. “I’ll continue to reach you at the Lochiel Hotel.”
“It’ll be a few weeks. I’m going to visit my sister.”
“Yes, of course. We’ll wait and see how this all turns out,” Gilbert said.
The lawyer had boned up on procedure. The findings of the court would have to be approved by the General of the Army William Sherman, and finally by the Secretary of War, George W. McCrary. So nothing was final. But Reno sensed that none of these men would overturn what the judges had ordained.
He found himself alone again. The clerks had supplied him with a fair copy of the findings, and this he tucked into his portmanteau. Male aromas lingered in the room, mixing with the hot air off the clanging radiators.
Reno saw the empty hard-bottomed chairs where the judges had sat, saw where the clerks and scribes had taken it all down, saw where the witnesses sat, where Lyman Gilbert and Lieutenant Lee had sat or stood, and it all seemed unreal, an inquiry into something so intangible that none of the witnesses could pluck it up and make it real. The only one who came close was Lieutenant Godfrey, who said Reno was full of nervous timidity, his euphemism for cowardice.
They hadn’t called him courageous. They hadn’t remarked on his gallantry. They had opined that subordinates did more for the safety of the command with brilliant displays of courage. He was hurt. All he had done was keep the command from annihilation. All he had done was to foresee that further attack would have left every one of them quite as dead as Custer. But that apparently counted for nothing. They said nothing about the deep field experience he possessed that grasped, in time, the peril his command was in, the field experience that wisely chose to retreat to the woods.
An Obituary for Major Reno Page 20
