The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer (11 page)

Division commander General William T. Sherman summed up the army's sentiments in a letter to General Sheridan dated December 3, 1868: “This you know is a free country, and people have the lawful right to misrepresent as much as they please—and to print them—but the great mass of our people cannot be humbugged into the belief that Black Kettle's camp was friendly with its captive women and children, its herds of stolen horses and its stolen mail, arms, powder, etc.—trophies of war.”

Sheridan went on the offensive to refute the assertion that Black Kettle was on a reservation at the time of the attack, and blamed the wanton raiding of the Indians for the army's retaliation. He listed as evidence items found in the village, such as mail—including a military dispatch carried by one of Sheridan's couriers who had been killed—daguerreotypes, bedding, and other domestic goods taken from settlers' cabins.

The contention that Black Kettle was a proponent of peace was true. He made a mistake, however, by harboring members of his band who had participated in recent raiding parties. The peace chief paid for it with his life.

The Battle of the Washita was without question a one-sided affair but does not by any means fit the definition of a massacre. Black Kettle had been warned prior to the attack by Hazen that his safety could not be guaranteed unless he surrendered to Sheridan, which he failed to do. The village contained captives and items taken by resident armed warriors who had recently skirmished with the soldiers and had been on raiding parties against white settlers, which was evidenced by the fact that Custer's Osage scouts tracked them to Black Kettle's doorstep.

Furthermore, Custer did not order a slaughter, rather issued specific orders to spare noncombatants. In fact, Custer followed his orders from Sheridan to the letter: “To proceed south, in the direction of the Antelope hills, thence towards the Washita river, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies; to kill all warriors, and bring back all women and children.” Custer was a soldier following the orders of his superiors.

Incidentally, although the battle at Summit Springs was similar in most respects to Custer's victory at Washita, there was no public outcry condemning the destruction of this Cheyenne village or employing the term “massacre” to describe the battle.

The inability of the army to catch the Indians on the open plains and the failure of the government to clearly state specific hunting grounds in the provisions of the peace treaty at Medicine Lodge made necessary the implementation of “Total War,” and the Battle of the Washita was the tragic result.

George Armstrong Custer may have borne the brunt of criticism from minority voices, but he understood that war was an unpleasant business and there were bound to be detractors in any conflict. However, he could take pride in the knowledge that the campaign had established him as the premier Indian fighter in the land.

 

Five

Battling Sioux in Yellowstone Country

Armstrong and Libbie settled in for the summer of 1869 at the Seventh Cavalry regimental campsite at Big Bend, two miles east of Fort Hays, Kansas. Much of the time was whiled away enjoyably entertaining a succession of guests—including P. T. Barnum, who wanted to meet Custer and accompany him on a buffalo hunt. Detachments of the Seventh Cavalry were stationed at various posts along the Kansas Pacific Railway. Custer would occasionally accompany patrols, but for the most part his summer was leisurely, with evenings spent enjoying horseback rides with Libbie.

One famous neighbor of the fort was the notorious gambler and gunslinger James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. Wild Bill has been the subject of so many tall tales and dime-novel exaggerations that it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction. One of those colorful stories at issue concerns Tom Custer, Armstrong's younger brother, while the Seventh Cavalry was stationed at Fort Hays, Kansas, in 1869 and Hickok was the marshal of nearby Hays City.

Tom Custer was a wild and reckless young man, who frequently drank to excess. On one of those inebriated occasions, Tom was said to have ridden through Hays City shooting out lights and windows, then urging his horse into a crowded saloon, which caused considerable damage. This apparently had not been the first time Tom had sent the patrons of a saloon scrambling with his horse. Although Wild Bill was a friend of the elder Custer, enough was enough. Tom was promptly dragged off his mount by Wild Bill, hauled before a justice of the peace, and fined for his rash act. Tom was incensed with Hickok over the arrest and vowed revenge.

On New Years's Eve, Tom returned to Hays City with three burly soldiers and hung around the saloon to wait for Hickok. When Wild Bill strolled into the establishment, the soldiers cornered and disarmed him and it appeared that physical revenge for Tom's arrest was about to be exacted. A friendly bartender, however, tossed a loaded pistol (or shotgun) to Wild Bill and he commenced firing. When the smoke had cleared, the three soldiers lay sprawled on the barroom floor, wounded but from all accounts still very much alive. Tom Custer lit out for Fort Hays to seek the assistance of his brother.

George Armstrong Custer, however, had departed for Fort Leavenworth to spend the holiday. Tom then sought out General Phil Sheridan, who ordered the arrest of Hickok.

Word of the impending arrest reached Wild Bill before the soldiers whom Sheridan had dispatched. Hickok thought it prudent to vanish for the time being and hopped a freight train headed for Ellsworth and Abilene until cooler heads prevailed.

The impetuous Thomas Ward Custer was born on March 15, 1845, in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel and Maria Custer, the third of five children. At the outbreak of the Civil War he attempted to enlist in the army from his home in Monroe, Michigan, but was thwarted when Emanuel notified the recruiter that his son was only sixteen and therefore too young for service. Tom, however, would not be denied. He crossed the border to the town of his birth, New Rumley, Ohio, and on September 2, 1861, was sworn in as a private in Company H of the Twenty-first Ohio Infantry. He fought as a common foot soldier for the next three years, participating in such battles as Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign. His distinguished service gained him duty as escort for various generals, and he was promoted to corporal on January 1, 1864.

Tom, however, craved the excitement and notoriety that the cavalry had provided for his famous brother. On October 23, 1864, Tom accepted an appointment as second lieutenant, Company B, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, and he was soon detailed as an aide-de-camp to his older brother. Armstrong showed Tom no favoritism and often chose him for extra assignments—which evoked grumbling from the sibling, who swore it was not fair. Nevertheless, the hardened veterans of the unit were skeptical of their commanding officer's sibling—until early April 1865. Tom, in the tradition of his brother, was about to make some history of his own.

On April 3, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, with eighty thousand men, was retreating west through the Appomattox River Valley and happened to pass just north of General Custer's campsite. Custer followed until reaching Namozine Creek, where the bridge had been destroyed. Rebel fortifications could be observed across the river, and Custer, not knowing he was greatly outnumbered, ordered one detachment to outflank the position while men with axes were detailed to remove fallen trees from the creek in order to permit the remainder of his troops to charge across.

Tom Custer, however, became impatient, and spurred his horse to brazenly streak across the creek toward the enemy position. His action inspired the other troops to follow, and the Rebels quickly broke under the surprise pressure. Tom chased the retreating enemy and unhesitatingly charged directly into a skirmish line near Namozine Church. In the end, Tom presented his brother with a Confederate battle flag, which at that time was considered quite a prize, and fourteen prisoners, including three officers. Major General Philip Sheridan recommended that Tom be brevetted to major and awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery.

Three days later when Lee's exhausted army inadvertently split into two columns, General Custer's opportunistic cavalrymen plunged into them at a place called Sayler's Creek. Tom Custer was at the front of the Third Brigade when it led the charge against enemy fortifications. The Rebels once again broke but continued to fight as they withdrew. Tom spotted an enemy standard-bearer and was about to capture another prized flag when the Confederate soldier fired point-blank at the charging Custer's head. The bullet struck Tom in the cheek and exited behind his ear, knocking him backward against his horse's rump. Tom's face was blackened with powder and blood poured from the severe wound. Tom righted himself, coolly drew his pistol, shot the standard-bearer, and grabbed the coveted banner.

Colonel (later General) Henry Capehart had witnessed the scene and later said that “for intrepidity I never saw this incident surpassed.” Tom wheeled his horse and raced to show his trophy to his brother. The general took one look at Tom's face and ordered him to the rear for medical attention. Tom, however, refused, stating that he would not leave the field until the battle was over. Armstrong Custer placed his younger brother under arrest and had him escorted to the surgeon who had set up a hospital at a nearby plantation. For this demonstration of courage, Tom was brevetted lieutenant colonel and awarded his second Medal of Honor.

Thomas Ward Custer became the first person in history to be distinguished with two awards of our nation's highest military medal and was the only double honoree during the Civil War.

Tom served with his brother in Texas until being officially mustered out on April 24, 1866. After a brief appointment as second lieutenant, First Cavalry, he accepted an appointment to first lieutenant, Seventh Cavalry, effective July 28, 1866.

During the 1867 Hancock Expedition, Tom was involved in the shooting of deserters and his brother's mad dash across Kansas, which led to the elder Custer facing a court-martial. The following year he participated in the Battle of the Washita, where he was slightly wounded in the right hand and assumed command of Company C when Captain Louis Hamilton was killed.

Tom, who worshiped his older brother, endeared himself to Libbie Custer and was a prominent member of the Custer “royal family” at the various frontier posts where the Seventh Cavalry was garrisoned. He did, however, have an affinity for playing cards and was known to habitually drink to excess. It has been rumored that he had fathered several children in Ohio. He apparently was prepared at some point to marry a New Jersey woman named Lulie Burgess, but she died before the union took place and Tom remained a bachelor for the remainder of his life.

After wintering at Fort Leavenworth, George Armstrong Custer returned to the field. The summer of 1870 was bloody in Kansas, and he was kept busy chasing marauding bands of Indians who terrorized the homesteaders and railroad.

The monotony of military life and frontier duty, however, gnawed at him, and he had begun to question his future in the army. The Seventh Cavalry was scheduled to be dispatched in small units on Reconstruction duty to various areas of the South, and Custer desired to test the civilian waters before that assignment. In fact, Armstrong and Libbie discussed the prospect of his retirement from the service.

Rather than make a hasty decision, Custer decided to obtain a leave of absence in order to investigate opportunities in New York, where he was a well-known and popular figure. On January 11, 1871, he sent Libbie to Monroe by way of Topeka and traveled east on a leave that would extend until September of that year.

Custer quickly cultivated his friendships with wealthy investors such as John Jacob Astor, August Belmont, and Jay Gould. He traveled comfortably in this circle of high financial and influential political society and had soon developed an idea that would interest these men—and, he hoped, make himself rich.

The lure of silver and gold from rich strikes in Western mines had been the reason for many of the desertions that had plagued the Seventh Cavalry from its inception. For Custer, these mines held the prospect of an investment that could reap great rewards. He had at one point taken the time to investigate the potential of one such silver mine, the Stevens Lode, which was located about ten miles from Georgetown, Colorado.

Custer, whose famous name gained him entrée to the most reclusive tycoon, pitched his confidence in the Stevens Lode to potential investors with the fervor of one of his cavalry charges. Two thousand shares of stock were issued at fifty dollars a share with a valuation of one hundred dollars each. Astor handed over ten thousand dollars, Belmont was in for fifteen thousand dollars, others chipped in thousands more, and Custer subscribed to thirty-five thousand dollars, although likely not in cash but rather a promoter's share.

While in New York promoting his silver mine, Custer dressed in Brooks Brothers suits and was a welcome guest at fashionable dinner parties and other events reserved for the social elite. He mingled with celebrities and dignitaries at Delmonico's and other fine restaurants, attended gala affairs at local mansions, frequented the opera and theatrical performances (Custer loved the theater throughout his life), sailed on private yachts, and traveled to Saratoga for the horse races.

When September rolled around, however, Custer had failed to find his fortune in the big city and chose the army over civilian life. He returned with wife Libbie to duty with a two-company detachment of the Seventh Cavalry that was stationed in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

In time, Custer sold his shares in the Stevens Lode and sent the money to his brother Nevin to use as a down payment on a farm near his parents—a most prudent decision. His investors never realized a profit from the silver mine. The enterprise collapsed after several years of assaying and mining.

This quiet community not far from Louisville was known as E-Town or Betseytown by the locals. Custer's duties included assisting federal marshals in keeping track of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and moonshiners and purchasing horses for the army. Otherwise, his days were marked with boredom, except perhaps for a stimulating game of chess with a local judge, an afternoon at the racetrack, discussing horses at a local farm, or hunting to the hounds—his leash of hounds totaled about eighty. Custer also owned a number of thoroughbreds that he raced, the best being Don Juan and Frogtown.