The Real Custer (75 page)

18
.
    
Graham, “The Lost Is Found,” in Graham,
The Custer Myth
.

19
.
    
Gibson in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 316.

20
.
    
Herndon quoted in Frances Fuller Victor, E
leven Years in the Rocky Mountains and Life on the Frontier
, Part 2 (Hartford: Columbian Book, 1877), 51.

21
.
    
Godfrey to Roe, February 28, 1918, Godfrey papers, USMA Special Collections. Granted, Godfrey heard this secondhand from Benteen.

22
.
    
“Custer's Last Fight,”
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6.

23
.
    
Ibid.

24
.
    
“A Talk With Sitting Bull,”
New York Times,
August 7, 1881, 2.

25
.
    
The stand on Reno Hill compares favorably to the Battle of Rorke's Drift in the Zulu War, which would take place three years later.

26
.
    
John F. McBlain, “With Gibbon on the Sioux Campaign of 1876,”
Journal of the United States Cavalry Association
, June 1896.

27
.
    
“The Custer Massacre,”
Nebraska Advertiser
, September 21, 1876, 1.

28
.
    
McBlain, “With Gibbon on the Sioux Campaign of 1876.” See also the press account reprinted in Major Sir Rose Lambart Price,
The Two Americas: An Account of Sport and Travel
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1877), Appendix C.

29
.
    
Gibson in Merington,
The Custer Story
, 317.

30
.
    
Ibid.

31
.
    
“General Custer's Last Moments,”
Bristol (VA) News
, July 25, 1876, 1.

32
.
    
For detailed information on the locations of the bodies on the field, see Douglas D. Scott, P. Willey, Melissa A. Connor,
They Died With Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998).

33
.
    
H. W. Longfellow, “The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face,”
West Point Tic Tacs
(New York: H. Lee, 1878), 113–14.

34
.
    
See Charles A. Eastman, “Rain-in-the-Face: The Story of a Sioux Warrior,”
Outlook
, October 27, 1906, 507–12.

35
.
    
Benteen quoted in Evan S. Connell,
Son of a Morning Star: Custer and Little Bighorn
(New York: North Point Press, 1984), 78.

36
.
    
“The Custer Fight,”
New York Times,
August 10, 1881, 2, from the Fort Yates correspondent of the
Cincinnati Commercial
. Other accounts say that Custer had an arrow through his penis and a slash on his left thigh that may not have been visible to eyewitnesses who say that his body was not desecrated.

37
.
    
Ibid.

38
.
    
Ibid.

39
.
    
“Gen. Custer's Murderer,”
New York Times,
February 12, 1881, 1.

40
.
    
“Survivor Tells of Custer Fight,”
Washington Herald
, September 21, 1913, 7. Among other problems with the story: Custer was not carrying a saber that
day, nor was anyone else; “Curley” says the moment he described is portrayed in one of the famous Custer paintings, probably Otto Becker's wholly imagined
Custer's Last Fight
, which was distributed as a promotional lithograph by the Anheuser-Busch brewing company, and in which he is fighting with saber raised; and “Curley” said he was sometimes known as Bloody Knife, who was another person entirely and killed at Little Bighorn.

41
.
    
Thomas B. Marquis,
Keep the Last Bullet for Yourself
(New York: Reference Publications, 1976).

42
.
    
“Custer's Slayer,”
Washington National Republican
, July 22, 1881, 1; and “Custer's Last Fight,”
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6. In later accounts Sitting Bull claimed to have personally led warriors against both Reno's first attack and Custer.

CONCLUSION

1
.
      
“General Custer's Burial,”
New York Times,
September 13, 1878. See also Douglas D. Scott, P. Willey, and Melissa A. Connor,
They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).

2
.
      
“Custer's Last Fight,” in
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6. See also 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), 320–21.

3
.
      
“Custer's Last Fight,” in
St. Paul Globe
, April 26, 1897, 6. Also Merington,
The Custer Story
, 321–23.

4
.
      
Elizabeth Custer,
Boots and Saddles
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1913), 255.

5
.
      
“Montana Papers Got Scoop: Tribune Not First to Print News,”
Bismarck Tribune
, July 6, 1976.

6
.
      
Glazier, 229, 275.

7
.
      
“The Causes and Consequences,”
New York Times,
July 7, 1876, 1.

8
.
      
“What Is Thought in Washington,”
New York Times,
July 8, 1876, 1.

9
.
      
“Another Ex-Confederate Offers to Avenge,”
Bristol (VA) News
, July 25, 1876, 1.

10
.
    
Briston (TN) News
, August 15, 1876, 2.

11
.
    
“Politics Run Mad,”
New York Times,
July 8, 1876, 4.

12
.
    
Grant quoted in Utley, 44.

13
.
    
Ibid.

14
.
    
Interview with Sturgis, originally printed in the
Chicago Tribune
, reprinted in the
Army and Navy Journal
, July 29, 1876. See also Sturgis in “Gen. Custer's Death,”
New York Times,
July 17, 1876, 5; “Gen. Custer's Death,”
New York Times,
July 18, 1876, 5; and “Sturgis on Custer,”
New York Times,
July 21, 1876, 8.

15
.
    
Crittenden letter quoted in James B. Fry, “Comments by General Fry on the Custer Battle,”
The Century
, January 1892, 387, fn 2.

16
.
    
George McClellan,
McClellan's Own Story: The War for the Union, the Soldiers Who Fought It, The Civilians Who Directed It, and His Relations to Them
(New York: Webster Publishers, 1886), 365.

17
.
    
Godfrey to Roe, February 28, 1918, USMA Archives.

18
.
    
Terry's communiqués were reprinted in the
New York Times,
July 7, 1876, 1.

19
.
    
Quoted in Charles Francis Roe, “Custer's Last Battle,” a monograph published by the National Highways Association, New York City (1927), 34.

20
.
    
In 1967, the Army Board of Corrections reversed the decision of the court-martial, and Reno was reburied with honors at the Custer Battlefield National Cemetery.

21
.
    
See John S. Gray, “Nightmares to Daydreams,”
By Valor and Arms, Journal of American Military History
1 (Summer 1975), 30–39, for information on parties visiting the battlefield.

22
.
    
“Officers Who Died with Custer,”
New York Times,
August 4, 1877, 5. Lieutenant McIntosh was later transferred to Arlington National Cemetery.

23
.
    
Quoted in
New York Times,
May 21, 1877, 1. Crittenden's remains were left buried where he fell until 1931, when they were relocated to the National Cemetery. His isolated gravesite was not being properly cared for, though the family was at first told it was because of a plan to relocate a road.

24
.
    
See “Gen. Custer's Remains,”
New York Times,
September 1, 1878.

25
.
    
The spur is in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society. By coincidence, Santa Anna died in Mexico City four days before Custer, at age eighty-two, impoverished and forgotten.

26
.
    
Benny Havens died May 27, 1877, at ninety years.

27
.
    
The full story of the enduring mystery of the Custer statue is in
Last in Their Class
, 405–8.

28
.
    
“General George A. Custer,”
Galaxy
, September 1876, 363.

29
.
    
“A Death-Sonnet for Custer,”
New York Daily Tribune
, July 10, 1876, 5.

30
.
    
Walt Whitman, “Custer's Last Rally,”
Specimen Days
. See also Robert Taft, “The Pictorial Record of the Old West. IV. Custer's Last Stand. John Mulvany, Cassilly Adams, and Otto Becker,”
Kansas Historical Quarterly
, November 1946, 361–90.

31
.
    
Quoted in “Mrs. Custer's Army Life,”
Atlantic Monthly
, September, 1888, 426.

32
.
    
Charles Godfrey Leland,
Memoirs
(New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1893), 333.

INDEX

Numbers in italics refer to illustrative material.

1st Colorado Volunteer regiment,
284

1st Connecticut Cavalry,
183

1st Iowa Cavalry,
224–25
,
232
,
236

1st Maine Cavalry,
72

1st Michigan Cavalry,
97

1st South Carolina Cavalry,
95

1st Vermont Cavalry,
93
,
96
,
158–59

1st Virginia Cavalry,
83–85
,
165

2nd Massachusetts Cavalry,
143
,
189

2nd New York Cavalry,
57
,
92
,
174
,
408

2nd Ohio Cavalry,
200
,
203–4

2nd Rhode Island regiment,
203

2nd Wisconsin Cavalry,
224
,
227–28

3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry,
60–61
,
85

3rd Virginia Cavalry,
72

5th Illinois Cavalry,
224

5th Lighthouse District,
299

5th Michigan Cavalry,
68
,
80
,
84
,
86
,
95–96
,
130
,
132
,
134
,
140
,
169
,
240–41

5th New York Cavalry,
87
,
120

5th Virginia Cavalry,
72

6th Michigan Cavalry,
77
,
99
,
102
,
198
,
237

6th New York Independent Battery,
179