The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer

by Thom Hatch

  Consequently, the Lakota Sioux would be required to abandon traditional warring rituals and ceremonies and promise to live in peace to even consider assimilation. Those military officers who had experienced the fighting abilities of the fierce Sioux warriors could not imagine these men laying down their weapons and living in peace alongside enemy tribes, much less white people.

  One factor in favor of the Sioux, however, was that the public believed that enough Blue and Gray blood had been shed on the continent and for that reason they favored trying a peaceful approach to the Indian problem. By the time Ulysses S. Grant won the election of 1868, major treaties had been negotiated and reservations for the various tribes set aside. Grant made an admirable effort to treat the Indian with fairness. In his 1869 inauguration speech, he had stated: “The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land—the Indians—is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course towards them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.”

  Shortly thereafter, he announced his federal Indian policy, which endorsed his goal of acculturating the Indians and eventually inviting them to become United States citizens. His plan of action became known as the “peace policy,” due to its intended mission, which was “the hitherto untried policy in connection with Indians, of endeavoring to conquer by kindness.”

  Grant affirmed his intentions by appointing Ely Parker, a full-blooded Seneca Indian who had become his friend in Illinois, commissioner of Indian affairs, the first Indian to hold that post. Incidentally, Parker had been Grant’s aide at Appomattox when he and Robert E. Lee signed the surrender papers.

  The president had initially assigned mainly army officers for duty as Indian agents, but in 1870 Congress banned military personnel from serving in civil service positions. At that time Grant refused to make patronage appointments and instead chose Indian agents from Christian denominations, which then set to work implementing the process of peacefully relocating tribes to reservations where they could be protected by the army.

  Grant believed that his “Quaker policy,” as it was called, would pacify the Indians and encourage them to accept his policies. The churchmen had final authority on the reservation, but Grant warned that “a sharp and severe war policy” would face those tribes that would not submit to the reservation.

  The president personally assisted in the effort by entertaining many tribal leaders in the White House over the years—including Lakota Sioux chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail. Many of the chiefs toured various cities, and the United States Indian Commission organized Indian lectures in New York and Boston.

  Grant also helped to raise funds—both public and private—for the assimilation of Indians into white society. “Friends of the Indian” reform groups also were established and raised a considerable amount of money for education and other expenses necessary to bridge the cultural gap.

  Politics, however, played a major role in Grant’s Indian policy. The Interior Department and the army, which claimed that they could police Indian agencies better than government bureaucrats, waged a behind-the-scenes battle over the direction of Indian affairs. Even Grant’s old military colleagues were surprised and angered over the president’s decision to favor civilian control over that of the military.

  Unfortunately for all concerned, Grant’s compassionate approach toward the Indian failed to bring an end to Indian hostilities on the Plains. By late 1875, the economy was still adversely affected by the Panic of 1873. The public was clamoring for the government to acquire the Black Hills and its gold deposits. The Sioux and Cheyenne were abandoning the reservations to roam free and once again sought to display their dominance over the Plains with acts of violence that endangered the traveling public and denied the possibility of settling Western territories.

  The frustration over the Black Hills and Indian raids in the unceded territory finally came to a head. Grant lost patience with the peace policy and was persuaded by Generals William T. Sherman and Philip Sheridan to permit the military to find a solution.

  President Grant issued an order on December 6, 1875, stating that all Indians must report to the reservation by January 31, 1876. Otherwise, the Interior Department would assign disposition of the hostiles to the War Department.

  This ultimatum was carried by runners to those Sioux and Cheyenne who were known to be camped along the Yellowstone River and vicinity. In all fairness, it should be noted that it would have been extremely difficult for the Indians to move at that time of year even if they had wanted to comply with the order—ponies were weak from lack of forage and winter travel could be hazardous to families.

  It was evident, however, that Sitting Bull and his kinsmen never intended to obey the order. They regarded themselves as free to roam as they pleased and vowed to protect their culture and traditions—even if it meant an armed confrontation with the mighty United States of America.

  On February 1, 1876, as stated in the order, those Indians were deemed hostile, and General Phil Sheridan set in motion plans for an immediate campaign designed to catch the Indians.

  But there was missing one man who was the most experienced and trusted Indian fighter in the country. He had been the victim of the president’s retaliation for his testimony at the Belknap hearings and cooled his bootheels in Washington when he should have been in Dakota Territory. There had been one attempt at returning to his duty station, but he had been met on the way in Chicago and ordered to return to Washington to get his clearance papers in order and pay customary visits to General Sherman and the president.

  Finally, on May 6, a desperate Custer sent the following telegram to President Grant:

  I have seen your order transmitted through the General of the Army directing that I not be permitted to accompany the expedition to move against hostile Indians. As my entire regiment forms a part of the expedition and I am the senior officer of the regiment on duty in this department I respectfully but most earnestly request that while not allowed to go in command of the expedition I may be permitted to serve with my regiment in the field. I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share its dangers.

  Generals Sherman, Sheridan, and especially Terry, who realized the need for Custer’s experience, interceded on Custer’s behalf.

  On May 8, the president grudgingly relented and gave permission for Custer to join the march for the Little Bighorn Campaign. But the Dakota column would be commanded by General Alfred Terry—another slight to Custer’s prestige. Terry’s best days were behind him, and he was by no means a capable field officer any longer or, perhaps more important, a man of action in the same vein as Custer.

  Regardless, that same day, Custer, thrilled by the decision, rushed to Fort Abraham Lincoln to lead the Seventh Cavalry on what would be his final campaign.

  Eight

  First Blood

  The strategy for the Little Bighorn Campaign was designed primarily by Generals Alfred H. Terry and George Crook. Crook had experience in the Black Hills and had subdued the Apache in Arizona. Terry was an administrator who had sat on various commissions and had experience and knowledge of dealing with the Lakota. He was for all intents and purposes retired from active participation in battle but brought to the table the lessons he had learned from past events.

  The forty-eight-year-old Connecticut native Alfred Howe Terry had briefly attended Yale Law School but withdrew after a year. He had, however, become fluent in French and German and decided to travel in Europe on an inheritance. In 1858, he became clerk of the New Haven County Superior Court, a position he held until the outbreak of the Civil War.

  At that time, Terry became colonel of the Second Connecticut, a ninety-day militia regiment, which he commanded at the First Battle of Bull Run. He then recruited the Seventh Connecticut and led this regiment to share the capture of the important naval base at Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861. In April of the following year, Terry’s regiment helped take
Fort Pulaski, Georgia, which led to his promotion that month to brigadier general. In the fall of 1863, he assumed command of X Corps in the Army of the James, which operated against Petersburg and Richmond.

  Terry participated in Major General Benjamin F. Butler’s ill-fated attempt to capture Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864. When Butler was recalled, Terry replaced him and personally led the storming and capture of Fort Fisher in January 1865, which sealed off Wilmington, the last Confederate port on the East Coast.

  For this accomplishment, he received the rarely awarded “Thanks of Congress,” a coveted citation published in the Congressional Record, and was promoted to major general of volunteers and brigadier in the regular army, as of January 15, 1865. He ended the war in the Carolinas as part of the Army of the Ohio under Major General William T. Sherman.

  After the war, Terry remained in the army as a brigadier general and was given command of the Department of Dakota, which included Minnesota and parts of the Dakota and Montana Territories. He served on the commission that condemned the Sand Creek Massacre and was a member of the presidential Peace Commission, which negotiated the Medicine Lodge Treaties in 1867. He was transferred to the Department of the South to contend with Reconstruction in 1869 and returned to Dakota as department commander in 1872.

  The general was somewhat of a walking contradiction. He was a strong advocate of Indian rights and a proponent of arming Indians with weapons for hunting purposes, which was a controversial position within the army. He opposed any intrusion by whites into the Black Hills region but nonetheless served as supervisor for Custer’s Black Hills Expedition of 1874 and the subsequent Jenny Expedition of 1875. In an apparent conflict with Terry’s personal beliefs, he was a member of the Allison Commission, which met with the Sioux at Red Cloud Agency in June 1875 and was unsuccessful in negotiating the sale of the Black Hills.

  The Terry-Crook strategy called for three columns to converge on the Indians—whose exact location was unknown—and crush them within this three-pronged movement. General George Crook would command one column, which would march north from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. The Montana Column would be led by Colonel John Gibbon and would march east down the Yellowstone River from Fort Ellis.

  Gibbon was born on April 20, 1827, near Holmesburg, Pennsylvania, and during his childhood the family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. He graduated—with future generals Ambrose E. Burnside and Ambrose P. Hill—from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1847, ranking twentieth in his class. Gibbon was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Fourth U.S. Artillery and assigned to duty in Mexico after hostilities had ceased. He took part in operations against the Seminole Indians in Florida two years later and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1850.

  From May 1853 to August 1854 he assisted in the removal of the Seminole from Florida to Indian Territory. His next assignment was as an artillery instructor at West Point, where he spent five years. While at West Point, Gibbon wrote the basic Artillerist’s Manual, which was published by the War Department. Gibbon then served briefly in Utah and as captain of the Fourth U.S. Artillery at Fort Leavenworth until the outbreak of the Civil War.

  Although three of his brothers chose to serve in the Confederate army, Gibbon remained with the North. He had been severely wounded at Gettysburg and thereafter walked with a decided limp. Gibbon was promoted to major general in June 1864 and assumed command of the XXIV Corps in January 1865.

  After the war, Gibbon became colonel of the Thirty-sixth Infantry in July 1866 and colonel of the Seventh Infantry at Fort Ellis, Montana, in March 1869. Known to the Plains Indians as No Hip Bone or One Who Limps, he then commanded the District of Montana from Fort Shaw.

  John Gibbon assumed command of the Montana Column on March 21, 1876, and marched from Fort Ellis on April 3, east down the Yellowstone River, with six companies of his own regiment and the Second Cavalry under Major James Brisbin.

  The third column, commanded by Brigadier General Alfred Terry, included Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry and would march west from Fort Abraham Lincoln.

  The first column to take to the field was one with eight hundred men commanded by George Crook, which set off in early March from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory. They immediately encountered a savage adversary in the Wyoming winter but pushed north toward known hostile country.

  On March 16, his scouts located a Sioux-Cheyenne village on the Powder River that consisted of about a hundred lodges, with perhaps as many as 250 warriors. Colonel Joseph Reynolds with six companies of the Third Cavalry—about three hundred men—was issued orders to attack the unsuspecting village the following morning.

  At dawn, Reynolds’ men charged into the unsuspecting village. They were met without much opposition and quickly routed the surprised warriors—losing four soldiers killed and six wounded in the process. The cavalrymen took control of the village and commenced destroying everything of value, including a large quantity of beef that the poorly supplied army could have used for themselves. This loss of provisions and lodges, however, was far greater to the Sioux people than the reported one killed and one wounded during the brief fight.

  In early afternoon during a raging snowstorm, Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, who had been camped downstream, rallied the warriors and initiated a counterattack from the nearby bluffs.

  Reynolds, perhaps panicking, ordered an immediate withdrawal, abandoning several dead soldiers and at least one wounded man. The soldiers also left behind the Indian pony herd, which was easily recaptured by Crazy Horse.

  Crazy Horse (Tashunka Witco, Tashunca-Uitco, “His horse is crazy”) was born about 1842 on the eastern edge of the Black Hills near the site of present-day Rapid City, Sioux Dakota. His mother was a member of the Brulé band, reportedly the sister of Spotted Tail, and his father an Oglala medicine man. Crazy Horse’s mother died when he was quite young, and his father took her sister as a wife and raised the child in both Brulé and Oglala camps.

  Curly, as he was then called due to his light, curly hair and fair complexion, killed a buffalo when he was twelve and received a horse for his accomplishment. At about that time while residing in Conquering Bear’s camp, he witnessed the 1854 Gratten affair—where an army lieutenant named John L. Gratten and his twenty-nine men were slaughtered after a Sioux warrior had killed a stray Mormon ox and Gratten went to arrest him for the alleged crime. Curly also had viewed the destruction of the Indian village at Ash Hollow caused by General William Harney’s punitive expedition in response. Those experiences made an indelible impression on Curly and helped shape his militancy toward the white man.

  Not long after the Gratten massacre, Curly sought guidance and underwent a Vision Quest by meditating on a mountaintop. He experienced a vivid dream depicting a mounted warrior in a storm who became invulnerable by following certain rituals, such as wearing long, unbraided hair, painting his body with white hail spots, tying a small stone behind each ear, and decorating his cheek with a zigzag lightning bolt. Curly’s father interpreted the dream as a sign of his son’s future greatness in combat.

  The following year, Curly was said to have killed his first human. Curly was in the company of a small band of Sioux warriors who were attempting to steal Pawnee horses when they happened upon some Osage buffalo hunters. In the midst of a fight, he spotted an Osage in the bushes and killed this person, who, to his surprise, turned out to be a woman. It was not shameful in Sioux culture to kill a woman, but he was so upset that he refused to take her scalp and left it for someone else.

  Curly proved his worth as a warrior when he was sixteen years old during a battle with Arapaho. Decorated like the warrior in his dream, he was in the thick of the fighting, scoring coup after coup, taking many scalps, but, to his dismay, was struck by an arrow in the leg. Curly wondered why he had been wounded when the rituals he had imitated from the warrior on his Vision Quest promised protection. He finally realized that his dream warrior had taken no scalps and he had.
From that day forward, Curly would never again scalp an enemy.

  He received a great tribute after that battle. His father sang a song that he had composed for his son and announced that the boy would now be known by a new name—Crazy Horse. Incidentally, that name was nothing special, rather an old, common name among the Sioux tribes.

  Throughout the ensuing years, Crazy Horse had built a reputation among his people as a crafty, fearless warrior. He participated in many successful raids against traditional Indian enemies and the occasional small party of whites traveling through Sioux country but had not yet faced the might of the United States Army. In 1865, that would dramatically change when an endless stream of whites—gold seekers headed for Montana—flooded the Bozeman Trail and the army garrisoned several forts to protect them.

  In 1866–67 during what became known as Red Cloud’s War, Crazy Horse was instrumental in rallying his fellow warriors and displaying an almost mythical courage and tactical craftiness. Due to Red Cloud’s leadership and the efforts of Crazy Horse, Hump, Gall, and Rain-in-the-Face the army finally admitted defeat and negotiated a treaty to end hostilities.

  Crazy Horse, however, refused to “touch the pen” to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, disdained the reservation, and chose instead to freely roam traditional Sioux hunting grounds and wage war against the Crow and Shoshoni. It was said that during this time of wandering he married a Northern Cheyenne woman, which gained him friends and followers from that tribe. His interest in a certain Lakota Sioux woman, however, would nearly cost him his life.