On the receipt of this memoranda I sent Colonel Godfrey all the papers printed above, and asked him further to discuss these papers. They were returned to me with the following letter, accompanied by these additional notes:
I return to-day the letters sent to me by registered mail. I am very sorry to have kept them so long from you, but I have been suffering from a sprained knee which has laid me up, and have been otherwise under the weather.
I feel that I have not in my memoranda done justice to the subject. It is largely one of sentiment, and the best rule is to put yourself in his place and act under the lights then exposed to view. That Custer may have been actuated by other motives I do not doubt. The main question to me was whether he was justified from a military point, in a campaign against Indians, in his conduct of the march and battle.
If we could have foreseen as we now look back and see!
The statement of General Sheridan, quoted by Hughes, was made in his annual report for 1876, and of course from data furnished by General Terry. It is but natural that he should reflect more or less the views of Terry. He could have had only the newspaper and other unofficial accounts. Of course I recognize that “unofficial accounts” very often give more inside information than the official report.
A word as to that affidavit. I don’t know anything about it and am ready to take Hughes’ say-so as to what officers were present, but I suggest a possible solution: When Custer dismounted he had his orderly and generally his flags with him; naturally the orderly would be somewhat retired, and when Custer went to mount his horse, Terry may have gone aside to accompany him and spoken the caution to him in a subdued voice so that Gibbon would not have heard him, but the orderly might have heard.[128]
In going over a lot of letters relating to the campaign, etc., I find one from General J. S. Brisbin (now dead), then Major, commanding Second Cavalry Battalion. It is dated January 1st, 1892, just two weeks before his death. In it he is very bitter against Custer. He says that Custer disobeyed:
“If not in letter, then in spirit, and I think and have ever thought, in letter as well as spirit. Terry intended, if he intended anything, that we should be in the battle with you. I was on the boat, steamer Far West, Captain Grant Marsh, the night of the 21st, when the conference took place between Gibbon, Custer and Terry, to which you refer, and I heard what passed. Terry had a map and Custer’s line of march up the Rosebud was blocked out on it by pins stuck in the table through the paper. Terry showed Custer his line of march and, being somewhat near-sighted as you know, Terry asked me to mark the line, and I did so with a blue pencil. Custer turned off that line of march from the Rosebud, just twenty miles short of the end of the pins and blue line.”
Just how much dependence can be placed on Brisbin’s statements I don’t know. He may have been present at this conference, but Hughes makes no mention of him; in fact, entirely ignores him and may have forgotten him. I will make another quotation from Brisbin:
“I read the order you print as being the one given by Terry to Custer for this march. If that is the order Custer got it is not the order copied in Terry’s books at Department Headquarters. You will remember that after Custer fell Terry appointed me chief of cavalry. I looked over all the papers affecting the march and battle of Little Big Horn and took a copy of the order sending you up the Rosebud. The order now lies before me and it says ‘you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads (Terry had already referred to the trail Reno followed). Should it be found, as it appears almost certain that it should be found, to turn toward the Little Big Horn, he thinks (that is, the Department Commander thinks) that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue River, and then (‘then’ underscored in order) turn toward Little Big Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank. It is desired that you conform as nearly as possible to those instructions and that you do not depart from them unless you shall see absolute necessity for doing so.’”
That part of the quotation from “It is desired” to “necessity for doing so,” is omitted in the order as printed in the report of General Terry. Not having seen the original order I cannot vouch for either being the true copy, but the omission looks peculiar to say the least, if omission there was.[129]
I do not know that I can add very much to what I have already sent to you on the question of disobedience. Here is a commander who has had experience in war, civilized and Indian, sent in command of his regiment against an unnumbered foe, located we know not where (although well conjectured in the instructions, as it turned out); given instructions to preclude their escape; to coöperate with another column separated from fifty to one hundred miles, having infantry and artillery, marching over a rough, untried country. Now if that commander thought that to go on farther south before he had located the foe (when he was on the trail) was to leave an opening and an almost certainty of their escape, if they wanted to do so, is it reasonable to expect him to leave the trail and go on “in the air”? The commander who gives him his instructions cannot be communicated with. Is this isolated commander not allowed to act on his own responsibility, if he thinks he cannot preclude the escape by leaving the very trail that will locate the enemy?
Hughes in his article, and the official reports, make it appear that we were at or near the “Crow’s Nest” at daylight and crossed the divide at eight A.M. The scouts were at the “Crow’s Nest,” but at eight A.M. we took up the march to near the divide and “Crow’s Nest,” arriving at ten o’clock, A.M.; that is, we were in the Rosebud Valley, one mile from the divide. We did not cross the divide till nearly noon. Hughes seems to pooh-pooh the idea that we were not to attack till the morning of the 26th. We had Custer’s own statement as to that. He said so himself when he called the officers together on the night of June 24th and again reiterated the statement before crossing the divide.
During the second or third day (23rd or 24th) up the Rosebud, several times we thought we (I mean some of us) saw smoke in the direction of the Tullock, and finally we spoke of it to the General (Custer) at one of the halts. He said it could not be, that he had scouts over on that side and they most certainly would have seen any such “signs” and report to him, and he reiterated that there were scouts out looking toward Tullock’s Valley. After this assurance we made it a point to watch this “smoke business” and we discovered the illusion was due to fleecy clouds on the horizon and the mirage, or heated air, rising from the hills on that side. The air was full of dust from our marching columns, which helped the illusion.
With reference to my slip that “about eighteen hundred had gone from one agency alone.” I took that from my diary, as I had been informed by some one who got the information from Department Headquarters. I had never seen the despatch and put down the item as it came to me. It was a matter of common report in the camp.
Another point occurs to me: “For Custer to be in coöperating distance on the only line of retreat if the Indians should run away.” (Hughes’ magazine article, page 36.) Hughes intimates that there was only one line of retreat, presumably up the valley of the Little Big Horn. The Indians certainly could have retreated over their traveled route, or could have cut across the headwaters of the Tullock for the Yellowstone had Custer gone south. Hughes seems to forget that an almost impassably rough country—the Wolf Mountains—would lie between Custer and those lines of retreat. Yet he would insist that it was good generalship to leave these routes open to close up one other. The Indians were in light marching order and could travel faster than Gibbon over the Tullock Divide, and there would have been a long-distance, “tail-end” pursuit for Custer when he descended the Little Big Horn (by following the “plan”) and found the enemy had escaped over the very trail he had left behind him, or had struck for the Yellowstone, passing Gibbon’s left.
It has been the criticism almost ever since Indian fighting began that commanders were too prone to follow some strategic theory and fail to bring the Indians to battle—give them a chance to escape. It was Custer’s practice to take the trail and follow it, locate the enemy and then strike home by a surprise attack. Custer knew the ridicule and contempt heaped on commanders who had failed to strike when near the enemy; or who had given the enemy opportunity to escape when nearly in contact with them. Whatever may be the academic discussions as to his disobedience, I hold that he was justified by sound military judgment in making his line of march on the trail.[130]
General Hughes and Colonel Godfrey may be considered fairly enough as representatives of the opposing views on the question. I thought it would be well to have the papers discussed by an officer who might be considered as taking an impartial view of the matter. I therefore sent them to Brigadier-General Charles A. Woodruff, U. S. A. (retired), and his review of the whole question is as follows:
I have read with a great deal of pleasure, your three articles on “War with the Sioux,” and I have taken the liberty of making various marginal notes and corrections on the manuscript. I have also read the letters from General Miles, Professor Andrews, General Hughes, and Colonel Godfrey.
General Miles, in his letter of November 20, 1903, dismisses the matter very curtly. He says “Custer did not disobey orders,” and he states as military dictum that, in sending General Custer seventy-five or one hundred miles away, Terry could not indicate what Custer should do, and that, practically, Custer was not under any obligations to execute Terry’s orders, even when he found conditions as Terry had expected and indicated.[131]
The order states explicitly “Should it—the trail up the Rosebud—be found (as it appears almost certain it will be found) to turn toward the Little Big Horn, then you should still proceed southward.” Now, when he found that it turned toward the Little Big Horn, instead of going south or stopping where he was and scouting south or southwest and west and try to locate the village, or examining Tullock Creek, or sending scouts to Gibbon, he made that fatal night march with the deliberate intention of trying to locate and strike the village before Gibbon could possibly get up.
Gibbon says (page 473, Vol. I., Report of the Secretary of War for 1876), “The Department Commander (Terry) strongly impressed upon him (Custer) the propriety of not pressing his march too rapidly.” Whether Custer’s written instructions were based upon a “guess” of the actual condition, as Colonel Godfrey suggests, or had no “military merit,” as General Miles states, the facts remain: First: That they were based upon a “foresight” as good as the present “hindsight,” which is often not the case. Second: That Custer accepted them without demur. Third: No further information was gained to suggest a modification, or, to use the words of the letter: “unless you see sufficient reason for departing from them.” On the contrary, the supposed turn of the trail was found to be an actual fact.
Therefore, Custer did not obey his written instructions, in letter or spirit, and had no proper military justification for not doing so, unless General Terry afterwards told him, “Use your own judgment and do what you think best,” which, in my opinion, would have made the instructions advisory rather than positive orders. If these facts (I ignore the unproduced affidavit) do not constitute disobedience of orders, I do not see how it is possible for the charge of disobedience of orders to hold against any man, under any circumstances, when away from his superior.
Here is a trifling sidelight on the matter. On the night of June 23d, General Gibbon, in reply to an optimistic remark of mine, told me in effect, “I am satisfied that if Custer can prevent it we will not get into the fight.” The meaning I gathered was that Gibbon thought that Custer was so eager to retrieve the good opinion that he might have lost owing to his controversy over post traderships, that he would strike when and where he could.
While Terry, with Gibbon’s command, was camped at Tullock’s Creek, Saturday night and Sunday morning, June 24th and 25th, he was looking for a message from Custer very anxiously, so I was told at the time.
Colonel Godfrey speaks of the odium Terry’s family seemed to think was “heaped upon him for the failure to push forward on the information they had on June 25th and 26th.” Now let me say a few words with reference to that.
The smoke that is spoken of as having been seen by Terry’s command—and I saw it myself—was on the afternoon of June 25th. It was occasioned, I understood, by attempts to drive some of Reno’s stragglers out of the brush, and must have been somewhere from two to four o’clock in the afternoon. Now let me quote from a telegram of General Terry, dated June 27, and found on page 463, Vol. I., Report of the Secretary of War of 1876, to show that Gibbon’s command did not linger by the wayside:
“Starting soon after five o’clock in the morning of the 25th, the infantry made a march of twenty-two miles over the most difficult country which I have ever seen. In order that the scouts might be sent into the valley of the Little Big Horn, the cavalry, with the battery, was then pushed on thirteen or fourteen miles farther, reaching camp at midnight. The scouts were sent out at half-past four in the morning of the 26th. They soon discovered three Indians, who were at first supposed to be Sioux; but, when overtaken, they proved to be Crows, who had been with General Custer. They brought the first intelligence of the battle. Their story was not credited. It was supposed that some fighting, perhaps severe fighting, had taken place; but it was not believed that disaster could have overtaken so large a force as twelve companies of cavalry. The infantry, which had broken camp very early, soon came up, and the whole column entered and moved up the valley of the Little Big Horn.”
I want to say that the infantry broke camp about four o’clock on the morning of the 26th. It had rained that preceding night and the lash ropes of the packs were soaked with water and, as we moved, they stretched continuously and we were stopping constantly to replace the packs, and besides that, mind you, traveling in adobe mud was very trying. I continue the quotation as follows:
“During the afternoon efforts were made to send scouts through to what was supposed to be General Custer’s position, to obtain information of the condition of affairs; but those who were sent out were driven back by parties of Indians, who, in increasing numbers, were seen hovering in General Gibbon’s front. At twenty minutes before nine o’clock in the evening, the infantry had marched between twenty-nine and thirty miles. The men were very weary and daylight was fading. The column was therefore halted for the night, at a point about eleven miles in a straight line from the mouth of the stream. This morning the movement was resumed, and, after a march of nine miles, Major Reno’s intrenched position was reached.”
It was the general opinion from indications found next day just beyond where we halted for the night, that had we proceeded five hundred yards more, we would have been in the midst of a night attack from the Sioux Indians, who came to meet us as a means of guarding their fleeing village.
In reference to the number of Indians, the same telegram of General Terry’s says: “Major Reno and Captain Benteen, both of whom are officers of great experience, accustomed to seeing large masses of mounted men, estimate the number of Indians engaged at not less than twenty-four hundred. Other officers think that the number was greater than this. The village in the valley was about three miles in length and about a mile in width. Besides the lodges proper, a great number of temporary brushwood shelters were found in it, indicating that many men, besides its proper inhabitants, had gathered together there.”
I am under the impression now that we counted positions occupied by twelve hundred lodges.
I coincide with your view that had Reno proceeded in his attack, with the audacity that should characterize, and usually does characterize, a cavalry charge, there would have been a different story to tell; perhaps as many men would have been killed, but they would have been divided among at least eight, if not eleven, troops of cavalry rather than concentrated in five, which meant annihilation for those.
I have been told, or was told at the time, that it was thought that about sixty lodges were a few miles up the Little Big Horn above the main village, and that, in the early morning, when Custer’s proximity was discovered, that this small village, knowing that they were but a mouthful for Custer’s command, hurriedly packed up and dashed down the valley. It can readily be understood that sixty lodges, with the horses and paraphernalia, moving rapidly down the valley, might well create the impression that a very large force was in retreat.
Now, if the Indian village was in retreat, Custer’s division of his forces was not altogether bad. One command to hurry them up and continue the stampede, his main force to attack them in the right flank if they turned that way, which was most probable, Benteen’s to attack them if they turned to the left, which was possible but not as probable.
Unfortunately for Custer they were not fleeing. Colonel Godfrey rather dwells upon the fact that Custer had to attack these Indians or they would have gotten away from him. The fact is, as I have stated above, when he left the Rosebud he did not know where they were, had not located them, was not in visual contact even with them, and a glance at the map will show that, standing on the Rosebud, where the trail left it to go over to the Little Big Horn, Custer was in the best possible position for intercepting these Indians on three of their four lines of retreat. For having passed into the Little Big Horn Valley, there were only four practicable routes of flight for the Indians, north, toward Gibbon, or east, northeast, or southeast. From the point where he left the Rosebud, Custer was in a position to strike either one of the three last lines of flight, whereas, if, after making the forced night march with his fatigued animals, he had struck the Little Big Horn, and a reconnaissance had shown that the village had left the Little Big Horn, going northeast, on the 24th of June, he would have been two days’ march behind them.
Had he sent a scout, on the night of the 24th, to Gibbon, whose exact whereabouts was almost known to him, that scout would have reached Terry or Gibbon, on Tullock’s Fork, a few miles from the Yellowstone, on the morning of Sunday, and by Sunday night Gibbon’s command would have been within less than ten miles of what is designated as Custer Peak, the hill on which Custer perished. Then, with Custer moving on the morning of the 26th, Gibbon’s infantry and Gatling guns could have forced those Sioux out of the village on to the open ground, extending from the Little Big Horn to the Big Horn, and Custer’s twelve troops of cavalry and Gibbon’s four, sixteen troops in all, between them would have made the biggest killing of Indians who needed killing ever made on the American continent since Cortez invaded Mexico. While this is a speculation, and an idle one, it is to my mind a rather interesting one.
I think myself that General Hughes makes out his case in reference to that affidavit that General Miles has so carefully treasured for so many years. It would be a very interesting historical document, but it would have been more satisfactory if it had been produced while Terry or General Gibbon or both were alive. I doubt very much whether Major Brisbin’s supposed copy of the order book at Terry’s headquarters was compared with the original after Brisbin had made it.
I regret to say that my paper upon this campaign was lost, and I have not even the notes from which it was written. I found one brief page, which I quote merely as indication of my reasons for believing that there were more than two thousand Indian warriors in the battle of June 25th: “Before May 10th of ’77 more than one thousand warriors came in and surrendered, not including the warriors killed in that battle or the half dozen other engagements, nor the individual warriors by the hundreds that sneaked back to the agencies and those who went to British America under Sitting Bull, numbering, it was understood, over two thousand warriors.”
I do not think you are too severe upon Major Reno. I conversed with most of the officers of that command at one time or another, while in the field, and nearly all were very pronounced in their severe criticism of Reno. The testimony at the Reno court of inquiry was less severe than the sentiments expressed within a few days, weeks, and months after the occurrence. That was perhaps natural. It is barely possible that some of it was due to the fact that Captain Weir, one of General Custer’s most pronounced friends and one of Major Reno’s most bitter critics, died before the court of inquiry met.
I do not think that Sturgis, Porter, etc., were captured and tortured. I found most of the lining of Porter’s coat in the camp, which showed that the bullet that struck him must have broken the back and passed in or out at the navel. My theory has been, with reference to those whose bodies could not be found, that most of them made a dash into the Bad Lands in the direction of the mouth of the Rosebud, where they had last seen General Gibbon’s command. It would have been easy for them to have perished from thirst in the condition they were in, and if they reached the Yellowstone and undertook to swim it, the chances were decidedly against their succeeding.
So soon as this appendix as above was in type, I sent printed proofs of it to Generals Hughes, Woodruff, and Carrington, and to Colonel Godfrey for final revision and correction before the matter was plated. In returning the proof, General Carrington and Colonel Godfrey both add further communications, which I insert below.
I also sent the same proof to Mrs. Elizabeth B. Custer, widow of General Custer, and to Mrs. John H. Maugham, his sister, with an expression of my willingness—nay, my earnest desire—to print any comment they or either of them might wish to make upon the question under discussion.
At Mrs. Custer’s request I sent the appendix to Lieutenant-Colonel Jacob L. Greene, U. S. V., now president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, who was Custer’s adjutant-general during the war and his life-long friend thereafter. His able defense of his old commander is printed as the last of this interesting series of historic documents.
Desiring that Custer, through his friends, may have the final word, I print it without comment, save to say that I fully join Colonel Greene in his admiration for the many brilliant qualities and achievements of his old commander.
I appreciate the favor of reading the proof-sheets of the appendix to your papers upon the Custer massacre. When it occurred I was greatly shocked by an event so similar in its horrors to that of the Phil Kearney massacre, in 1866. A previous interview with General Custer came to mind, and I attended the sessions of the court of inquiry at Chicago, taking with me, for reference, a map which I had carefully prepared of that country, with the assistance of James Bridger, my chief guide, and his associates.
The evidence indicated that when Custer reached the “Little Big Horn” (so known upon that map) and sent Benteen up stream, with orders that, “if he saw any Indians, to give them hell,” ordering Reno to follow the trail across the river and move down toward the Indian camps, while he moved down the right bank, detaching himself from the other commands, he practically cut the Indians off from retreat to the mountains, which was part of his special mission; but, in the flush of immediate battle, lost thought of the combined movement from the Big Horn, which had for its purpose the destruction of the entire Indian force by overwhelming and concentrated numbers.
Indeed, the court of inquiry did not so much discredit the conduct of Reno as reveal the fact that he faced a vastly superior force with no assurance that he could have immediate support from the other battalions, so vital in a sudden collision with desperate and hard-pressed enemies. The succeeding fight, on the defensive, protracted as it was, with no information of Custer’s position, or possible support from him, was a grave commentary upon the whole affair.
The interview with General Custer referred to was in 1876, when, upon leaving the lecture platform of the Historical Society in New York, he made the remark, on our way to his hotel, “It will take another Phil Kearney massacre to bring Congress up to a generous support of the army.” We spent several hours together, while he discussed his troubles with the authorities at Washington. He recalled the events of 1867, and felt that General Sherman had severely judged his operations on the Republican, but that the time was near when he might have an opportunity to vindicate himself, and that, “if he again had a chance he would accomplish it or die in the attempt.” He was practically on a leave of absence, and its extension was not his choice. Colonel Smith was sick, and he claimed the right to command his regiment, since it had been ordered to report as part of General Terry’s command.
The famous sutlership scandal was fully discussed, and here there has been confusion as to Custer’s position. He had nothing to do with the popular complaint that Belknap was farming out sutlerships for personal emolument. Neither is it technically correct that the Secretary of War could make original appointments of the kind complained of. Post commanders, with their councils of officers, had both the selection of their sutler, and fixed the prices of articles to be sold. The Secretary simply issued the appointment thus designated, unless for good reasons declined, thereby requiring another selection by the officers. In cases of troops in campaign, or detached, or on distant service, the commanding General confirmed the officer’s choice. Custer’s position was manly, legal, and just; but his assertion of this right, so far as made, offended Belknap, at the expense of officers whose rights were overruled by non-military influence.
Custer was not under charges that would militate against his assignment to the rightful command of his regiment when ordered into field service. I did not hesitate to urge him to press his claim, but could not entertain the idea that he would go to Bismarck, or otherwise to make his claim in person, except through Washington Headquarters.
If ever a man had an incentive to dare odds with his regiment, this fearless fighter and rider, whose spirit reached the verge of frenzy in battle, was the man for the occasion.
Through all the papers cited by you, there runs the same subtle suggestion that he who, as an independent commander of aggressive cavalry in the Civil War, was almost expected to take into the field a large discretion as to his actions (whereby he had formerly achieved success) when confronted by the enemy, within striking distance in the Little Big Horn Valley, lost all sense of danger and all thought of prescribed details of action in the confidence that, somehow, the old Seventh could not be whipped by any savage force whatsoever!
I have always regarded Terry’s general plan as well conceived, for Reno’s prior scouting had almost assured the inevitable course of the Indian trail westward, and events confirmed Terry’s judgment. General Hughes had served upon Terry’s staff during the Civil War with credit, as well as captain in the 18th Infantry on the frontier, and his assurances that General Terry fully explained to Custer the reasons why Washington authorities distrusted his discretion and was more precise in giving him this detached command, cannot be impeached by an asserted affidavit that whispered hints, unheard by officers by his side, allowed him to be his own master in a matter where a combined movement of three commands was the prime factor in complete success.
Neither is there any doubt whatever that Custer’s earnest plea, that he be trusted to fulfil the exact duties assigned to his command, secured not only the sympathy and confidence of Terry in his behalf, but that on that condition only did the Washington authorities authorize General Terry to vacate the order for his arrest because of going to his command without orders.
As already stated, Custer’s confidence in the Seventh Cavalry was well deserved. It, with him, was a veritable thunderbolt in action; but it was not omnipotent. That over-confidence which dissolved its unity at the supreme crisis was fatal. Even then, a realized success of which Custer had no doubt, would have minimized the rashness of his dash and have largely condoned his fault.
I have no desire to pose as the special champion of General Custer, and it is still further from my desire to pose as inimical to General Terry. My only purpose is to demonstrate the truth, not only for this discussion, but for history.
This subject surely has gotten to the stage of academic discussion. I am not willing to admit that the phrase “he desires that you should conform to them (his views) unless,” etc., conveys a direct, positive command which could not be more explicit. Nor do I admit that orders given by a commander, in which he uses the words “desires,” “wishes,” and equivalents, convey positive commands under all circumstances. In personal or social matters, such words convey the idea of what is wanted and what is expected; and in such matters the expressed wishes and desires are usually conveyed to personal friends, who loyally conform thereto, if not in letter, in spirit and in results. In such relations a commander does not want to use language that would appear dogmatic. I further admit that in personally giving orders a commander may accentuate the expression of his desires, wishes, etc., so as to leave no doubt about his intentions, and to convey positiveness thus expressed to his commands. When a commander gives written orders through official channels, the words “commands,” “orders,” and “directs,” or the use of the imperative, leave little ambiguity or doubt as to what is ordered or intended.
Developments subsequent to the campaign or battle leave little doubt that General Terry had about him men or influences that were suspicious, inimical, or hostile to General Custer. I sincerely believe General Terry was too high minded knowingly to allow himself to be influenced by any sinister motive.
That the “instructions” give rise to this discussion shows they were vague. Was this vagueness intentional? General Terry was a lawyer. He was a soldier. As lawyer and soldier his trained mind should have weighed the words embodied in these instructions. Now read them: “It is of course impossible[132] to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so, the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy,” and then goes on to indicate what he thinks should be done; or, in other words, indicates what he (Terry) himself would do if he found conditions as expressed. Custer evidently saw “sufficient reasons for departing from them” and did what a reasonable interpretation of the instructions contemplated, made his own plans.[132] I interpret the phrase “when so nearly in contact with the enemy” to refer to the immediate time or place (June 21, mouth of Rosebud) of writing it.[133]
As to the location of the Indians. Terry believed they were on the Little Big Horn;—we found them on that river about 15 miles above its forks with the Big Horn. Had the village been at the forks, the attack would have been delivered on the 25th of June, as the village would not have been located by Custer from the divide. It is possible the two columns might have joined in the attack. Now, suppose the village had been located 50 or 60 miles farther south, it would have still been within Terry’s guess, but it would have been a far cry to Gibbons’ column which, under the instructions, would have remained at the forks. It must be remembered that Custer would have had the Wolf Mountains (Rosebud Mountains on later maps) between him and the Little Big Horn had he ignored the trail and gone on southward up the Rosebud, as Custer’s critics would have us believe were the intentions of the instructions.
General Woodruff would have him stop at the camp of June 24 and scout to locate the village, etc. Would that have complied with Woodruff’s interpretation of the instructions? And from that position he says: “Custer was in a position to strike either one of the three last lines of flight (east, northeast or southeast), whereas if, after making the forced[134] night march with his fatigued animals, he had struck the Little Big Horn, and a reconnaissance had shown that the village had left the Little Big Horn going northeast, on June 24 he would have been two days’ march behind them.” That “forced” night march was about eight miles, and every mile made was in the direction to place us in the best position to intercept any flight to the northeast and east. Instead of being two days behind them, we would have met them almost “head on.”
Of what practical use to send scouts through to Gibbon June 24?
There was no fresh or new positive information to send to him; Terry had “guessed” it all.
Now let us repeat the marches made: June 22, twelve miles; June 23, thirty-three miles; June 24, twenty-eight miles; June 25, eight miles to the bivouac; and ten miles to the divide, and then say fifteen miles to the village. That is to say, ninety-one miles up to noon June 25, when it was decided to attack, and one hundred and six miles in all four days. That doesn’t indicate that we made forced marches.
Woodruff further states that “he made that fatal night march with the deliberate(?) intention of trying to locate and strike the village before Gibbon could possibly get up.” I say that statement is deliberately unfair, and contradicts the twice-told statement by Custer, that he did not intend to attack the village until the 26th, once before he knew the location of the village, the night of the 24th, and again when he called the officers together after the discovery at the divide.
Reno’s position in the bottom, in the old river bed, was sheltered from fire from the hills by heavy timber, and was nearly a mile from the hills. I have never before heard that he was fired upon from those hills; but he was fired upon from the woods on the opposite side of the river. General Gibbon and I both thought the hills were too far away to give any effective fire. It must be remembered that the river bottom was heavily timbered for some distance above and below this position. This timber subsequently was cut for the construction of Fort Custer.
I have read with great interest your discussion of the question of General Custer’s alleged disobedience of orders, both in the narrative of the Battle on the Little Big Horn and in the appendix to the volume, and upon which you have asked my comment.
For whatever bearing it may have upon the propriety of any comment of mine, let me say that General Custer was my intimate friend, and that his first act after receiving his appointment in the Civil War as a brigadier-general was to secure my appointment and detail to him as adjutant-general, which relation I held until his muster out of the volunteer service in 1866. I think no one knows better his quality as a soldier and as a man. I know his virtues and his defects, which were the defects of his virtues. He was a born soldier, and specifically a born cavalry man. The true end of warfare was to him not only a professional theory—it was an instinct. When he was set to destroy an enemy, he laid his hand on him as soon as possible, and never took it off. He knew the whole art of war. But its arts and its instruments and their correct professional handling were not in his eyes the end all of a soldier’s career, to be satisfied with a technical performance. They were the means and the tools in the terms of which and by the use of which his distinct military genius apprehended and solved its practical and fateful problems. When he grappled his task it was to do it, not to go correctly through the proper motions to their technical limit, and then hold himself excused.
He was remarkable for his keenness and accuracy in observation, for his swift divination of the military significance of every element of a situation, for his ability to make an instant and sound decision, and then, for the instant, exhaustless energy with which he everlastingly drove home his attack. And the swiftness and relentless power of his stroke were great elements in the correctness of his decisions as well as in the success of his operations. He was wise and safe in undertaking that in which a man slower in observation, insight and decision, and slower and less insistent in action, would have judged wrongly and failed.
I knew Custer as a soldier when he was a brigade and division commander under Pleasanton and Sheridan, the successive commanders of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Those who knew the estimate in which those great commanders held him—the tasks they committed to his soldierly intelligence and comprehension, his fidelity and skill—need no reminder that in nothing of all their dependence upon and confidence in him did he ever fail in letter or spirit. I know how absolutely loyal he was under the conflicting conditions which sometimes confront every subordinate charged with grave responsibilities, and which test the sense of duty to the utmost. He was true as steel. He was depended upon for great things because he was dependable.
In temperament he was sanguine and ardent. He loved his friends; he was impatient of every form of inefficiency and of pretense; he did not highly esteem mere professionalism; he was impulsive and sometimes abrupt in manner, but kind of heart; he was sensitive only to unjust criticism; he despised intrigue, chicane and all meanness; he was independent in opinion and judgment, and frank in their expression; he was open in opposition, and fair to an enemy.
And it goes without saying that such a man had enemies—men who were envious of his abilities, his achievements and his fame; men whom he never sought to placate, and who sought envy’s balm in detraction and hatred; men who could not measure him or be fair to him, but men who in a pinch would have turned to him with unhesitating trust, whether in his ability or his soldierly faith.
Did this man, this soldier, whose service throughout the Civil War and a long career of frontier warfare was for eighteen years unequaled for efficiency and brilliancy within the range of its opportunities and responsibilities, who never failed his commanders, who never disobeyed an order, nor disappointed an expectation, nor deceived a friend—did this man, at the last, deny his whole life history, his whole mental and moral habit, his whole character, and wilfully disobey an understood order, or fail of its right execution according to his best judgment, within the limits of his ability under the conditions of the event; and, what is worse—and this is what his detractors charge—did he not only disobey, but did he from the inception of the enterprise plan to disobey—to deceive his commander who trusted him, in order that he might get the opportunity to disobey?
To any man who knew Custer, except those who for any reason hold a brief against him, not only is the charge of premeditated, deliberate disobedience absurd, but it is a foul outrage on one of the memories that will never fail of inspiration while an American army carries and defends an American flag.
In one of Mrs. Custer’s letters to me, narrating what took place during the days of preparation for the General’s departure, she wrote:
“A day before the expedition started, General Terry was in our house alone with Autie (the General’s pet name). A.’s thoughts were calm, deliberate, and solemn. He had been terribly hurt in Washington. General Terry had applied for him to command the expedition. He was returned to his regiment because General Terry had applied for him. I know that he (Custer) felt tenderly and affectionately toward him. On that day he hunted me out in the house and brought me into the living-room, not telling me why. He shut the door, and very seriously and impressively said: ‘General Terry, a man usually means what he says when he brings his wife to listen to his statements. I want to say that reports are circulating that I do not want to go out to the campaign under you.’ (I supposed that he meant, having been given the command before, he was unwilling to be a subordinate.) ‘But I want you to know that I do want to go and serve under you, not only that I value you as a soldier, but as a friend and a man.’ The exact words were the strongest kind of a declaration that he wished him to know he wanted to serve under him.”
That was Custer all over. And to any one who knew him—to any one who can form a reasonable conception of the kind of a man he must needs have been to have done for eighteen years what he had done and as he had done it, and won the place and fame he had won—that statement ends debate. Whatever of chagrin, disappointment, or irritation he may have felt before, however unadvisedly the sore-hearted, high-spirited man may have spoken with his lips when all was undetermined, and his part and responsibility had not been assigned, this true soldier, knowing the gossip of the camp, conscious possibly it was not wholly without cause, however exaggerated, but facing now his known duty and touched by the confidence of his superior as Custer never failed to be touched, could not part from his commander with a possible shadow resting between them. He knew the speech of men might have carried to Terry’s mind the suggestion of a doubt. And yet Terry had trusted him. He could not bear to part without letting General Terry know that he was right to trust him. That statement to Terry was a recognition of whatever folly of words he might before have committed in his grief and anger; it was an open purging of an upright soldier’s soul as an act honorably due alike to superior and subordinate; it was, under the circumstances, the instinctive response of a true man to the confidence of one who had committed to him a trust involving the honor and fame of both. Disobedience, whether basely premeditated, or with equal baseness undertaken upon after-deliberation, is inconceivable, unless one imputes to Custer a character void of every soldierly and manly quality. With such an one discussion would be useless.
Upon the discussion itself, which is presented in the narrative and in the appendix, I have little to say. In the opening paragraph of the appendix, you say: “I presume the problem ... will never be authoritatively settled, and that men will continue to differ upon these questions until the end of time.”
In other words, the charge of disobedience can never be proved. The proof does not exist. The evidence in the case forever lacks the principal witness whose one and only definite order was to take his regiment and go “in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since.” They were the objective; they were to be located and their escape prevented. That was Custer’s task. All the details were left, and necessarily left, to his discretion. All else in the order of June 22d conveys merely the “views” of the commander to be followed “unless you should see sufficient reasons for departing from them.” The argument that Custer disobeyed this order seems to resolve itself into two main forms. One is trying to read into the order a precision and a peremptory character which are not there and which no ingenuity can put there, and to empty it of a discretion which is there and is absolute; the other is in assuming or asserting that Custer departed from General Terry’s views without “sufficient reasons.” And this line of argument rests in part upon the imputation to Custer of a motive and intent which was evil throughout, and in part upon what his critic, in the light of later knowledge and the vain regrets of hindsight, thinks he ought to have done, and all in utter ignorance of Custer’s own views of the conditions in which, when he met them, he was to find his own reasons for whatever he did or did not do. Under that order, it was Custer’s views of the conditions when they confronted him that were to govern his actions, whether they contravened General Terry’s views or not. If in the presence of the actual conditions, in the light of his great experience and knowledge in handling Indians, he deemed it wise to follow the trail, knowing it would reach them, and deeming that so to locate them would be the best way to prevent their escape, then he obeyed that order just as exactly as if, thinking otherwise, he had gone scouting southward where they were not, and neither Terry nor he expected them to be.
To charge disobedience is to say that he wilfully and with a wrong motive and intent did that which his own military judgment forbade; for it was his own military judgment, right or wrong, that was to govern his own actions under the terms of that order. The quality of his judgment does not touch the question of obedience. If he disobeyed that order, it was by going contrary to his own judgment. That was the only way he could disobey it. If men differ as to whether he did that, they will differ.