The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer (35 page)

Custer was under the impression that his column had been discovered by the Sioux, as evidenced by the episode of the box of hardtack that had been lost and was subsequently surrounded by Indians. As he knew that it was the Indian custom to flee from a large detachment of approaching soldiers, that would have made it imperative in his mind that he immediately attack.

Similar views were later expressed by many army officers, including Generals Nelson Miles and Phil Sheridan, who were experienced in the ways of the hostiles. The real concern of the campaign participants, which was summed up before the battle in the June 20, 1876, edition of the
St. Paul Pioneer Press,
was that “there is not much probability of these cunning rascals being caught by our more slow-moving forces, for they can break up and fly in a thousand different directions and hide among the hills and gullies, every foot of which is to them familiar ground.” This certainly was Terry's concern as well. He wrote to Sheridan on June 21: “My only hope is one of the two columns will find the Indians.”

Another factor was the statement made by Custer's cook, Mary Adams, who had accompanied him on the campaign. She claimed in an affidavit dated January 16, 1878, that she overheard Terry tell Custer: “Use your own judgment and do what you think best if you strike the trail.”

If Terry's order were followed to the letter of the law, Custer could have chased the Sioux and Cheyenne across the entire country to the streets of New York City if that was where the trail led and would not have been in violation of the order.

Quite simply, the officer who has shouldered the blame, the scapegoat, could not personally defend himself against the charges—he was dead. Therefore, the accusation that Custer disobeyed orders and thereby lost his command has been a convenient excuse for those who may have played a part in the defeat but lived to tell their stories. Those orders, however, tell a different story and serve to clear him of that charge.

But, absurd as it seems, historians to the present day have somehow clung to this fallacy that Custer disregarded orders and charged into the cannon's mouth to obtain glory. He was merely
following
orders, like the professional military man that he was.

While on the subject of Custer rendezvousing with Gibbon—oddly enough, the vanishing act by General George Crook has not come under scrutiny. After his humiliation on the Rosebud, Crook should have dispatched messengers to Terry at the Powder River base camp and informed him of the whereabouts of his one-thousand-man column. Crook should then have taken up the trail of Sitting Bull's village, which would not have been difficult to follow. Terry could have coordinated efforts between Crook and Custer, and at least two prongs of the three-column pincer movement they had designed would have struck the village in force. But Crook was missing in action and became the weak link in the campaign strategy that he had helped devise.

Now that the subject of the orders has been dismissed as a smoke screen, the second most criticized action taken by Custer that day has been his decision to separate his command into three battalions at the mouth of Reno Creek on his advance toward the village. In fact, this subject has been one of the primary reasons many armchair Napoléons have given for the defeat.

Those scholars have argued that Custer's total command of nearly six hundred fighting men would have been quite a formidable force had it swept into the village in force. Consequently, Custer had weakened his ability to contend with the overwhelming number of warriors by separating his command.

Historians have been so intent on treating Little Bighorn as a lone entity—as if it had been the only engagement of Custer's career—that they have failed to factor in the experience he had gained in previous battles. Few cavalry officers throughout American history have charged the cannon's mouth with as much frequency or with as much success as George Armstrong Custer.

Part of the reason for this modern error in judgment can be attributed to the sad fact that a great number of Little Bighorn scholars are ignorant of Custer's tendencies in battle because they have failed to study and dissect his prior battles, mainly those during the Civil War. He became known for the ability to develop a strategy on the field with a moment's notice that would exploit the weakness of his enemy while making use of the terrain.

At Winchester in September 1864, he had even been permitted to countermand an order on the field from General Phil Sheridan, which is unheard of in military protocol. Had junior officers made that request it would have been considered insubordination. But this demonstrates the trust Sheridan had placed in his star field commander. And Custer, outnumbered as usual, prevailed that day, capturing seven hundred prisoners and seven battle flags.

It can be noted that Custer traditionally separated his command before charging into the enemy. He had employed this tactic time and time again in victories during the Civil War and again at the 1868 Battle of the Washita, where he secured a large Cheyenne village within ten minutes of his charge. He would traditionally dispatch one strike force on a frontal assault of his objective while sending one or more detachments on a flanking movement.

Custer's battle plan at Little Bighorn was devised with the thought—and rightly so—that the Indians would flee, which had been their custom. Had he charged into the village with his entire command from the south, where Reno had been ordered to enter, the thousands of occupants would have raced through the tangled maze of lodges toward the north, where the pony herd was located, with the result being that great numbers would have escaped.

Besides that, the warriors would have had the opportunity to organize a solid defense and effective counterattack if afforded the time to gather on the north end. There may have been nearly six hundred cavalrymen, but there were also fifteen hundred to two thousand warriors, a good many armed with Winchester repeaters. The Indians were familiar with the terrain, and groups of warriors could have deployed across the river on the high ground to maintain a withering fire on the bunched-up horsemen.

Those cavalrymen who would have been threading their way through the complex of tepees and other obstacles would have been met with steady resistance as they advanced and assuredly faced a large force of warriors at the end, if they made it that far, who would cover the getaway by their old men, women, and children. Either way, there also was the chance that the cavalrymen could have been driven from the village or at the very least stalled completely while the occupants fled. In either case, casualties for the cavalry would have been high.

As a last resort, the Indians could have stampeded thousands of ponies through the village from the north directly at the oncoming cavalry. This tactic would have stopped the cavalrymen in their tracks. The warriors would have hated to place their precious ponies at risk, but the safety of their families was far more important. And they still would have had plenty of ponies left over in the herd estimated at up to twenty thousand to ride away from the attack—breaking up into small bands and vanishing across the prairie.

Consequently, attacking with the entire command from one direction offered the enemy too many options to save themselves.

With that in mind, it would appear that the only logical method of attacking the village would be by separating the command in order to cover escape routes to the west with Benteen and for Custer's detachments to enter the village from the east and north at various points along the natural pathways created by the ravines when Reno charged from the south.

To charge that village head-on with his total command would have been an outdated and impractical European Napoléonic tactic and would surely have been doomed to failure.

Another issue that has been raised has been the question regarding the readiness, or the lack thereof, of the cavalrymen to effectively fight on June 25, 1876. The theories that many of the troopers were untrained raw recruits and that the unit as a whole had succumbed to fatigue by the time they reached the battlefield have been posed as reasons for the Seventh Cavalry's poor showing against the enemy. In fact, more than one author has claimed that Custer's men just wanted to lay down their weapons and go to sleep instead of fighting this enemy.

The first matter of contention pertains to new recruits who lacked proper training and were said to have been called upon to fight alongside seasoned veterans. There can be no question that poorly trained troops are more vulnerable under combat conditions. The ability to fight effectively was dependent upon learning the skills necessary to be proficient in the ways of warfare. Lessons in weaponry and military discipline are essential in order to engender personal confidence and unit cohesiveness when facing the enemy. This competency requires intense training over a period of time. But did a lack of training apply to those soldiers who rode into the Valley of the Little Bighorn?

Records indicate that approximately 150 recruits joined the Seventh Cavalry in 1875, with about 60 of them having prior service. Another 62 new men were said to have joined the unit in early 1876—although only 54 could be verified from regimental rosters on June 25, 1876. The latter men were more than likely untrained in the ways of a cavalryman, as their daily activities were consumed by guard duty, fatigue duty, and the monotonous post routine.

This lack of training for the new recruits can be placed on the shoulders of Major Marcus A. Reno, who commanded the Seventh Cavalry in Custer's absence during preparations for the campaign. Reno neglected to schedule target practice training or instruction in the rudiments of cavalry tactics. Granted, it did not take an expert to figure out how to aim and fire the Springfield Model 1873 or the Colt .45 revolver. But, with respect to the Springfield trapdoor carbine, there was a technique of loading and extracting that required proper learning and practice in order to fire the maximum number of rounds per minute. Training in horsemanship—other than feeding, grooming, and mucking out stalls—had been lacking as well.

At first glance it would appear that these new recruits were a detriment to the efficiency of the Seventh Cavalry against the Sioux and Cheyenne—if they indeed had been called upon for a combat role.

A check of regimental rosters confirms that at the time of the battle a total of thirty-seven new recruits—those who had signed up in 1876—did not accompany Custer. He had wisely left these recruits on detached duty at the Powder River base camp, with one at Fort Abraham Lincoln, another in confinement, and two en route. Nine had been detailed with the pack train escort, while only four remained with companies assigned to Reno's battalion—including Private Theodore Goldin, who was awarded the Medal of Honor—and two of those had years of prior service with the infantry. No new recruits were members of the companies that comprised Custer's command.

Therefore, the charge that untrained recruits contributed to Custer's defeat can be readily dismissed.

The second allegation concerning readiness charges that the cavalrymen were too fatigued to fight by the time they had arrived in the Valley of the Little Bighorn. The regiment had traveled approximately 113 miles with little sleep or nourishment between June 22 and 25. A long, hard march such as that can certainly create a state of tiredness that would prevent anyone from functioning at peak performance. Field rations during the previous month had consisted mainly of hardtack and bacon, with the occasional supplement of wild game. Fatigue and malnourishment unquestionably sap the spirit and can result in a breakdown of discipline and morale. These cavalrymen, however, were proud, trained professionals serving in an elite unit and were expected to perform under the most adverse conditions. A number of these troopers had braved freezing temperatures and a blizzard to successfully attack Black Kettle's village at the Battle of the Washita.

There exists another element that must be considered when assessing a soldier's readiness to fight. The one factor that can overcome fatigue and hunger is being under attack and hearing that bullet or arrow zip past your head too close for comfort. As anyone who has experienced combat is aware, adrenaline-fueled energy plays a major role in quickly readying the body and mind for battle. Like a slap in the face, senses and concentration are heightened when the first round has been fired and, although fatigue may become a factor during a prolonged battle, men trained to fight usually respond in an admirable fashion in the short term. Whether Custer's men could have fared better had they enjoyed a good night's sleep and a full belly is a moot point.

Another debate that has ensued for years was over the issue of whether or not the Model 1873 Springfield carbines that the cavalrymen carried into battle malfunctioned and thereby contributed to the defeat. The controversy stems from the fact that the weapon was known after firing to frequently fail to properly extract its spent .45/55-caliber copper cartridge casing, which expanded when hot. That failure, combined with a faulty extractor mechanism and common dirt, could cause the head of the cartridge to be torn away when the block was opened. This would leave the cartridge cylinder remaining inside the chamber, which required manual removal with a pocketknife before reloading and firing. This extraction malfunction problem had been noted in 1872 by the board of officers who selected the carbine for use by the army but at that time was not considered serious enough to scrap the weapon.

There is no doubt that if this malfunction occurred with enough frequency during the battle the troopers would have been seriously affected in firepower. Therefore, the question that must be posed is: With what frequency did this defect occur on June 25, 1876, when it really mattered?

And these numbers have been uncovered and analyzed over the years by Drs. Douglas D. Scott and Richard A. Fox, Jr. These two archaeologists found during the initial study of items from excavations on the battlefield that very few .45/55-caliber cartridge casings displayed any evidence of pry or scratch marks, such as those by a pocketknife that would have permanently scarred a hot casing. On the Custer portion of the field only 3 of 88 casings could have been involved in an extraction jam. Seven out of 257 fit this category on the Reno-Benteen hilltop site.