The Real Custer (69 page)

5
.
      
“Custer's Cruelty,” special to the
Chicago Times
, February 3, 1886, reprinted in Charles H. Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
(Iowa: Beers & Eaton, 1890), 277.

6
.
      
M. Quad. [Charles Bertrand Lewis], “Army Letter,”
Indiana True Republican
, July 13, 1865, 1.

7
.
      
Quoted in Elizabeth B. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains or General Custer in Kansas and Texas
(New York: Charles L. Webster, 1887), 62–63.

8
.
      
Custer statement to Major George Lee, AAG, Military Division of the Gulf, October 26, 1865

9
.
      
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 69.

10
.
    
Sheridan to M. G. Rawlins, June 29, 1865. Sheridan had appointed Merritt chief of cavalry in the southwest, and technically commanded both columns.

11
.
    
Forsyth endorsement to Custer statement of October 26, 1865.

12
.
    
Custer statement to Major George Lee, AAG, Military Division of the Gulf, October 26, 1865.

13
.
    
Forsyth endorsement to Custer statement of October 26, 1865.

14
.
    
Custer statement to Major George Lee, AAG, Military Division of the Gulf, October 26, 1865.

15
.
    
Forsyth endorsement to Custer statement of October 26, 1865.

16
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 66.

17
.
    
For an extremely biased account of the Lancaster case, see Antoinette Barnum Ferris and Michael Griffin,
A Soldier's Souvenir, or, the Terrible Experiences of Lieutenant L. L. Lancaster, of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry: A Martyr to the Cause of Truth and Justice, Compromising Short Biographical Sketches
(Eau Claire, WI: Pauly Bros., 1896).

18
.
    
“Custer's Cruelty,” 278–79. See also the more credible account of the surgeon of the Second Wisconsin, 280.

19
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 227–28.

20
.
    
Ibid., 218.

21
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 75.

22
.
    
“Custer's Cruelty,” 278.

23
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 229

24
.
    
Ibid., 223.

25
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 83.

26
.
    
Ibid., 86.

27
.
    
Army and Navy Journal
, April 8, 1880, 708. Sheridan later explained to a group of Texans that he made the remark after returning from an expedition to the Rio Grande “sick, tired, dusty, and mad,” and was annoyed at a journalist who asked him how he liked Texas.

28
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 79–80.

29
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 280.

30
.
    
Ibid., 290.

31
.
    
Ibid., 271.

32
.
    
“A Soldier's Opinion of Gen. Custer,”
White Cloud Kansas Chief
, October 18, 1866, 1.

33
.
    
“Custer's Cruelty,” 279.

34
.
    
Quoted in
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 219.

35
.
    
Custer statement to Major George Lee, AAG, Military Division of the Gulf, October 26, 1865.

36
.
    
Army of the Ohio, General Field Orders #11, August 31, 1863.

37
.
    
Quoted in
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 232.

38
.
    
Ibid., 290.

39
.
    
“Condition of Texas,”
New York Times
, March 5, 1866.

40
.
    
Forsyth endorsement to Custer statement of October 26, 1865.

41
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 122–23.

42
.
    
Quoted in
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 272. “Bohoy” was a slang term implying a certain rascality.

43
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 154.

44
.
    
Ibid.

45
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 238.

46
.
    
Ibid., 240.

47
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 157.

48
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 241.

49
.
    
Ibid., 241.

50
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 157.

51
.
    
Among others, they met former Monroe resident Colonel Groome, a hero of the disastrous 1813 Battle of Frenchtown, who had resettled in Texas.

52
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 153.

53
.
    
Southern Intelligencer
(Austin), February 8, 1866, 3.

54
.
    
Lothrop,
History of the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry
, 233.

55
.
    
“2nd Cavalry,” in
A History of the Troops Furnished by the State of Iowa to the Volunteer Armies of the Union Which Conquered the Great Southern Rebellion of 1861
(New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1866).

56
.
    
Custer's name was one on a list of about fifty or so confirmed, including his old rival Judson Kilpatrick.

57
.
    
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 72.

58
.
    
M. Quad [Charles Bertrand Lewis], “Army Letter,” 1.

CHAPTER 20

1
.
      
Elizabeth B. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains or General Custer in Kansas and Texas
(New York: Charles L. Webster, 1887), 196.

2
.
      
Marguerite Merington, ed.,
The Custer Story: The Life and Intimate Letters of General George A. Custer and His Wife Elizabeth
(New York: Devin-Adair, 1950), 162.

3
.
      
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 195.

4
.
      
GAC to EBC, March 18, 1866, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 179.

5
.
      
E. Custer,
Tenting on the Plains
, 195.

6
.
      
Ibid., 198.

7
.
      
EBC to Mrs. Sabin, May 1866, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 182.

8
.
      
Ibid., 183.

9
.
      
Data below are from Mark G. Grandstaff, “Preserving the ‘Habits and Usages of War': William Tecumseh Sherman, Professional Reform, and the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1865–1881, Revisited,” in
Journal of Military History
, July 1998, 521–45.

10
.
    
E. Custer,
Following the Guidon
, 282.

11
.
    
EBC in Arlene Reynolds, ed.,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed from Her Diaries and Notes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 49.

12
.
    
Quoted in GAC to EBC, March 12, 1866, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 177.

13
.
    
Merritt was promoted to command the 5th Cavalry on July 1, 1876.

14
.
    
For Averell's brevetting to general ranks, see
Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States
, vol. 14, part 2, 980, 982. Averell was reappointed to the Army by an act of Congress dated August 1, 1888, at the rank of captain. But Averell was by this time independently wealthy and sought the reappointment so he could serve as the assistant inspector general of the Soldier's Home in Bath, New York, and look after the welfare of the veterans who lived there.

15
.
    
“Letter from General Custer,”
Freemont (OH) Journal
, March 2, 1866.

16
.
    
House Reports
, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 30, Pt. 4, 72–78 (Ser. 1273).

17
.
    
Custer to Andrew Johnson, August 13, 1866.

18
.
    
George A. Custer, “The Philadelphia Convention,”
New York Times
, August 22, 1866.

19
.
    
The Anderson (SC) Intelligencer
, August 30, 1866, 1.

20
.
    
Marshall (MI) Democratic Expounder
, August 16, 1866, 1.

21
.
    
Custer letter quoted in
Washington (DC) National Republican
, August 27, 1866, 2.

22
.
    
Columbia (SC) Daily Phoenix
, August 22, 1866, 3.

23
.
    
GAC to J. M. Howard, January 19, 1864, in Gilder Lehrman Collection #GLC09024; and “Maj-Gen Custer on the Punishment of the Rebel Leaders,”
New York Times,
May 7, 1865, 2.

24
.
    
Detroit Free Press
editorial quoted in
Hillsdale Standard
, September 11, 1866.

25
.
    
Custer, “The Philadelphia Convention.”

26
.
    
Custer letter quoted in
Washington (DC) National Republican
, August 27, 1866, 2.

27
.
    
Burlington Hawkeye
, August 31, 1866.

28
.
    
Dubuque Herald
, September 29, 1866.

29
.
    
Gideon Welles,
Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, with an Introduction by John T. Morse, Jr.
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 589.

30
.
    
“A. Johnson at Indianapolis,”
Burlington Daily Hawkeye
, September 13, 2, and “The President's Tour,”
New York Times,
September 14, 1866, 5.

31
.
    
John Y. Simon, ed.,
Papers of Ulysses S. Grant
, vol. 16 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 547.

32
.
    
Quoted in Garry Boulard,
The Swing around the Circle
(iUniverse, 2008), 160.

33
.
    
Toledo Blade
, September 26, 1866.

34
.
    
Noted in
Burlington Hawkeye
, September 4, 1866.

35
.
    
“Amphitheatrum Johnsonianum,” July 30, 1866.

36
.
    
Quoted in Boulard,
The Swing Around the Circle
, 163.

37
.
    
“Kicked by Political Friends,”
Hillsdale Standard
, October 9, 1866.

38
.
    
Papers of Andrew Johnson
, vol. 11, 314. Barns was something of a Judas himself. He later made common cause with the Radical Republicans to have himself appointed U.S. pension agent in Detroit.

39
.
    
“The Long Haired Custer,”
Dubuque Herald
, November 1, 1866.