Assault on Atlantis a-5

by Robert Doherty

He turned to Cooke. “Relay my orders to Captain Benteen. He is to take Companies D, H and K and move to the southwest along those hills there.” Custer pointed in the desired direction. “He is to explore that terrain for hostiles and also make sure that no Indians make their escape in that direction.”

  Lieutenant Cooke was startled by the command, but he nodded and rode off toward Benteen.

  BENTEEN

  Benteen and Custer were like two wolves prowling the same territory. Custer had the rank, but Benteen had something else, a look in his eyes, that belied his gentle appearance. And the one time the two had come head to head, it had been Custer who had backed off.

  Benteen was used to conflict, having grown up in a southern family that had owned slaves in Virginia and prior to the Civil War had moved to St. Louis in the border state of Missouri. When war came, Benteen accepted a commission in the Tenth Missouri, a move that stunned and angered his father, who promptly disinherited him. The father went to work for the Confederacy aboard a supply steamboat that plowed the Mississippi. As fate would have it, the Tenth Missouri captured that same steamboat, so the younger Benteen, disinherited though he might have been, held sway over his father.

  While his father was held in custody the rest of the war, · Frederick Benteen served with bravery throughout numerous campaigns. He had been recommended for brevet brigadier general on June 6, 1865, but the brevet’ wasn’t approved due to the influence of politicians and the West Point network. Like many of the other officers now in the Seventh Cavalry, · at the end of the war his rank was reduced back to his regular Army commission as a captain.

  Benteen came to the Seventh Cavalry in January 1867. From the very first meeting he didn’t hit it off with Custer. Benteen was older and he’d served more time with troops than Custer. But Custer was West Point and Benteen wasn’t. Still, Benteen had tried to be professional. Then came Washita and the issue of Major Elliott that put acid in the moat between the two men.

  The “great victory,” as Benteen would caption the event, had almost gotten Benteen killed. It was something he wasn’t likely ever to forget. He’d charged into the village and spotted a young brave escaping, running from a lodge. Benteen gave chase, signaling for the brave to surrender. The man had turned and fired at Benteen, the bullet whistling by his ear. The brave fired again, and the bullet hit Benteen’s horse, knocking him to the ground. Benteen had rolled to his feet and finally shot back, killing the brave.

  But it wasn’t that incident that soured and sickened Benteen at the Washita. It began after that, when Custer ordered the Indian ponies captured by the regiment to be killed. Almost a thousand of the animals were slaughtered. Even here, under the harsh summer sun, Benteen still shivered when he thought of that cold December morning just before Christmas. He could clearly recollect the screams of wounded horses and Custer riding about. Shooting the Indians’ dogs with his pistol as if it were the greatest sport in the world. Benteen shook his head as he watched Custer and Cooke talk.

  Benteen jerked back on his horse’s bit as he remembered. And then there was the counting in the village. Everything had to be counted. Bodies, saddles, rifles, spears, shields, everything. Benteen had seen the official report and almost burst a vein in his forehead from anger. Custer reported 103 dead warriors. More like two dozen, Benteen had estimated from his Own ride through the camp. The rest of the bodies · were women, children, and old men who couldn’t even lift a spear any more.

  And then there was Major Elliott and his eighteen men. Elliott had taken a platoon of men, charged after Indians fleeing down the river and simply disappeared. The rest of the command finished butchering the animals and burning the lodges and then Custer ordered them to form to return to post. It would be dark soon, he explained to astonished junior officers who wanted to search for Elliott’s party, and they had no idea if there might not be more large bands of hostiles in the area.

  So they left without even looking for Elliott.

  Benteen had been with the force that returned to the Washita two weeks later. They went downstream from the scorched site of the battle and found what remained of Elliott’s command. Nineteen mutilated bodies lay frozen in the snow inside a small hollow next to the river. Piles of spent cartridges next to the bodies pointed to a desperate last stand.

  Maybe we could have saved Elliott, Benteen wondered not for the first time. If Custer had acted like any decent commander and-Benteen spit. He’d played it out in his head a · thousand different ways, but the fact of the matter was that his friend Joel Elliott and eighteen troopers had been killed and tom apart while Custer and the rest of the regiment, Benteen among them, rode for the safety of their fort.

  Benteen could still see Elliott’s body, preserved by the cold weather. His arms had been ripped out of the sockets and placed alongside his head. Deep gashes ran down each thigh, cut through the muscle to expose white bone. His genitals had been severed and shoved into his mouth. His torso had been riddled with more than fifty arrows, so many arrows that Benteen couldn’t pull all of them out. He’d had to break them off to get the body into the burial wagon. Naturally, Elliott was scalped, the top of the head a mixture of white bone and red flesh.

  Benteen wrote about the entire episode in a letter that he mailed to a colleague with whom he had served in the Tenth Missouri. The letter found its way into the hands of a man working for the St. Louis Dispatch, where it was published without the identity of the writer being revealed. It was a blemish on what Custer had claimed was a flawless victory and helped unleash a backlash of negative press, especially among the more liberal papers back east that decried the massacre of women and children.

  Custer knew he wrote it. He threatened Benteen inside his command tent, a copy of the paper in his hand, and Benteen had asked him to step outside and take it up with weapons. Benteen had waited outside for more than a sufficient amount of time and then walked away as Custer continued to rant and rave inside the tent but dared not show his head outside.

  Benteen grimaced as Cooke and the new scout came up. The adjutant had his head so far up Custer’s rear, Benteen often wondered if those damn whiskers tickled Custer’s bottom. The scout was a strange creature, one of those who’d spent so much time on the frontier and alone they didn’t seem to fit in around other people.

  Cooke relayed the orders for the march without meeting Benteen’s eyes. Benteen didn’t acknowledge the orders directly.

  “Do I get a surgeon?” he asked.

  “One has not been detailed to you, sir,” Cooke replied.

  “And if I make contact with the hostiles?”

  “You are to pitch into them, sir,” Cooke replied vaguely.

  “’Pitch into?’” Benteen repeated. “Is that a military term that is taught at the Academy? I am afraid I do not have the benefit of such an excellent education.”

  “You are to engage the enemy, sir.”

  “Engage with a hundred and twenty men?” Benteen asked rhetorically.

  The adjutant rode back to Custer, whose back was turned to the column. The scout, Bouyer, dawdled. Benteen rode up to him. “What is it?”

  “There’s no one to the southwest.” Bouyer said.

  “I know that. But 1 have orders. You heard them.”

  Bouyer nodded. “1 heard, major. But you don’t have to ride hard to the southwest.”

  “Custer wants all the glory,” Benteen said. “Why should I worry about-”

  “It ain’t about Custer,” Bouyer interrupted. “It’s bigger than him.”

  “What’s bigger than him?”

  “What’s going to happen today.”

  “And that is?”

  “I think you have an idea.”

  Benteen stared hard at the scout but didn’t say anything. Bouyer reached into a large sack tied off to his horse’s pommel and pulled out something wrapped in a leather pouch. “Here.”

  Benteen took the pouch, surprised both at the weight and the warmth being propagated by whatever was inside.
“What is this?” he asked as he reached to loosen the drawstring.

  ‘’Don’t.’’ Bouyer held up his hand, indicating Benteen should stop. “Not now. Just carry it for today.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Benteen was tempted to open the satchel and look, but there was something about Bouyer’s demeanor, a seriousness that drew him in. Benteen not only had a strong feeling that · something was going to happen today, his military sense told him a battle would be engaged today. There was too much evidence to ignore. And the battle would not be to the southwest, · but somewhere along the Little Big Horn.

  “All right,” Benteen said.

  Bouyer nodded. ‘’Ride slow, sir.” With that he turned and headed back to the column. Benteen watched him for a few moments, then twisted in the saddle and barked orders, getting the three companies that were to form his battalion in line. He dispatched Lieutenant Gibson and ten men to form a forward screen in the difficult terrain to guard against ambush.

  “Left oblique, march!” Benteen cried out With a hundred and ten men he marched to the southwest.

  “Where are you going?” Major Reno shouted from Benteen’s left as the newly formed battalion began moving.

  Benteen pointed. “To those hills.”

  “For what purpose?” Reno asked in a lower voice, coming closer so Custer couldn’t hear, although Benteen doubted the general could hear anything above the noise the column made moving.

  “To drive everything before me,” Benteen said sarcastically.

  Reno turned and looked at the Wolf Mountains toward which Benteen’s battalion was moving, and his face reflected what Benteen felt. There was nothing more to be said. Benteen didn’t particularly care for Reno either, and, if the truth be known, he’d rather have Custer in command than the major.

  Almost immediately upon leaving Ash Creek the column hit rough going. That struck Benteen immediately in the tactical sense, telling him that no reasonable group of Indians would be camped here. They were down on the Little Big Horn as every sign and every scout in the regiment had indicated.

  Benteen smiled grimly to himself. The boy general wanted the valley for himself. Well, so be it. Custer and Reno could take on the Sioux. Benteen would do as he was ordered.

  Then he looked at the satchel Bouyer had given him and the smile slipped away. Today was shaping up to be a most strange day.

  RENO

  Reno and Custer had much in common and that fact darkly amused the major whenever he happened to reflect on it, which wasn’t often. Custer graduated last in his class at West Point, and Reno had failed to graduate with the class he entered with, the class of 1855. Then he failed to make it with the class of ’56 for the same reason: excess demerits. In fact, Reno had so many he set an Academy record of 1,031 demerits; of course he had six years to achieve that somewhat dubious honor, whereas most cadets only had four. Custer had once pointed out what an achievement that high number was, when there were actually some cadets who graduated without a single demerit, a notable example being Robert E. Lee, who had achieved some fame during the War Between the States, Custer had been sure to add. Reno had finally made it out of the Point in 1857, the year Custer entered the Academy.

  When Custer had laughed about his demerits, Reno had been forced to bite his tongue. While Reno was punished for excess dements at West Point, Custer was court-martialed. Reno had heard the story from one of Custer’s classmates. Just before graduation, in 1861, Custer was officer of the guard at West Point when two cadets became involved in an altercation. Custer, instead of doing his duty and stopping the fight. Ordered the bystanders back and directed the belligerents to conduct a fair fight. Unfortunately for Custer, the officer of the day, a commissioned, regular Army officer, happened to hear these words and Custer was brought up on charges. Only the onset of the Civil War kept his Army career going.

  However, unlike Custer, Reno’s war record was not notable in either direction. He served and he did his duty without particular distinction or disgrace. After the war, Reno did not have a good go of it. He managed to antagonize about!very possible person he could while trying to wrangle a good assignment and was banished to Fort Vancouver, Washington, as far away from the mainstream a soldier could be sent and still be in the Army.

  Reno thought of it as the bad luck time of his career. Everyone had one. Even Custer had been court-martialed in Kansas and forced to take an unpaid leave of absence for a year not too long ago.

  But Reno’s luck had changed in 1869 when he was assigned to the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Or so he had thought at the time, Reno reflected as he watched the dust cloud from Benteen’s battalion.

  So far his tour in the Seventh had not turned out well. Besides having to serve under Custer, of course. Two years ago Reno’s wife had died while he was afield with the Seventh. He’d requested a leave of absence to attend her funeral and take care of family business. Headquarters turned down his request, the cold letters of the reply telegram still vivid in Reno’s mind: ‘’The Department Commander feels it is imperative to decline to grant you leave. You must return to your command.”

  My command, Reno thought as he glanced over at Custer still talking to Cooke. This regiment should have been mine, he fumed. Damn Custer and damn those who believed in him! The colonel had gone AWOL, absent without leave, in 1867, an offense Custer himself had punished with summary executions in the field. Reno hadn’t been with the Seventh then, but · he’d heard all about it from others who’d been there.

  During General Hancock’s ’67 campaign in Kansas, Custer took it upon himself to leave the regiment while it was in the field and ride to visit his wife. The board had drummed him out and suspended him for one year. But then, because of his connections and his reputation, he was back. And here he was, still in command despite all he had done to flout the rules and regulations of the Army.

  Reno watched as Cooke rode toward him. My turn, Reno thought.

  “Your orders, sir, are to take your three troops along the south side of this creek. Cross the Little Big Horn, and attack the Indian camp from the south.”

  Reno swallowed and looked over Cooke’s shoulder where Custer was. The general was peering to the northwest and signing with some of his scouts.

  “Just my battalion?” Reno asked.

  The general says that he will support your attack if you make contact.”

  ‘’Where will the general be?” Reno asked.

  “We will be on the other side of the creek … on your right flank … within supporting distance,” Cooke replied with a bit of hesitancy in his voice.

  Reno peered in the direction Custer was looking. “It’s quite a way to the river.”

  “Ten or twelve miles,” Cooke replied. ‘”The general fears · that the Indians are already striking camp and are on the run.”

  “On the run?” Reno repeated dully. He could not believe his orders. Benteen was chasing ghosts to the south, and Custer Was splitting what was left of the regiment once again. Hell, they’d already split from Terry. If this kept up Reno envisioned leading a platoon of men eventually.

  Cooke’s voice finned up. ‘’The scouts will go with your command, sir.”

  “The scouts?” He could see the half-breed who had just been assigned as a scout coming up behind the adjutant.

  “Yes, sir,” Cooke affined.

  Reno reached up a hand and touched his forehead. It was blazing hot under the sun and his fingers were drenched with · Sweat. He ran his tongue across his lips. “But what is the · plan?”

  Cooke was startled by the question. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t understand the plan,” Reno replied.

  “You are to move up the valley and attack the hostiles,” Cooke said. “The general will support you as needed.”

  “As needed?”

  Custer was waving his hand. Indicating for Cooke to come · back. Custer’s five companies were already moving. Reno shook
his head, trying to clear the fog he felt descending through it, slowing his thoughts and muddying them. Cooke turned and started to ride away.

  “Just make sure I get the support!” Reno called out. Cooke raised a hand, indicating he heard. At least that’s what Reno thought.

  Bouyer rode and half touched his right hand to his forehead in a form of salute. “Major:”

  “What exactly does the general want me to do?” Reno demanded.

  Bouyer dropped the hand. “He didn’t tell me his orders. Sir, other than to link up with you.”

  Reno shook his head. “It makes no sense. The hostiles will be in the valley along the river. Why is Custer riding in the hills?”

  In response, Bouyer reached into a large sack tied off to his pommel and pulled out a leather satchel. He extended it toward Reno. “Here you go, sir.”

  Reno didn’t take it “What the hell is this?”

  “A talisman.”

  “A what?”

  “Strong medicine.” Bouyer still had his arms outstretched.

  Custer was gesturing toward Reno, mouthing something. The major had no doubt that whatever the general was saying, it wasn’t pleasant He grabbed the satchel and looped the leather tie over the hook holding his map case near the left rear of the saddle. There was no time for this nonsense.

  Reno shouted orders, getting his three companies, A, G and M, in line and moving. He had eleven officers and about a hundred and twenty-five troopers. He also had the scouts, which he found out of the ordinary. Even Bloody Knife was with his column. Strange of the general to part with his favorite scout, Reno thought He also had a surgeon, Henry Porter, an assistant surgeon, James DeWolf; Fred Gerard, the colonel’s personal interpreter, which was also strange; and Isaiah Dorman, the only black man in the entire outfit, a scout with much experience on the plains. And he had Bouyer, the half-breed and his medicine in a bag. The only scouts staying with Custer were Lonesome Charlie Reynolds and four Crows. That fact made Reno wonder that he might indeed be the main thrust and Custer would support him. But years of working with the general told Reno that that simply couldn’t be. Custer would never delegate himself to a supporting role m an event as big as what this was looking to be. Maybe Custer was simply tired of the death chants of the Arikara scouts.