The Real Custer (68 page)

17
.
    
Walter Harrison,
Pickett's Men: A Fragment of War History
(New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1870), 157.

18
.
    
Kershaw in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 153.

19
.
    
Burlington Free Press
, April 21, 1865, 2.

20
.
    
Quoted in E. P. Alexander, “Lee at Appomattox,” in
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
, vol. 5, Peter Cozzens, ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 641.

21
.
    
Eppa Hunton,
Autobiography of Eppa Hunton
(Richmond: The William Byrd Press, 1933), 124.

22
.
    
Ibid.

23
.
    
Sheridan to Grant, April 6, 1865.

24
.
    
Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. 6,
The Shenandoah Campaigns of 1862 and 1864 and the Appomattox Campaign, 1865
(Boston: The Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, 1907), 447.

25
.
    
Morris Schaff quoted in Reynolds,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
, 144.

26
.
    
Ulysses S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
(New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885), 551.

27
.
    
Frederick Cushman Newhall,
With Sheridan in the Final Campaign against Lee
, Eric J. Wittenberg, ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 107.

28
.
    
Augustus Woodbury,
The Second Rhode Island Regiment: A Narrative of Military Operations in Which the Regiment Was Engaged from the Beginning to the End of the War for the Union
(Providence: Valpey, Angell, 1875), 354.

29
.
    
Frances Andrews Tenney,
War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney, 1861–1865
(Cleveland: Evangelical Publishing House, 1914), 156.

30
.
    
Sheridan to Grant, April 8, 1865, 9:40 p.m.

31
.
    
Supplemental report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, in two volumes. Supplemental to Senate Report No. 142, 38th Congress, 2d session, 66.

32
.
    
Sheridan to Grant, April 8, 1865, 9:20 p.m. See also Philip H. Sheridan, “The Last Days of the Rebellion,”
North American Review
, September 1888, 275.

33
.
    
Morris Schaff,
The Sunset of the Confederacy
(Boston: John W. Luce, 1912), 209. They were about two hundred miles from Tennessee at the time.

34
.
    
Reynolds,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
, 143.

35
.
    
Humphreys,
Field, Camp, Hospital and Prison in the Civil War,
284.

36
.
    
Tenney,
War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney, 1861–1865
, 156.

37
.
    
“Captured at Appomattox,”
Maine Bugle
, January 1896, 274.

38
.
    
Danville Register
, October 17, 1905.

39
.
    
Quoted in Schaff,
The Sunset of the Confederacy
, 225.

40
.
    
Charles A. Phelps,
Life and Public Services of Ulysses S. Grant
(Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers, 1872), 290.

41
.
    
E. G. Marsh in
Soldiers
'
Letters, from Camps, Battle-Field and Prison
, Lydia Minturn Post, ed. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1865).

42
.
    
These and many of the following details come from Lee's artillery chief Edward Porter Alexander, in “Lee at Appomattox: Personal Recollections of the Break-Up of the Confederacy,”
Century Magazine
, April 1902, 921–31; Alexander,
Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907), chapter 23 passim; as well as other sources cited.

43
.
    
There are several versions of this encounter. Some say it was Custer's chief of staff, Colonel Edward Whitaker, who met with Longstreet, but Longstreet in his memoir says otherwise. Whitaker had met with Gordon shortly before Custer arrived and was asked to locate Sheridan, who was riding to Appomattox Court House. See also John Brown Gordon,
Reminiscences of the Civil War
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904); and the letter by E. G. Marsh, 15th NY Cavalry, in
Soldiers' Letters, from Camps, Battle-Field and Prison
. Alexander in his
Military Memoirs of a Confederate
says Longstreet rebuffed Custer “very roughly, far more so than appears in Longstreet's account of the interview” (608). William Miller Owen, from whom some of these quotes are taken, was an eyewitness. See his
In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery
(Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1885), 384–85.

44
.
    
Tenney,
War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney, 1861–1865
, 159.

45
.
    
Humphreys,
Field, Camp, Hospital and Prison in the Civil War,
289.

46
.
    
Horace Porter,
Campaigning with Grant
(New York: The Century Company, 1906), 486.

47
.
    
Quoted in Schaff,
The Sunset of the Confederacy
, 169–71. With Babcock were Captain William McKee Dunn for the Union, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshal as aide to Lee, and rebel Private Joshua O. Johns.

48
.
    
Quoted in ibid., 169–71.

49
.
    
In Walter Clark, ed.,
Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861–'65
, vol. 2 (Goldsboro, NC: Nash Brothers), 578.

50
.
    
Porter,
Campaigning with Grant
, 486.

51
.
    
New York Times
, April 20, 1865, 2. The entire Mclean House disappeared eventually. In 1891 M. T. Dunlap bought the house for $10,000 with a view toward putting it on display at the Chicago World's Fair, or on the Mall in Washington. The house was disassembled and put into crates. But financing for the venture fell through, and over time the contents of the crates were taken by souvenir hunters. When the National Park Service acquired the property in 1948, only the foundations were left. See Dorothea Andrews, “‘Surrender House' Will Stand Again,”
Washington Post
, January 4, 1948, M17.

52
.
    
Richard Miller Devens,
The Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion
, (Hartford: Hartford Publishing, 1967), 348.

53
.
    
Reynolds,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
, 152–53.

54
.
    
Custer promised the flag to Libbie. “With the verdancy of youth,” she later wrote, “I really expected to see a veritable flag, though I don't know that I went so far as to hint that gallant men carried one around ready for emergencies. When I found myself in possession of a large honey-comb towel the poetry departed out of my anticipations.” “Surrender Relics,”
Washington Post
, April 1, 1905, 14.

CHAPTER 18

1
.
      
Alexander in Peter Cozzens, ed.,
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
, vol. 5 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 651.

2
.
      
GAC, April 9, 1865, Appomattox Court House.

3
.
      
Chamberlain,
The Passing of the Armies
, 250.

4
.
      
Quoted in Richard Wheeler,
Witness to Appomattox
(New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 233.

5
.
      
Longstreet in
New York Times,
July 24, 1885.

6
.
      
Quoted in Arlene Reynolds, ed.,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed from Her Diaries and Notes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 143.

7
.
      
Ibid., 146.

8
.
      
Ibid., 150.

9
.
      
Ibid.

10
.
    
Nettie died in 1868 of heart disease shortly after giving birth to a son, Jacob Humphrey Greene.

11
.
    
New York Times
, April 20, 1865, 2.

12
.
    
The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861–1865
, vol. 3,
January 1, 1864–May 30, 1865
, entry of May 24, 1865, Library of Congress, Manuscript Collection.

13
.
    
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
The Passing of the Armies: The Last Campaign of the Armies
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), 331.

14
.
    
Ibid., 328.

15
.
    
“Review of the Armies,”
New York Times,
May 24, 1865, 1.

16
.
    
Whitman in
Specimen Days
, journal entry for May 21, 1865.

17
.
    
The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861–1865
, entry of May 24, 1865.

18
.
    
“Sherman on the Grand Review,”
New York Times
, July 4, 1890, 1. The competitive Sherman saw to it that his troops were well drilled and prepared for the review. The eastern and western armies contested on more than the parade route. Assistant Secretary of War Charles Henry Dana wrote, “Sherman's troops are now all camped just outside of Washington north of the Potomac, it having been found advisable to separate them from the Army of the Potomac, whose camps are all on the south side of the river. A good many fights have occurred between the private soldiers of the two armies. I have heard of one or two men who have been killed, and one or two who have been seriously wounded. Sherman's men are also pretty troublesome to the farmers and other quiet people where they are.” In John Harrison Wilson,
The Life of Charles Henry Dana
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907), 366.

19
.
    
H. M. Gallaher. “The Great Review,”
Burlington Iowa Hawkeye
, June 5, 1865.

20
.
    
Cleveland Daily Leader
, June 1, 1865.

21
.
    
Horace Porter,
Campaigning with Grant
(New York: The Century Company, 1906), 507.

22
.
    
Rev. H. M. Gallaher. “The Great Review,”
Burlington Iowa Hawkeye
, June 5, 1865.

23
.
    
Cleveland Daily Leader
, June 1, 1865.

24
.
    
Marysville (OH) Tribune
, May 31, 1865, 1.

25
.
    
Ibid.; and “A Historic Promenade,”
New York Times,
February 7, 1881, 1. President Johnson was late to the event and did not witness Custer's “charge.”

26
.
    
“The Nonsense of War Stories,”
Washington National Republican
, March 18, 1881.

27
.
    
Washington National Republican
, March 21, 1881.

28
.
    
GAC quoted in Reynolds,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
, 160.

29
.
    
“An Incident of the Great Review,”
New York Times,
July 10, 1876, 2.

30
.
    
Quoted in Jay Monaghan,
Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), 251.

31
.
    
Cleveland Daily Leader
, June 1, 1865.

CHAPTER 19

1
.
      
Sheridan to Granger, June 10, 1865.

2
.
      
Grant to Sheridan, June 3, 1865.

3
.
      
Sheridan to Grant, July 1, 1865.

4
.
      
Supplemental report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, in two volumes. Supplemental to Senate Report No. 142, 38th Congress, 2d session, 73.