The Real Custer (74 page)

5
.
      
Palo Alto (IA) Reporter
, March 11, 1876, 1.

6
.
      
Reprinted as “The Black Hills,”
Titusville (PA) Herald
, March 28, 1876, 1.

7
.
      
Leander P. Richardson, “A Trip to the Black Hills,”
Scribner's Monthly
, April 1877, 754. Richardson visited the area a month after the Little Bighorn battle.

8
.
      
Nebraska Advertiser
, May 4, 1876.

9
.
      
Reprinted as “The Black Hills Gold Fraud,”
Tiffin (OH) Tribune
, April 13, 1876, 1.

10
.
    
See for example, “A Vain Search for Gold,”
New York Times,
April 30, 1876, 10.

11
.
    
Bismarck Weekly Tribune
, February 23, 1876, 3.

12
.
    
“Custer Interviewed,”
Bismarck Tribune
, September 2, 1874, 1.

13
.
    
Quoted in Evan S. Connell,
Son of a Morning Star: Custer and Little Bighorn
(New York: North Point Press, 1984), 106.

14
.
    
“Gen. Custer,”
St. Cloud Journal
, May 11, 1876.

15
.
    
Peter Thompson,
Peter Thompson's Narrative of the Little Bighorn Campaign, 1876: A Critical Analysis of an Eyewitness Account of the Custer Debacle
, Daniel O. Magnussen, ed. (Glendale: A. H. Clark, 1974), 59.

16
.
    
Boston Custer to his mother, June 8, 1876, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 300–1.

17
.
    
Custer quoted in Sarf,
he Little Bighorn Campaign
, 135.

18
.
    
In S. L. A. Marshall,
Cimsoned Prairie
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1972), 127. Also see J. W. Vaughn,
With Crook at the Rosebud
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994).

19
.
    
In Marshall,
Cimsoned Prairie
, 129. Henry barely survived the wound and continued his distinguished career, being awarded a Medal of Honor in 1893 for his heroism at Cold Harbor in 1864, rising to the rank of brigadier general and serving as military governor of Puerto Rico in 1898.

20
.
    
Terry quoted in Marshall,
Cimsoned Prairie
, 118–19.

21
.
    
See Anson Mills,
My Story
(Washington, D.C.: Byron S. Adams, 1918), 450.

22
.
    
Marshall,
Cimsoned Prairie
, 122.

23
.
    
Reno was a good friend of West Point washout and painter James McNeill Whisler, and joked with him that if Whisler made a career of the Army, no one would have ever heard of his mother.

24
.
    
GAC to EBC June 1876, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 305.

25
.
    
Quoted in Gray,
Centennial Campaign
, 140.

26
.
    
Eyewitness conversation as related in Nelson Appleton Miles,
Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles
(Chicago: The Werner Company, 1896), 204–5.

27
.
    
Edward C. Bailly, “Echoes from Custer's Last Fight: Accounts by an Officer Survivor Never Before Published,”
Military Affairs
, Winter 1953, 176. See also Edgerly in Merington, T
he Custer Story
, 309.

28
.
    
Boston Custer to his mother, June 21, 1876, in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 306.

29
.
    
EBC to GAC, June 22, 1876, in ibid., 307.

30
.
    
GAC to EBC, June 22, 1876.

31
.
    
Quoted in Gray,
Centennial Campaign
, 151.

32
.
    
A. Ward, “The Little Bighorn,”
American Heritage
, April 1992; Sarf,
The Little Bighorn Campaign
, 160; F. W. Benteen, “An Account of the Little Big Horn Campaign,” typescript copy, USMA Archives, 1.

CHAPTER 29

1
.
      
Custer, “War Memoirs,”
Galaxy
, March 1876, 319–20.

2
.
      
John F. McBlain, “With Gibbon on the Sioux Campaign of 1876,”
Journal of the United States Cavalry Association
, June 1896.

3
.
      
Godfrey quoted in Wayne Michael Sarf,
The Little Bighorn Campaign, March–September 1876
(Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1993), 175.

4
.
      
Diary of Troop Pat Coleman, USMA Archives.

5
.
      
Ibid.

6
.
      
Godfrey quoted in 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), 313. Godfrey later challenged the idea that June 26 was the predetermined date for the columns to meet. He said that if Custer had followed Terry's order to the letter, he would have been hard pressed to get back that far north by the twenty-sixth. He also pointed out that they had taken fifteen days' rations, of which they used less than a week's worth. Godfrey to Roe, February 28, 1918, Godfrey papers, USMA Special Collections.

7
.
      
Godfrey in ibid., 315.

8
.
      
“Custer's Last Fight,”
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6. Custer wanted Porter to ride with his command group, but Chief Surgeon Dr. George Edwin Lord refused, thus saving Porter's life and sacrificing his own.

9
.
      
Marcus Reno led A, G, and M troops; Frederick Benteen led D, H, and K troops; Custer had C, E, F, I, and L troops; and B troop guarded the mule train.

10
.
    
Benteen quoted in S. L. A. Marshall,
Cimsoned Prairie
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1972), 138.

11
.
    
Edgerly in Edward C. Bailly, “Echoes from Custer's Last Fight: Accounts by an Officer Survivor Never Before Published,”
Military Affairs
, Winter 1953, 173.

12
.
    
Letter to General Edward S. Godfrey, August 17, 1908, USMA Archives. O'Neill was Lieutenant McIntosh's cook. He later was a sergeant. He died in 1914 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

13
.
    
“Sergeant John M. Ryan,”
Hardin Tribune
, June 22, 1923. Ryan was first sergeant for Company M.

14
.
    
See testimony of Sergeant Edward Davern, F Company, 7th Cavalry, in
The Official Record of a Court of Inquiry Convened at Chicago, Illinois, January 13, 1879, by the President of the United States upon the Request of Major Marcus
A. Reno, 7th U.S. Cavalry, to Investigate His Conduct at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, June 25–26, 1876
(Pacific Pallisades, CA: W. A. Graham, 1951), 286.

15
.
    
Custer historian Michael Donahue has done numerous site tests of the “hat waving” theory and concluded that the distances make the story impossible to believe. He points out that the story did not come from Reno but others. Correspondence with the author, April 3, 2014.

16
.
    
Reno in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 318.

17
.
    
Letter to General Edward S. Godfrey, August 17, 1908, USMA Archives.

18
.
    
“Account of Battle at Little Bighorn, by Two Moon,” History Resource Center (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group) document number BT2352000951.

19
.
    
Reno quoted in Joseph Henry Taylor,
Sketches of Frontier and Indian Life on the Upper Missouri and Great Plains
(Bismarck: J. H. Taylor, 1897), 164.

20
.
    
“Custer's Last Fight,”
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6.

21
.
    
Letter to General Edward S. Godfrey, August 17, 1908, USMA Archives.

22
.
    
Charles Francis Roe, “Custer's Last Battle,” a monograph published by the National Highways Association, New York City (1927), 9.

23
.
    
Reno quoted in Taylor,
Sketches of Frontier and Indian Life on the Upper Missouri and Great Plains
, 164.

24
.
    
From an interview with W. A. Graham in 1922., published in “Come On! Be Quick! Bring Packs!,”
Cavalry Jounral
, July 1923, and reprinted in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth: A Source Book for Custeriana
(Harrisburg: Stackpole, 1953), 287–94.

25
.
    
Kanipe in Sarf, 212.

26
.
    
John Martin, interview with Walter Mason Camp, October 24, 1908, Camp MSS, field notes, John Martin, folder 3, Lilly Library, Indiana University.

27
.
    
Ibid.

28
.
    
In Sarf, 213–14.

29
.
    
Edgerly in Sarf, 216.

CHAPTER 30

1
.
      
See generally, Richard G. Hardorff, ed.,
Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

2
.
      
“The Custer Fight,”
New York Times,
August 10, 1881, 2, from the Fort Yates correspondent of the
Cincinnati Commercial
.

3
.
      
“The Death of Gen. Custer: Sitting Bull Tells the Story of the Fight,”
New York Times,
May 7, 1881, 3.

4
.
      
“Another Story of Gen. Custer's Death,”
New York Times,
January 7, 1883, 5, reprinted from the
Mile City (MT) Journal
.

5
.
      
Letter by Frederick Benteen to William J. De Gresse, December 22, 1868, reprinted in the
New York Times
February 14, 1869, originally appearing (unsigned) in the
St. Louis Democrat
. A thorough attempt at reconstruction is in John S. Gray,
Custer's Last Campaign: Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn Reconsidered
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

6
.
      
E. J. McClernand, “The Fight on Custer Hill,” in Charles Francis Roe, “Custer's Last Battle,” a monograph published by the National Highways Association, New York City (1927), 38. McClernand received the Medal of Honor for bravery at Bear Paw Mountain during the Nez Perce War a year after the Custer battle.

7
.
      
Nelson Appleton Miles,
Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles
(Chicago: The Werner Company, 1896), 290.

8
.
      
Ibid.

9
.
      
“Account of Battle at Little Bighorn, by Two Moon,” History Resource Center, Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, Document Number BT2352000951.

10
.
    
“The Story Told,”
Worthington (MN) Advance
, July 20, 1876, 1.

11
.
    
See Richard Allan Fox Jr.,
Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

12
.
    
Hardorff,
Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight
, 162.

13
.
    
Miles,
Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles
, 288–89.

14
.
    
Ibid., 290.

15
.
    
F. W. Benteen, “An Account of the Little Big Horn Campaign,” typescript copy, USMA Archives, 9.

16
.
    
W. A. Graham, “The Lost Is Found: Custer's Last Message Comes to Life,”
Cavalry Journal
, July–August 1942, reprinted in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth: A Source Book for Custeriana
(Harrisburg: Stackpole, 1953), 296–300.

17
.
    
Godfrey in 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), 318–19.