“What does that suggest, colonel?”
“When an attack fails, and the entire command is imperiled, a commander ought to retreat and regroup. Reno saw the peril, organized a retreat to the woods, and bought time. I can’t fault the man for good tactical decisions.”
“But retreats don’t excite admiration,” Richler said.
Benteen laughed, an odd harshness in his amusement. “No newspaper ever celebrated a retreat, and no generals do either, not even a necessary retreat. That’s a great peculiarity. There went Custer, right into the middle of it all and got himself killed and everyone reported how gallant he was, what a hero. And there’s poor Reno, doing the only possible thing to do under the circumstances, and everybody whispers what a coward he was.”
“One hears stories that Reno was disoriented …”
Benteen shook his head irritably. “In the middle of a desperate battle, sir, you rarely have the chance to examine the conduct of others. That’s what amused me about the court of inquiry. The witnesses all swore that Reno was this, or that, or something else. As if they could form judgments under such circumstances. He did, apparently, hesitate or reverse himself a time or two, but under that sort of pressure who wouldn’t?”
“You wouldn’t,” Kate said. “You’re a bulldog.”
Richler bored in. “He ordered a retreat to the hilltop, and it turned into a rout. The troops were fleeing for their lives. Was that his failing?”
“I wasn’t there. But I’ll say this. When your men panic and won’t heed commands, and the sergeants aren’t in control, and the company commanders are shouting at air, it’s not likely that the commander of the unit is at fault. Reno was a veteran of the War of the Rebellion. I don’t think he panicked himself. I don’t know that he could have done more than he did. His decision to get to the hilltop was certainly sound. You’ve seen the testimony. Nearly every officer under him said he couldn’t have survived long in that woods. They were too few to defend such a big patch.”
“Did the officers say one thing to the court of inquiry and believe another?”
“Hell, yes.”
That startled Richler. “You included?”
“What I didn’t tell the court, sir, could fill a book.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Here’s what I might have said: Custer launched the most ill-planned and poorly reconnoitered assault in American military history.
“No one really wanted to speak ill of the dead, so the recorder, Lee, never approached the issue of whether Custer’s plan of attack was competent. It wasn’t. I should have received far more instruction from Cooke than he delivered to me. I didn’t know, for instance, what Reno’s orders were, or what to do if I found no Indians on the left. There was no scheme to it, not one word. If Custer had a plan in his head, he didn’t reveal it to the battalion commanders. Little of that came out in the inquiry. It needed to come out. Reno was left to his own devices and he did as well as he could.”
“How would you rank Reno as a cavalry officer?”
“Not first rate. Never inspired the men, never fired them up. But I’ve served under worse, far worse.”
“Competent?”
“Entirely competent, sir, and the survival of half of the Seventh attests to his competence.”
“But on the hilltop?”
Benteen paused. “That’s a good question,” he replied, slowly. “And the answer isn’t simple.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
RICHLER HADN’T BEEN PREPARED TO LIKE BENTEEN, BUT THE MORE he talked with the retired cavalry officer, the more taken he was. Benteen was candid, never concealing his beliefs, and plainly enjoying his talk with the Herald reporter. Maybe the man was a little cynical toward his fellow officers, maybe even abrasive, but there was no hypocrisy in anything he did or said.
It was a good interview, and Richler thought it would help him fashion that obituary, which was steadily shaping in his mind. He had gambled, coming all the way to Atlanta, and now the gamble was paying off.
“Let’s go to the hilltop fight, colonel,” he said. “There’s a lot of conflicting testimony about Reno’s conduct there. I’ve gone through the court of inquiry and ended up with sharply contradictory impressions. On the one hand, the testimony suggests that Reno seemed dazed and passive and left the defense to you. On the other hand, testimony suggests that Reno was aggressive, patrolled the lines, upbraided skulkers hiding among the pack mules, exposed himself to fire so much that others warned him to take cover. What was it?”
“Both,” Benteen replied. “Both are accurate.”
“Explain that, if you will.”
“As I look back upon that period, a time most perilous I assure you, I believe there were two Renos. We were under fire, a small exposed command facing many times our numbers, without water, and abandoned by Custer—or so we thought. He ordered me to array my men on one side, and his would take the other, but after that he left the defenses to his company commanders. He stared out into the surrounding hills almost as if he expected to find an answer there.
“And then, suddenly, he left the command to me and headed downslope to recover what he could from Lieutenant Hodgson’s body. He picked up a ring and a few personal items and made it back safely. That could be seen as gallant, or as foolhardy. In a different setting, such as a great victory, that would have been an act of utmost gallantry.”
Richler nodded.
“Then there was the question of whether to try to find Custer. Tom Weir was probing north on his own, along the bluffs, and his company riding after him, and we resolved to follow as soon as the pack horses with ammunition were in. Reno’s ammunition had largely been expended. I’ve heard reports that his men had around thirty rounds, and he was dead right not to mount an all-out attack with so little ammunition. He had no choice but to wait, though Tom Weir couldn’t see it. Weir was well supplied; his company hadn’t yet been in a fight. He just didn’t grasp that you just don’t attack with empty guns.
“Through all this, Reno commanded intelligently, yet in odd bursts of energy and periods of inert watchfulness. That’s why I say there were two of Marcus Reno up there.”
“How so?”
“Sometimes he seemed to neglect duty and I found myself commanding. Other times he was in a perfect frenzy, rallying the troops, organizing the movement that would follow Weir, once the ammunition was distributed.”
“Torn between decision and indecision?”
“Now, there’s an odd thing. He was able, and I can’t tell you he was anything else. But I’ve wondered if he was in some sort of shock, kept pulling himself out of it and commanding, only to slip back into a passive mood. I have no word for it. Other moments he was fierce, aggressive, scornful of danger.
“Now what would you call all that? I have no word for it. Maybe someday someone will supply a word. We’re talking about some quality in his nature, his character, that seesawed back and forth. That’s why I keep returning to the idea that there were two of him on that hilltop.”
“That doesn’t sound very good to me, a commander sliding in and out of command.”
Benteen didn’t reply, for a change. Richler could see that the man was reliving those moments in his mind’s eye. Finally he spoke: “My memory is playing tricks. During the whole time, I saw nothing in his command that troubled me and that includes any drinking. I’ll tell you flatly the man was not drunk. Reno was a sipper, he always had to nip a little, but I never saw him intoxicated or incapable of commanding, and no other officer did either. And by God, I’d have sipped myself if I had the chance.”
“At the inquiry, some civilian packers claimed he was roaring drunk.”
“That’s the old civilian game, sir. Let an officer rebuke a civilian and that civilian knows how to get even, knows exactly where every officer in the army is vulnerable. Believe me, I’ve just been through it. Reno slapped one of those men for skulking out of harm’s way instead of helping to defend, and next thing you know, th
e man is at the court of inquiry testifying that Reno was drunk. He wasn’t. As I myself said, the officers there wouldn’t have let him command if he’d been drunk. And as I also said, I could have used a nip myself, but there wasn’t enough whiskey in the whole command to get anyone drunk.”
Benteen nodded toward Kate, who rose at once and began pulling bottles out of a kitchen cupboard.
“You can’t talk man to man without something to sip,” he said.
Richler smiled. “If you were in my shoes, wanting to write a candid obituary of the man, what would you say, colonel?”
Benteen peered at Richler wryly. “Reno was my kind of sonofabitch.”
“When did you lose track of him?” Richler asked.
“When he was suspended. I saw him briefly at the court of inquiry.”
“Had he gone downhill in some fashion?”
“Certainly. Something was eating him, and I’d guess it was those accusations. Worse, he knew the court of inquiry didn’t resolve a thing. There were still officers who felt they could have done better on that battlefield, officers who thought Reno tucked his tail between his legs and fled, officers who found fault. They weren’t happy with the result.
“And all the inquiry did was isolate Marcus even more. He was cleared, sort of, and half of them didn’t want him cleared because they all privately thought they could do better. Even the armchair generals, like that old Reb, Rosser, thought they could do better. Running from Indians! Everybody knows all about the Indians. They don’t fight.
“So there’s old Marcus, cleared of cowardice, and a lot of smug rivals thinking it had been a whitewash. I wish some of those sonsofbitches could have been there. It was a big thing, you know, worst defeat the army had experienced with Indians, and the high command wasn’t happy with Custer, with Reno, with me, and even with Terry. Only I have thick skin, so it all bounced off. Marcus … that’s another case entirely.”
Kate slipped a shot glass of amber fluid and a tumbler of water, to the table. Richler poured the shot into the water and sipped.
Benteen downed his shot neat, wheezed, and smiled. “Damned good stuff,” he said. “What are you going to write about him?”
“I don’t know yet. I plan to interview General Terry and maybe some others, before I start scribbling.”
“You write on one of those typing machines?”
“Longhand.”
“I’ve been writing my memoirs.”
“May I have a look?”
“Someday, after I’m gone.”
“What do you suppose happened to Reno after that fight? He went from being a soldier who kept out of trouble to getting into serious trouble. Why did he disintegrate after the battle?”
Benteen sipped, and frowned. “I’ve wondered about that. Sometimes I think he never should have been an officer. Other times I think that’s nonsense. He got into trouble at West Point, barely scraped through, mostly because his rambling spirit wouldn’t submit to army discipline.
“But, Richler, that wasn’t it. There was something contradictory in him, some part of himself he was always wrestling against, trying to contain. Maybe he should have been a poet. He held together until Whittaker, the surrogate of Mrs. Custer, began denouncing him as a coward. He never thought of himself as a coward after the battle; he was proud as punch that he has saved the command from annihilation.
“And then the knifing began, the little stabs, big stabs, and he fell apart. Don’t ask me to diagnose a problem within the man; he just couldn’t stand up to the criticism, though he put on a good front, that’s for sure.”
“An aberration of the mind, a divided heart?”
“Something like that.”
Richler thought that the whiskey was swiftly expanding Benteen’s hospitality and camaraderie.
“Do you think he should have been reinstated? He spent the rest of his life trying.”
“Let me put it this way,” Benteen said. “I wish he had just settled into a comfortable civilian life. He should have been listed as a casualty, not for wounds to the flesh, but wounds to his soul.”
“The corps was his life, colonel. It was all he wanted.”
“Yes, and that’s why Marcus Reno is a tragic figure.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE NEXT INTERVIEW WOULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT, AND MAYBE the hardest. Joseph Richler sat in his swaying wicker seat in a grimy maroon steam coach examining every possible approach, and knowing that he might well fail utterly.
Major General Alfred Howe Terry had been Reno’s departmental commander for much of Reno’s later career, and was involved in everything that happened to the major from well before the Little Bighorn to Reno’s sudden eviction from the army.
Richler had written Terry a few days earlier, asking to interview him about the troubled major, and suggesting that they meet at the forthcoming encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Boston. But the general had pleaded ill health, and said he was largely confined to his home in New Haven. But he would indeed be willing to discuss at length the Little Bighorn and its aftermath with Richler in New Haven.
That was promising. But Richler reminded himself that Terry had been a smooth, successful lawyer before the Civil War, and much of what he did in the army was involved with military law. The chances of getting a candid interview from a man steeped in discretion would be a challenge. But Joe Richler was a veteran New York Herald correspondent, and James Gordon Bennett didn’t hire amateurs or the faint-hearted. And besides, Joe Richler loved a challenge. The worse the odds, the better he liked it. Terry had raised and commanded a regiment of Connecticut volunteers during the War of the Rebellion, fought at First Bull Run, and then in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, applying his remarkable grasp of military tactics to the battlefields. He soon rose to brigadier of volunteers, and after the war was signally honored to receive the same rank in the regular army.
When the Seventh Cavalry was moved to Dakota in 1873, it fell under the command of General Terry, and that was when Marcus Reno found himself under the Connecticut general. It was Terry who detailed him to the boundary survey. Terry who had sent the Seventh Cavalry, led by Custer, off to scout out the hostile Sioux. Terry who was on hand a day after the Little Bighorn. Terry who had approved Reno’s various courtsmartial. Terry who had approved or modified the verdicts of those trials. Terry who had set in motion the court of inquiry into Reno’s conduct. Terry who had dismissed Major Reno from further service, after receiving orders from Washington to do so.
It was Terry whose word would, in the end, shape what Joseph Richler would write about Reno … if Terry talked, and that was the question looming large and urgent all the way north.
He transferred stations in New York City, and caught a New England express out to Long Island Sound, detraining at last in the splendid old city where a central green still existed, surrounded by the old churches, where Yale University flourished, where many of the small arms used by the army were manufactured. No wonder the general lived there; Richler had rarely seen such a vibrant and gracious old city.
At the ornate station he rang up Terry on a telephone, enjoying the novelty, and was assured by a servant that the general was awaiting him. He caught a hansom cab and soon stepped out before a substantial brick home.
A maid answered and led him to a parlor where the general was seated, a small lap robe over him even in the summer’s warmth.
“Forgive me for not getting up, Mr. Richler,” he said, extending a frail white hand. Richler shook it gently, shocked to find the general, who had retired only the previous year, so ravaged by age. His hair, bushy eyebrows, moustache, and soup-strainer beard were shot with gray. “My constitution is not what it was, but I hope the rest of me will prove worthy of the occasion.”
“It is good of you to see me, sir, especially because it concerns a subject both delicate and controversial.”
“I am not afraid of controversy, nor am I the servant of delicacy, Mr. Richler. I have my own purp
oses here, among them to clarify things while I am still able to do so.”
That was plain enough, and hopeful.
“Please be seated, and speak up, because I have heard too many cannon in my day and I suffer a loss of hearing. Now, shall we have some tea, or something stronger?”
“Tea, sir.”
“Iced? We have a good supply of pond ice, which I relish for just such occasions.”
“That would be a great treat, sir.”
Terry rang a silver bell and swiftly conveyed his request to the Irish maid.
“Now then?” Terry stared gravely at Richler, awaiting the first question. The general radiated an innate confidence. He seemed to be a man who knew who he was in the scheme of things, a man who could handle any question, especially those he cared not to answer.
“I am preparing a Herald story about Major Reno, sir. You might call it an obituary. It’s the result of the major’s own deathbed wish. He could not speak, you know, having lost his tongue to the surgeon’s knife, but he expressed that wish when he was fevered and failing.
“He wanted his honor back. He had failed over his life to do that. I said I would attempt it. I have had great doubts, and thought I might escape a swiftly offered promise given a dying man, but I can’t do that, sir. I will make the best case I can, without violating any truths or fact. If you can help me, I would welcome it. If not, I would frankly still welcome your view.”
Terry smiled gently. “Well, let’s see,” he said, and in that phrase, so simple in its externals, lay the promise of a most thorough examination. “I presume this shall be a public interview, and whatever is said here might be quoted.”
An Obituary for Major Reno Page 26
