The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer

by Thom Hatch

  While in New York promoting his silver mine, Custer dressed in Brooks Brothers suits and was a welcome guest at fashionable dinner parties and other events reserved for the social elite. He mingled with celebrities and dignitaries at Delmonico’s and other fine restaurants, attended gala affairs at local mansions, frequented the opera and theatrical performances (Custer loved the theater throughout his life), sailed on private yachts, and traveled to Saratoga for the horse races.

  When September rolled around, however, Custer had failed to find his fortune in the big city and chose the army over civilian life. He returned with wife Libbie to duty with a two-company detachment of the Seventh Cavalry that was stationed in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

  In time, Custer sold his shares in the Stevens Lode and sent the money to his brother Nevin to use as a down payment on a farm near his parents—a most prudent decision. His investors never realized a profit from the silver mine. The enterprise collapsed after several years of assaying and mining.

  This quiet community not far from Louisville was known as E-Town or Betseytown by the locals. Custer’s duties included assisting federal marshals in keeping track of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and moonshiners and purchasing horses for the army. Otherwise, his days were marked with boredom, except perhaps for a stimulating game of chess with a local judge, an afternoon at the racetrack, discussing horses at a local farm, or hunting to the hounds—his leash of hounds totaled about eighty. Custer also owned a number of thoroughbreds that he raced, the best being Don Juan and Frogtown.

  Custer’s loyal orderly, or striker, at the time was thirty-year-old John W. Burkman from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His autobiography states that he was an emigrant from Germany, but his death certificate lists Missouri as his birthplace. He worked as a teamster for trader William Bent before enlisting in the Fifth Missouri Volunteer Mounted Infantry and fighting in the August 1861 Civil War battle of Wilson’s Creek. At some point, Burkman joined Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley’s troops in Minnesota and campaigned against the Sioux in the early 1860s.

  Burkman enlisted in Company A, Seventh Cavalry, in August 1870 but was soon detailed as an orderly to George Armstrong Custer. Both men shared a common love of animals, and Burkman over the years would lovingly care for Custer’s horses and dogs.

  John Burkman, who was bestowed with the nickname Old Nutriment for his insatiable appetite, was illiterate and slow of speech and movement but became indispensable to the Custers. Libbie Custer wrote: “My husband and I were so attached to him, and appreciated so deeply his fidelity, we could not thank the good fortune enough that gave us one so loyal to our interests.”

  In January 1872, George Armstrong Custer enjoyed a pleasant respite from duty in Kentucky when he was summoned to Nebraska by General Phil Sheridan to be part of an escort for Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanov.

  The visiting nineteen-year-old third son of Russian czar Alexander II, who spoke excellent English, had been receiving royal treatment from the government and the military in the form of lavish banquets, flowery speeches, and rifle salutes. Russia had been a trusted and valuable ally to the Union during the Civil War. The presence of a Russian squadron in the ports of San Francisco and New York had served as a warning to France and England not to interfere in the conflict. The young man enjoyed his excursion through the various cities—even handing out gold coins to the impoverished—but the highlight of his trip would be a buffalo hunt, the most famous sport in the United States at that time.

  In addition to Custer, Sheridan, Russian admirals, various other dignitaries, and a flock of reporters, the Nebraska hunting entourage would include William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and about one hundred Lakota Sioux Indians led by Chief Spotted Tail. The chief brought along his comely, flirtatious sixteen-year-old niece, the first cousin of Crazy Horse, who was nicknamed Miss Spotted Tail by the infatuated soldiers.

  Another invited guest, a questionable choice to say the least, was Lakota Sioux war chief Pawnee Killer, Custer’s nemesis from the 1867 Hancock Expedition who had murdered Lieutenant Kidder’s detachment and later was an enemy participant in the Beecher Island and Summit Springs battles. But Pawnee Killer was a guest of the government and therefore received a sort of temporary amnesty—certainly to the ire of Custer and other army officers who wanted to see the warrior pay for his treachery.

  The hunting party established a base camp on Red Willow Creek—dubbed Camp Alexis—which had been furnished with plush accouterments featuring forty of the army’s best wall tents, two elegantly carpeted hospital tents, Chinese lanterns hanging from trees, and meals served with caviar, champagne, and other delicacies. The guests were entertained with singing and dancing and by exhibitions of tribal war dances, horse races, and prowess with bow and arrow.

  On January 14, Custer, who had been appointed to lead the hunt, and Cody, accompanied by Spotted Tail and eight warriors, led the Grand Duke through snow that rose to eighteen inches deep in search of their prey. Cody located a small herd, and Custer and Alexis charged. The Grand Duke twice emptied his six-shot revolver without success. Finally, Alexis brought down his first buffalo with a well-placed pistol shot to the head. A courier was immediately dispatched to North Platte—fifty miles away—to cable the czar in Russia with the triumphant news.

  When camp broke up two days later, the Grand Duke, who had taken quite a fancy to Custer, received permission from Sheridan allowing his newfound friend to accompany him on the remainder of his tour. Custer and Alexis boarded the Union Pacific to visit Denver and engaged in another buffalo hunt before heading east.

  Libbie joined them at Louisville and marveled at the royal treatment at each stop. The Custers enjoyed grand balls, elegant restaurants, receptions, shopping, and even coffee and rolls served in bed in a suite adjacent to that of the Grand Duke. The entourage traveled by steamboat down the Ohio to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans, where Alexis boarded a Russian warship for a trip to Havana before heading home.

  In a decidedly less lavish style, Armstrong and Libbie traveled to Monroe, Michigan, to attend the wedding of Custer’s sister Margaret Emma, “Maggie,” to First Lieutenant James Calhoun.

  James (Jimmy or Jimmi) Calhoun was born on August 24, 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Mt. Pleasant Academy in Ossining, New York, in June 1860 and spent the initial years of the Civil War traveling through Europe. Calhoun enlisted as a private in the Fourteenth Infantry in January 1864 and was promoted to first sergeant in February 1865. He applied for a commission in May 1865 but was found unqualified by an examining board. Calhoun remained a first sergeant until July 1867, when he was appointed second lieutenant, Thirty-second Infantry, at Camp Warner, Oregon. He served with his unit in Arizona and at Camp Grant for two years before being transferred to the Twenty-first Infantry in July 1869.

  When the army was reorganized in 1870, Calhoun was unassigned and awaiting orders. At this time he was apparently present at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he met the visiting Maggie, with whom he became romantically involved. Custer must have taken to Calhoun as well—Calhoun, along with First Lieutenant W. W. Cooke, witnessed Custer’s April 1870 last will and testament.

  In January 1871, with assistance from Custer, Calhoun was appointed first lieutenant and assigned to the Seventh Cavalry. He reported for Reconstruction duty at Bagdad, Kentucky, as commander of Company L. Calhoun expressed his appreciation of Custer’s help in a letter dated April 23, 1871: “I have just received my commission as 1st Lt. in the 7th Cavalry, and it reminds me more vividly than ever how many, many times I am under obligations to you for your very great kindness to me in my troubles. I shall do my best to prove my gratitude. If the time comes you will not find me wanting.”

  This man who was relentlessly teased because of his seriousness and nicknamed Adonis due to his good looks, blond hair, and six-one height married Maggie Custer on March 7, 1872, in the Methodist church in Monroe. The couple would not have children.

  Finally, merciful
ly, in February 1873, Custer’s dreaded duty in Kentucky came to an end. The War Department had agreed to continue providing protection to engineering parties of the Northern Pacific Railroad that were exploring and mapping the Yellowstone region in Montana and Wyoming. The Seventh Cavalry would be reunited, and George Armstrong Custer would be a part of that summer’s expedition.

  In 1870, the Northern Pacific Railroad had commenced laying tracks and was moving steadily westward from its eastern terminus in Duluth, Minnesota. In order to continue plotting the route of the line west of the Missouri River into Montana, however, the survey crews would be venturing into the home of hostile Indians. Fortunately for the railroad, the army regarded the completion of rails across this relatively unexplored region as having great national strategic importance and was enthusiastic about offering protection for the engineering work.

  The first Yellowstone Expedition, designed to determine the Northern Pacific’s route between Bismarck and Bozeman, Montana, was undertaken in 1871 and lasted only one month. In 1872, Colonel David S. Stanley provided escort for a survey by the Northern Pacific, which was soon terminated due to frequent skirmishes with superior forces of hostile Sioux led by Hunkpapa chief Gall. To remedy that threat, horsemen—George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry regiment—would support Stanley’s infantry on the 1873 expedition.

  The forty-five-year-old Ohioan David Stanley had graduated from West Point in 1852, ninth in a class that would include fifteen future generals. Stanley’s classmate Phil Sheridan had been set back a year due to a suspension. Stanley had served on duty fighting Cheyenne on the Solomon River; married Anna Maria Wright in 1857—the couple would have seven children—and during the Civil War was wounded by a bullet in the neck while leading the decisive assault at the November 1864 Battle of Franklin, for which he would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery. Now Colonel Stanley had been chosen to command this expedition with the mission of protecting surveyors and scientists with the Northern Pacific Railroad.

  The Seventh Cavalry regiment had been spread out around the South on Reconstruction duty and assembled as a unit in Memphis, Tennessee, during the last week of March 1873. From Sioux City, Iowa, Custer led ten companies up the Missouri toward Dakota Territory to prepare for the expedition.

  Meanwhile, Major Marcus Reno with Captain Thomas B. Weir’s Company D and Captain Myles W. Keogh’s Company I would continue by rail to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where they would participate in the Northern Boundary Survey, a joint British-American operation organized to map the border between the United States and Canada. An accurate survey of the boundary line was required in order to determine responsibility for raids by Indians and crimes by outlaws, as well as a manner in which to inform settlers whether they were settling in the United States or Canada.

  Colonel David Stanley’s expedition marched from Fort Rice on June 20. The column was comprised of nineteen infantry companies, two cannon, ten companies of the Seventh Cavalry—over fifteen hundred soldiers—and about 350 civilians, which included the engineering and scientific party and the teamsters, a detachment of white and Indian scouts, a herd of nearly 450 cattle, and a train of 275 wagons. Two steamboats—the Far West and the Josephine—had been chartered to haul supplies on the Yellowstone River.

  Custer had endured three years of inactivity and was thrilled to be out in the field once again. He joyously roamed ahead of the column acting as scout and led daily hunting parties, which kept the messes stocked with fresh meat. Custer also collected fossils and embraced taxidermy, working late into the night preparing game for mounting.

  In spite of traveling through hail, rain, and windstorms, the initial portion of the trek heading west across Dakota toward Montana could be described as an extended party, with the regimental band furnishing musical accompaniment. Custer occupied his time with outdoor-related activities and writing letters to Libbie—including one that was forty-two pages long—that described the remarkable terrain and detailed his hunting exploits. A number of other men, however, let their vices get the best of them.

  For instance, Captain George W. Yates, Custer’s good friend, fretting over the poor health of his wife, who had endured a difficult pregnancy, went on a binge and remained intoxicated for days while losing hundreds of dollars playing cards.

  The father of thirty-two-year-old George Yates was a Princeton graduate, and other ancestors included a mayor of Albany, New York, and a governor of New York State. Yates’ father died in 1855, and at that time his mother relocated to Lansing, Michigan, with three of her four sons—George was left behind to live with an uncle in Ontario County, New York. In 1860, at age seventeen—with five hundred dollars from his uncle—George traveled to Texas and became involved in horse trading.

  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Yates enlisted in Company A, Fourth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and participated in the First Battle of Bull Run. He was wounded at Fredericksburg when a shell exploded beneath his horse. While recuperating in Michigan, Yates struck up a friendship with George Armstrong Custer. In May 1863, Custer convinced his superior, General Alfred Pleasonton, to add Yates to the general’s staff.

  In March 1864, when Pleasonton was removed from his cavalry command, Yates accompanied the general to the Department of the Missouri in St. Louis. In June 1864 he was mustered out of the Fourth Michigan, and two months later he obtained a commission as first lieutenant, Forty-fifth Missouri Infantry, while remaining on Pleasonton’s staff. On January 5, 1865, Yates married nineteen-year-old Lucretia “Lily” Beaumont Irwin, who was from a prominent St. Louis family. In November 1866, Yates filed for divorce on the grounds that Lily had abandoned him. Rumors circulated, however, that it was Yates’ interest in other women that doomed the marriage.

  In May 1866, Yates was appointed second lieutenant, Second Cavalry, and reported to Fort McPherson, Nebraska. One year later—with assistance from his friend Custer—Yates was appointed captain, Seventh Cavalry, and joined the regiment in November 1867 at Fort Leavenworth as commander of Company F, which became known as the “Band Box” troop for its smart appearance. Yates led this company at the November 1868 Battle of the Washita.

  In February 1872 he married Annie Gibson Roberts, a refined and well-educated young lady whose grandfather had served as chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and whose father was chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The couple would have three children.

  Yates was not the only loser at cards. First Lieutenant Jimmy Calhoun, Custer’s brother-in-law, lost all of his money playing poker and could not find anyone who would trust him with a loan. Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Grant, the president’s son, who was attached as an observer for General Phil Sheridan, also drank to excess—although Custer found Grant to be a fine companion most of the time. Tom Custer had a streak of losing card hands and had been borrowing money in order to continue playing.

  One member of the expedition whose company Custer particularly enjoyed was West Point best friend and former Confederate general Thomas L. Rosser, who was in charge of the surveying crews as chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s Dakota Division.

  Rosser had been born into a farming family on October 15, 1836, in Campbell County, Virginia, and moved thirteen years later to Panola County, Texas, from whence Rosser entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1856. Custer roomed next door and the two young men became intimate friends—Rosser tall and swarthy with jet-black hair and piercing black eyes; Custer slender with wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion. This close relationship sadly ended in late April 1861—two weeks before graduation—when Rosser resigned from the Academy to join the Confederate army.

  Rosser was commissioned a lieutenant and assigned duty as an instructional officer with the Washington Artillery. He was in command of a company of that unit three months later at the First Battle of Bull Run and was promoted to captain two months later. Rosser distinguished himself while commanding the battery during the Peninsula Campa
ign and the Seven Days’ battles and was wounded in May 1862 at Mechanicsville—the first of nine wounds he would suffer during the war.

  He was promoted to lieutenant colonel of artillery while he recovered from his wound and when he returned to duty was promoted by Major General Jeb Stuart to colonel of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry. On September 28, 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general and assumed command of the Laurel Brigade. His brigade was in constant action, including the May 11, 1864, battle at Yellow Tavern, where General Stuart was killed. Rosser faced his friend Custer as an opposing general on the field of battle on several occasions, with Custer generally—with one exception at Trevilian Station—gaining the upper hand.

  Throughout the war, Rosser proved himself an excellent field commander, but eventually his depleted ranks presented little challenge to the Union horsemen. In spite of the lack of success, he was promoted to major general on November 1, 1864, and remained in the Valley until March 1865, when he joined the main army.

  After the war, Rosser and his wife moved to Baltimore, where he briefly studied law and became superintendent of the National Express Company. He soon accepted the position as an assistant engineer in the construction of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad. Rosser left that position in the spring of 1870 to join the Northern Pacific Railroad. In February 1871, he was appointed chief engineer of the Dakota Division at Fargo.

  Custer later wrote about their relationship on the Yellowstone Expedition:

  Scarcely a day passed, during the progress of the expedition from the Missouri to the Yellowstone, that General Rosser and I were not in each other’s company a portion of the time as we rode in our saddles, boot to boot, climbed together unvisited cliffs, picked our way through trackless canyons, or sat at the same mess table or about the same campfire. During the strolling visits we frequently questioned and enlightened each other as to the unexplained or but partially understood battles and movements in which each had played a part against the other.