“McClellan had, by a rare power peculiar to him, in that short interview, won Custer’s unfailing loyalty and affection,” recalled Lieutenant Willard Glazier, of the 2nd New York Cavalry, “and when Custer was asked afterwards how he felt at the time, his eyes filled with tears, and he said: ‘I felt I could have died for him.’”29
CHAPTER FIVE
“I PROMISE THAT YOU SHALL HEAR OF ME”
McClellan liked Custer as “a reckless, gallant boy, undeterred by fatigue, unconscious of fear” whose “head was always clear in danger,” and who “always brought me clear and intelligible reports of what he saw when under the heaviest fire. I became much attached to him.”1 Custer, likewise, admired McClellan. But they were in many ways opposites. Where Custer was the goat of his West Point class, McClellan graduated second in the Class of 1846. Where Custer was bold and spontaneous, McClellan was cautious and methodical. Both, however, were men of strong will and independent spirit, which could also be taken as arrogance and feed the resentment of rivals. Custer believed that McClellan’s wartime failures were not the fault of the general, whom he considered a master strategist. Rather, he thought they were imposed by Washington politicians who conspired against him. “Few persons can realize or believe at this late day the extent of the opposition which McClellan encountered from those from whom his strongest support and encouragement should have come,” Custer wrote long after the war. “This opposition was well known at the time; in fact there was little if any effort to conceal it.”2
Custer was with “Little Mac” as the general’s ambitious plan to take Richmond and defeat the rebellion was itself defeated. The Federal advance was blunted five miles from Richmond on May 31, 1862, at the Battle of Seven Pines. The Confederate commander, General Joseph E. Johnston, was wounded and eventually replaced by Robert E. Lee, who, though outnumbered, went on the offensive during the Seven Days’ Battles, taking place from June 25 to July 1. The Confederates suffered almost twice the number of Union killed and wounded, but Lee’s string of victories demoralized McClellan’s army, ended his Peninsula Campaign, and undermined his already soft political support in Washington. The Federals still had considerable forces in the field, backed onto Malvern Hill on the James River, but McClellan was effectively paralyzed as a commander, and the threat to Richmond was over.
On August 5, McClellan sent a three-hundred-man reconnaissance in force toward the White Oak Swamp Bridge, about four miles from Malvern Hill. Custer was part of a twenty-five-man advance force with orders to “dash at once upon the enemy as soon as he should be discovered” and to “engage to the best advantage while the main body was being brought up.” Near the bridge, the shock troops encountered thirty to forty men of the 10th Virginia Cavalry and fell on them with a fury. They killed three and captured twenty-two, and the rest dispersed. While part of the Federal detachment rushed ahead to capture the bridge, Custer and Lieutenant Byrnes “took the road to the left toward Malvern Hill, chasing, shooting, or capturing all the pickets that came from that direction.” When the Confederates formed for a counterattack, the Federals withdrew. Colonel William W. Averell, commander of the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, later commended “the gallant and spirited conduct of Captain Custer and Lieutenant Byrnes.”3
During the Peninsula Campaign, Custer encountered several West Point friends who were now Confederates. George found that their friendship remained “most loyal and unchanged.” When they had parted as cadets, “it never entered our minds that war could destroy a friendship cemented by our four years of intimate association.”4
On May 31, just before the Battle of Seven Pines, Custer’s former roommate Lieutenant James B. Washington was captured while taking a message from Joseph E. Johnston to James Longstreet.5 He was taken to McClellan’s headquarters, where he met Custer and a few other officers he had known at West Point and was greeted with “much cordiality and glee.” McClellan ordered that “the prisoner should not be treated very severely, but allowed a cigar and other refreshments occasionally.” That night the group of former cadets had “rather a jollification” in a command tent, “rehearing scenes at West Point in which they had mingled, ‘skylarking’ at Benny Havens, and other haphazard frolics, stories of study and drill, and mutual inquiries for friends scattered south and north amid the ranks of the confederate armies.”6
Later, as George related, “a strolling artist came through camp taking photographs” and rendered a striking set of pictures of Custer and Washington sitting together.7 Washington called over a small black boy who was watching the photographer and had him sit at his feet. The photo wound up in the London Illustrated News, captioned “Both sides of the war and the cause of the war.” The image of the reunited West Point chums was republished throughout the United States. It was an early moment of national fame for Custer, and “James B. Washington” dog tags were minted and distributed as collectables in the North.
When Washington was departing for his detainment at Fort Delaware, Custer tried to hand him some Federal bills, saying, “You must have some money Jim, those pictures in your pockets [Confederate currency] don’t pass up there.” When Washington refused, Custer stuffed the money in his vest pocket.8 Later in the war, Washington’s stepmother hosted Custer at her war-wearied Virginia home. In gratitude for his kind treatment of her stepson, she gave Custer a button from one of George Washington’s coats. Custer eventually had the button mounted on gold and gave it to Libbie as a brooch. Mrs. Washington later said, “I would not at one time have believed it possible for me to like, or even acknowledge myself pleased with anyone from the North.”9
Confederate Captain John W. “Gimlet” Lea, I company, Fifth North Carolina regiment, and formerly of Custer’s class, was wounded and taken prisoner on May 5, 1862, at the Battle of Williamsburg. Lieutenant Alexander C. M. Pennington, Class of 1860, found Lea lying in a barn stall, his wounds untended, and brought him to Custer. “When we first saw each other he shed tears and threw his arms about my neck,” Custer wrote,
and we talked of old times and asked each other hundreds of questions about classmates on opposing sides. I carried his meals to him, gave him stockings of which he stood in need, and some money. This he did not want to take, but I forced it on him. He burst into tears and said it was more than he could stand. He insisted on writing in my notebook that if ever I should be taken prisoner he wanted me treated as he had been. His last words to me were, “God bless you, old boy!” The bystanders looked with surprise when we were talking, and afterwards asked if the prisoner were my brother.10
Williamsburg resident Margaret Durfey, wife of Confederate Colonel Goodrich Durfey, agreed to take Lea in while he recovered from his wounds. During his convalescence, Lea and their daughter, also named Margaret, fell in love and were engaged. Lea wanted Custer to serve as his best man for the wedding, but the Union Army was preparing to withdraw, so Gimlet and Margaret moved the nuptials up to the next evening, August 19. The ceremony was held at the Durfey house, called Bassett Hall, the groom in Confederate gray, the best man in Federal blue, and the bride, Margaret, and her bridesmaid, cousin Maggie, in maidenly white. “I never saw two prettier girls,” Custer later wrote.
Custer stayed a few days at Bassett Hall, entertained by Maggie at the piano—she played Southern patriotic tunes in a vain attempt to get Custer’s goat; but he simply laughed—and playing cards with Gimlet. “He won, every time,” Custer wrote.11 George left when the last of the Union forces pulled back. By September, Lea had been exchanged and was again with the Confederates, “fighting,” Custer said, “for what he supposes to be right!”12
Meanwhile, the war had shifted north. Lee, believing rightly that McClellan would mount no further attacks near the Confederate capital, decisively defeated Union General John Pope’s Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run, August 28–30, 1862, opening the way for Lee to advance into Maryland.
McClellan moved to block him, their armies meeting at Antietam on September 17, 1862, and fightin
g to a stalemate in the bloodiest day of the war. McClellan’s caution during and after the battle worked to Confederate benefit, and while the Union Army paused, Lee escaped back to Virginia. Custer saw some action during this period, though he was not in the thick of the fight. He was on hand for President Lincoln’s visit to McClellan’s headquarters in early October, in which the president urged the general to drive south and harry Lee’s army. But McClellan wanted more time, men, and supplies, and consequently did little. This was the last straw for Lincoln, who was convinced that McClellan had an incurable case of “the slows.” He relieved “Little Mac” of command on November 5 and replaced him with the reluctant Ambrose Burnside.
Custer believed the entire matter was political. “No officer of either side ever developed or gave evidence of the possession of that high order of military ability which at that peculiar and particular time was so greatly demanded in the Federal commander,” he wrote. “The defeat of McClellan was not the result of combinations made either in the Confederate capital or in the camp of the Confederate army, but in Washington.”13 However, D. H. Strother, an artist, writer, and staff officer who was sympathetic to McClellan, succinctly summed up the reasons for his dismissal: “he created an army which he failed to handle, and conceived plans which he failed to carry out.”14
Strother knew Custer around this time and called him “one of the most agreeable acquaintances I have made among the juniors of the Staff.” He described him as “rather a handsome youth, with light, curling hair and lithe figure,” whose “friends, it seems are pushing him for a Brigadier’s commission to serve in the cavalry, and his comrades frequently joke him on the subject.” He said that Custer “takes their chaffing pleasantly, and replies, with a shake of his curly head, ‘Gentlemen, I don’t know whether or not I am worthy of such promotion; but if they give it to me, I promise that you shall hear of me.’”15
CHAPTER SIX
“CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY”
Custer remained on McClellan’s staff, but with no battles to fight and winter setting in, he was authorized a furlough and returned to Monroe, Michigan.
In Custer’s adopted hometown, as in most places removed from conflict, the day-to-day hardships of war were somewhat abstract. Monroe and the surrounding area sent more than three thousand young men to the war. Scores of them died in combat, or of disease.1 “In my joyous life it was only when sorrow came to the town that I realized something of what war really was,” Libbie recalled.2 Judge Bacon made a daily trek to the railway station to get the Detroit newspapers, and when the news was bad and the casualty lists were long, the entire community saw his sadness as he trudged back up the street. “The war aged him greatly,” Libbie said, “and he never recovered from his grief.”3
Libbie, like many young women of the era, entertained the young men back on leave at social events. At a Thanksgiving party in 1862, Captain George Custer showed up. They were introduced by mutual friend Conway Noble—“I assented merely to be rid of him,” Libbie said—and passed only a few words. But after the party, George “went home to dream,” and Libbie said, “How little did I think my fate would be sealed.”4
The dashing captain and the young society girl may have made a pretty couple, but for Libbie it was not love at first sight. “With the critical and exacting eye of a girl,” she remembered, “I decided I would never like him no matter how attentive he was because his hair was light, and because I despised his military overcoat as it was lined with yellow.”5 Libbie was unaware that, far from being a matter of bad personal taste, yellow was the regulation color for the cavalry. But when Custer promised to “tone down his hair, and his overcoat lining,” Libbie said, “finally I consented to know him.”6
George had been smitten with Libbie since she had hailed him from the garden gate, eight years before, so the story went . But there were still obstacles to overcome before he could pursue a serious relationship with her. One was Libbie’s view of matrimony. “If I thought of marriage at all it was with a shudder over what it involved in practical details,” she said. “I had seriously contemplated the then-despised life of an old maid.” She also said she had “never known, nor particularly cared for officers or army life.”7
An even more serious obstruction was Judge Bacon. To him George Custer was still the kid who did chores to help pay his way through Stebbins’ Academy. Going to West Point and earning a commission helped matters somewhat, but Bacon did not envision his daughter as an Army bride, and certainly not wed to a mere brevet captain.
The judge had also witnessed an incident a year earlier when George was back on leave and had gotten publicly drunk and staggered past the Bacon house. But that drunken spell had actually been George’s last. His sister Lydia had sternly rebuked him and likely warned him about what Judge Bacon would think of a public drunk. George took the pledge because he realized “there was no future for him if he continued to drink, as like everything else he did at that time there was no likelihood of its being done with moderation.”8 He later wrote that abstinence is something “which, if more generally followed, not only in the army, but in all professions, would save to the public service and to private occupations some of the bright intellects which otherwise are soon squandered and destroyed.”9
In the end, George returned to war without any formal arrangement with Libbie. “Father’s opposition had compelled me to consider his wishes,” she wrote, “and refuse clandestine intercourse.”10 But she told the judge she would not promise never to see him again.
In April, Custer reported to General McClellan’s private residence in New York City to help write final reports of his campaigns. It was “the most magnificently furnished house I was ever in,” George wrote his sister, and Mrs. McClellan was “one of the most amiable and agreeable ladies” he had ever met.11 But life in the city was expensive ($2.75 a day for board, he noted), and he longed to have more active service than sitting from 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. writing reports.
Custer’s career was at a crossroads. Being tied to someone powerful is a double-edged sword, because when the mighty fall, those around them share a measure of their fate. His close association with McClellan would thereafter raise questions among Little Mac’s numerous political opponents in Washington whether Custer was truly loyal. And as McClellan began to move from being a stubborn general to Lincoln’s open political opponent, it only made matters worse.
Custer wanted to be appointed colonel of a state volunteer regiment. These posts were plum positions that often went to those with political pull. Custer was hampered by his Democratic background, his close association with the politically unpopular McClellan, and his lack of ties to Republicans beyond Congressman Bingham. Custer sent letters of recommendation from Generals Ambrose Burnside, George Stoneman, and Joseph Hooker to the Republican governor of Michigan, Austin Blair, but to no avail. Custer noted, “If the Governor refuses to appoint me it will be for some other reason than a lack of recommendations.”12
George even made an appeal to the troops of the 5th Michigan Cavalry regiment, then in need of a new commander. “About the 1st of June,” recalled Captain Samuel Harris, “a slim young man with almost flaxen hair, looking more like a big boy, came to us and, as the line officers expressed it, with the cheek of a government mule, actually asked us to sign a petition to Gov. Austin Blair to appoint him as Colonel of the 5th. He said his name was George A. Custer, and that he was a West Pointer.” Harris said, “We all declined to sign such a petition as we considered him too young.”13
Custer’s luck returned in the person of Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton, one of Stoneman’s cavalry division commanders, who picked Custer as an aide-de-camp in May 1863. Pleasonton was a District of Columbia native and graduate of the Class of 1844, a career horse soldier who fought with the famed 2nd Dragoons in Mexico and on the frontier. He was in a number of important engagements in the Civil War and was brevetted for bravery at Antietam. Pleasonton had seen Custer in action days before that battle
when George rode with him and the 8th Illinois Cavalry pursuing the Confederates after the Battle of South Mountain. They caught the Confederate rear guard cavalry near Boons-borough, Maryland, on September 15 and “charged them repeatedly, and drove them some two miles beyond the town.”14 Pleasonton noted in particular Custer’s gallantry in the charges, as well as that of his aide, Captain Elon Farnsworth, whose uncle commanded the regiment.
Pleasonton had seen young Custer at his best. War and battle very much agreed with him. He took to it naturally, and the danger and thrill of it spoke to something deep in his character. Custer wrote to his cousin Augusta that he would be glad when the war was over, and when he thought of the “pain and misery produced to individuals as well as the miserable sorrow caused throughout the land,” he could not but “earnestly hope for peace, and at an early date.” However, he wrote, “If I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end. I would be willing, yes glad, to see a battle every day during my life.”15
Though a staff officer now, Custer still sought action. At the Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1–4, 1863), he took part in Stoneman’s raid behind Confederate lines. General “Fighting Joe” Hooker, the Union commander defeated at Chancellorsville, asked for Stoneman to be relieved, saying that “one more raid like it would leave us no cavalry.” But Custer thought Hooker was making Stoneman a scapegoat for his own failings. “Stoneman stands very high in the estimation of the entire army,” Custer wrote, “but it has become a rule in this army, from custom, that when any failure occurs, someone must be found to bear the responsibility, and in selecting such a person it is not proposed to find that one who really is responsible but to discover the most available man.”16 In June, Stoneman was relegated to a desk job at the Cavalry Bureau in Washington, but his rough treatment was another lucky break for Custer, since General Pleasonton was tapped to take over command of the Cavalry Corps.
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