An Obituary for Major Reno

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “I plan to write something. How about it? What would you have done?”

  “I don’t have enough facts to tell you anything like that.”

  “But you’re certain Reno panicked.”

  “I have never said so.”

  “Reno sounds like a man you disliked as a person; you would have disliked him even if the Little Bighorn had never happened.”

  “I have no need to hide my private feelings, and have been most forthright with you about them.”

  Richler pulled out his pocket Waltham, and saw the hour was late. “One last question, if I may, sir. What do other officers in the Seventh Cavalry say about the late major?”

  “I don’t think …”

  “Was he admired?”

  Godfrey sat upright. “There never was more of a misfit, and on that note I think I’ll head back to the War Office. I’m wrestling with their record bureau, you know.”

  Richler nodded, summoned a waiter, signed the tab, and followed the captain into the steaming Washington summer.

  Godfrey had made himself finger-wagging clear.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  BENNETT SAID NO, HE WOULDNT PAY, DAMNED NONSENSE, SO RICHLER stewed. There was no thwarting the Great Man when he said no. Correspondents never knew how James Gordon Bennett would come down on an issue. The man would spend thousands of dollars for stories cabled to New York on one occasion, and forbid the payment of a streetcar token on another.

  But Richler had to go to Atlanta, and one way or another he would go. At least Bennett had agreed to a serious assessment of Major Marcus Reno; anything to do with the Little Bighorn caught the man’s attention and the public’s interest. And Reno’s death had started it all going once again.

  “I’m going,” he told his able assistant Basil Vanderhyde. “Cover for me. Gone four days. I’ll send Bennett the bill and see if he relents. I’ve nothing to lose but a week’s pay.”

  “What do I say if New York wires you?”

  “Tell them I’m in Atlanta on a story, back Wednesday.”

  And so it was arranged. Richler packed his battered pigskin portmanteau, bought a forty-six-dollar round-trip coach ticket to Atlanta, and set off, passing through somnolent Virginia countryside at first, obscured by summer’s haze.

  The heat built all the way, and Richler sweated in spite of the wide open coach windows that admitted a little air and a ton of soot which blackened his face and turned his clothing gritty.

  The South was no place to travel in the heat of summer and not much of a place to travel in the winter, either, Richler thought. It had fallen into lassitude since the War of the Rebellion, outwardly little changed.

  Atlanta was a new city; the old was ash. Richler wondered why Frederick Benteen had chosen to retire there, deep in the heart of Dixie, where ancient hatreds of Yankees in blue simmered just below the surface. Colonel Benteen. They had breveted him when he retired. And there was talk that he would be breveted again, become a brigadier general, for gallantry during the war and at the Little Bighorn. The man had friends and used them, Richler thought.

  Benteen was a Southerner who had chosen to fight for the Union. It was a brave decision, running violently contrary to the passions of his Missouri family, and especially his father, who cursed him and wished his own son a fatal bullet at the hands of the Confederacy. The curse never was fulfilled. Benteen survived the war, and his gallantry was beyond question.

  The man was good at hating, though, and maybe that was what would make a good interview. In retirement Benteen would probably unloose the bridles on his tongue even more than before, and Richler would end up with some valuable and quotable material.

  But that was speculative. In reality, Richler didn’t know whether this odyssey to the retirement home of the man who knew Reno best, and watched him in action at the Little Bighorn, would reveal anything new. At least Benteen had agreed to see him; indeed, there was genuine hospitality afoot. Benteen and his wife Kate were enjoying retirement. Their only surviving child, Freddie, was heading for a military career himself.

  Richler knew he would have to dodge the last year of the man’s service, the court-martial conviction for drunkenness that had cost the thenmajor a year’s suspension at half pay. When that was over in 1888, Benteen had swiftly resigned, suffering rheumatism and heart disease, and settled into comfortable retirement.

  Benteen had been assigned to build a new post in Utah, Fort Duquesne, to control the Utes, and had run into trouble with suppliers and the post sutler, and his acerbic ways soon won him bitter enemies who brought charges of drunken conduct against the old veteran. These poorly substantiated accusations had been enough, and Benteen was very nearly pitched out the way Reno had been.

  Oddly, Richler sympathized. The army had a way of brutalizing some of its best men, and by all accounts, Benteen was a fine officer and bold man in combat.

  He listened to the mournful whistle of the engine ahead as it dragged the grimy coaches into Atlanta. He listened to the click-clack of wheels over rail-joints, was affronted by the acrid smell of coal smoke, felt the train slow, heard the hiss of steam, and saw the ramshackle depot crawl into view. He stood, retrieved his battered portmanteau from the overhead rack, felt sweaty cloth cling to his thin frame, and slowly wended his way down the aisle, then the metal steps, and into the burning sun of Georgia in June. He saw more black faces than white.

  He checked his bag, and received a sweaty brass token with a number on it. He would deal with hotels and meals later; newsman that he was, he would go straight to Benteen’s house and see what awaited him. If he could complete his interview before the day was done, he could catch an express north, and save some money. But he did pause at a lavatory to freshen himself, not for Benteen’s sake but so that he would give no offense to Kate Benteen, the colonel’s lively and opinionated wife. He stopped at a tonsorial parlor in the basement of the station for a shave and an application of witch hazel, and then found a hansom cab.

  They were expecting him.

  Benteen stood on the verandah, which circled and shaded the white frame house. The man had that odd cherubic look that had struck the Herald man; a look of anyone other than an army officer.

  “Mr. Richler,” Benteen said, “do come in. I’m looking forward to this.” He steered the correspondent into a surprisingly cool parlor, with a high ceiling and deep shade. The verandah kept the sun out of the room. Here were morris chairs, a brown horsehair sofa, and all the comforts. Oval photographs of small children cluttered a small desk. An officer’s memorabilia filled the room. A silk regimental flag, sepia photos of men in uniform, a sheathed sword.

  “Would you like to refresh yourself, sir?” Benteen asked.

  “I spent a little time at the station, colonel. It wasn’t such a bad trip, save for losing some sleep.”

  “Ah! Colonel. I don’t get called that much, except by Kate. I call her the general. We both know who’s commanding around here. You’ll meet her in a bit. She’s fixing us some tea and tarts. Now then, tell me again what we’re after here. The fight, yes? Always the fight. I’ll talk about it, you bet I will.”

  Richler pulled a notepad from his breast pocket. “About Marcus Reno, in particular, colonel. I’ll tell you exactly what this is. On his deathbed he asked a favor of me. He couldn’t talk, you know. He wanted his name cleared. He wanted his honor back. He didn’t want to lie in his grave in dishonor. I … agreed. Maybe foolishly. I wrote up a simple death notice for the Herald, but I’m working on a real obituary, and I hope I can give the man his dying wish.”

  Benteen studied Richler from bulging, gray, and unblinking eyes that gave him a startled look. “You can award the man his honor,” he said so flatly that it seemed as final as a Supreme Court opinion.

  “I know you were close, so I thought I’d ask a few questions.”

  “Close? Reno and I tangled all of our lives. Not close. No man could ever get close to Reno. He wouldn’t allow it.”

  “But you we
re thrown together in a moment that still excites talk. That’s what I hope to talk about.”

  “Fire away, then. I can’t get into any worse trouble than I’ve been in all my life.”

  “You’ve had a gallant career, sir.”

  Benteen’s ruddy face lit up. “Bull-headed is what it was. And it didn’t end well. I’m going to bring that up so it doesn’t sit here like some stone between us. They tried to cashier me. A long story. They pick on old majors who like a sip now and then, as our Major Reno did. But it was civilians that got me into a jam. I’m well out of it now, and we’re happy.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Family. Investments. A most pleasant society. I’m a Southerner, a Virginian by birth, only I chose the Union.”

  “And it’s not held against you, the blue uniform?”

  “Sure it is. That makes life entertaining.”

  Kate appeared, bearing a tray with a steaming teapot and scones, cups and saucers.

  Richler was struck by her bright beauty, and also by her Southern way of wearing layers of gauzy white cotton that seemed to give Georgia women an ethereal grace. Richler couldn’t imagine Nadine in such a costume.

  “Ah, Mr. Richler, you’ve arrived at just the right moment. The colonel is itching for another scrap, having gotten bored in retirement,” she said, pouring tea. “Unless you would prefer that I retire, I’ll sit in on it and add my dime’s worth. He’ll give you the meat, and I’ll add some salt and pepper.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have plenty to add to the colonel’s reminiscences,” Richler said, wondering if it really might be so. He knew that Benteen shared everything with Kate, including the last scrap of officers’ gossip. She had lived apart, finding frontier duty stations too taxing, and Benteen had kept her informed by regular correspondence.

  She smiled cheerfully and settled in a morris chair, wanting to hear every word. Richler wondered whether it might inhibit Benteen, but the robust old man simply settled back, pulled out a meerschaum, tapped pungent dark leaf into it, and lit up.

  “Where do you want to start?” Benteen asked.

  “Custer.”

  “My feelings about Custer are well known, sir.”

  “Yes, and some say they lie at the core of what happened at the Little Bighorn.”

  Benteen puffed a moment, and Richler watched smoke curl up from the pipe and dissipate.

  “It behooves me not to speak ill of the dead. George Custer was a man of great courage and gallantry, a soldier to the core. The army lost a fine officer.”

  Richler wondered whether Benteen, for all his cheerful bravado and announced intention to speak his mind, was going to clam up after all. It had been a long train ride, and maybe for nothing.

  “He was also a sonofabitch,” Benteen added.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  BENTEEN PUFFED SLOWLY, PLAINLY RELISHING THE MOMENT. HE WAS out of the army. This interview was the first since his retirement. It would be gloves off.

  “Whittaker and his cabal accused me of mass murder,” Benteen said. “Mass murder because they said I didn’t like Custer. They said that I deliberately kept my forces out of the battle after Custer had told me to hurry. That my slow arrival resulted, by my design, in Custer’s destruction. That’s the gist of it, eh?”

  “Something like that,” Richler said, “but usually put less harshly.”

  “No, that’s exactly it. Tear a veneer of civility off those charges and that’s it: I’m a mass murderer, letting Custer have his just desserts. I did it by design.”

  The Herald man listened intently. This was getting very good.

  “Do you believe it?” Benteen asked, leaning forward. “That I wanted Custer and his entire command to perish? Or at least, that I wanted to embarrass him, let him get into hot water?”

  “I’ve heard it,” Richler said.

  “Do you own a horse? Have you ever?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, then I have the chance to explain something. Horses tire out just as any animal does. We had been under a forced march, day and night, and our mounts were exhausted. Any good cavalryman knows what he can get out of his horse. And he knows what the horse will give him when asked. Any cavalry officer worth his salt knows not to go into a pitched fight on exhausted mounts, if at all possible.

  “I received orders from the adjutant, Cooke, to steer off to the left and look for outlying villages in the hills. Custer wanted the whole bunch herded in. He didn’t want any flight this time. So off I went, with my three companies, looking for outlying Indians, miles and miles, on tired mounts, not finding even one, and then I received word to return, ‘big village ahead, come quick.’ In cavalry terms, I did come quick. But I had just been on a ten-mile detour.

  “We started at a trot and maintained that pace mile after mile. That’s how you make time and preserve the horses for a fight. A horse can hold a trot without tiring. He cannot gallop over long stretches without wearing out. Our whole command had worn-out mounts. Custer’s own companies were riding worn-out mounts, but ours were in worse shape because of my long detour.

  “We heard firing ahead, a fight starting up, and Tom Weir wanted to run, and I held us to a trot, because what is worse than heading into a hard fight on worn-out mounts? Some mounts even quit. I would have imperiled my command if I had led it into that fight on fagged-out mounts. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Would it have helped if you had arrived earlier?”

  Benteen was animated. Plainly, he was relishing this. “Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it, sir? We all expected the Indians to scatter under cavalry attack. I did, Custer did, Reno did. So we all went into that fight blind. How the hell was I to know, or Reno to know, that this time the Indians were ready to fight to the death?

  “Would you mind telling me why I should believe that Custer was in any kind of grave trouble, just because we heard some shots as we approached? Can you point to any reconnaissance that would have alarmed me? The commander attacked without knowing the terrain or the numbers. Neither Reno nor I had the faintest idea what we were getting into and Custer didn’t tell us because he didn’t know either!”

  Richler shook his head.

  Benteen’s ruddy face had turned even redder. “Hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? Looking back on a disaster, everything leading into it looks sinister. Let’s get to the heart of this. Do you really suppose, just because I didn’t like the sonofabitch, that I would deliberately let my own Seventh Cavalry men perish?

  “If you believe that, sir, you must believe that every man’s hand is turned against every other man’s hand. You must believe in a world without loyalties, without honor, without decency. There are those who believe in conspiracies and back-stabs. Once in a while that happens. Mostly, it’s nonsense.

  “You followed the Whittaker business? The paper’s been full of it. Whittaker believed in just such a world, and he died a few weeks ago because he stumbled on a staircase and shot himself with the revolver he always had in hand to kill the shadowy intruders who lurked around him in his mind’s eye.

  “He believed that there were people out to get him, he had to defend himself, and he carried his revolver against these phantoms who were lurking in the shadows. That was the inner world of the man who accused Reno and me. Someday someone will give a name to that sort of mentality, that dour suspiciousness and distrust of everyone.”

  “I don’t think Whittaker ever made much of a case, colonel.”

  “Among some people he made quite a case. Funny thing is, some defeated Reb officers bought it, believed it. Those who think the world is full of back-stabbers and conspirators believed it. There are people who actually think Marcus and I plotted to disobey orders and let Custer get himself into a jam or kill himself.”

  “Whittaker didn’t really accuse Reno of that, colonel. Just cowardice and blundering.”

  Benteen grunted, tapped the ash from his meerschaum, and settled it in a pipe rack on a polished ta
ble.

  “Reno didn’t think much of Custer, either; wasn’t part of Custer’s little coterie, but he kept his views to himself. Not like me. I made no bones about my feelings. The sonofabitching glory hound would get his regiment in trouble sometime, and that time came. But Reno kept his mouth shut. He was a loner.”

  Richler nodded. Benteen was pouring forth his views without being prompted, and the newsman had only to nod and listen.

  “Do you think, Richler, that I felt guilty after that fight? That I walked among the dead on that awful grassy slope, men I knew and treasured, feeling some sort of morbid shame, feeling some unbearable self-loathing because it was all my fault?

  “Do you think I was filled with revulsion against myself? That I supposed I was a betrayer, a Judas? That I had let them all perish? No, sir, I most certainly did not. I wept, along with the rest. Those were my friends there, Keogh, Sturgis, Cooke, all those good and dear friends. Men whose hands I had clasped, men I grieved to tears.”

  Kate spoke up. “Whittaker’s accusations have burdened my dear Frederick far more than Marcus, you know. Whittaker didn’t accuse Marcus of being the Judas. Merely a coward.”

  She smiled suddenly. “But Freddy’s too thick-skinned to let it get to him. Marcus was thin-skinned though he would never admit it. That accusation cut to his core, and changed him, made him hunt for insults. He couldn’t bear it. After that, he found offense everywhere, even when none was intended, I’m afraid.”

  She reached across to Benteen’s hand, and patted it. Richler discovered in Kate a true mate and a friend too. Whatever one might say about Benteen, he seemed happily married.

  “May I turn to the valley fight, colonel? You weren’t there, but you know as much as anyone about it. Should Reno have kept on, ignoring the reality that he was being engulfed and flanked by the Indians?”

  Benteen brightened. “One of the little mental exercises I engage in, or used to long ago, was this: what if Custer had sent Reno around to the right flank, and had led the charge on the village, straight up the valley, himself? Driven right in with his five companies? Would the result have been different? Custer would have kept going regardless, and even with more men than Reno had he would have been surrounded and defeated right there in the village or close to it. And Reno, caught in that high bluff country, couldn’t have come to Custer’s rescue. And I would not have returned in time.”