Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America

by Stiles, T. J.

  The House investigations created a false sense that Grant’s administration suffered “exceptional rascality,” as the historian Mark Wahlgren Summers writes. He studied malfeasance before and after the Civil War, and concludes that the issue of corruption, not corruption itself, was the real novelty. The problem went back to Andrew Jackson’s emphasis on a political spoils system. Each president swept out postmasters, tax collectors, steamboat inspectors, and every other federal employee, and installed loyalists. The richest prize, customs collector for New York, controlled a thousand lesser jobs and derived an enormous income. All these officials, high and low, supported the president politically, building patronage networks and funneling money into elections. Private enterprise’s not-so-invisible hands passed money to Congress as well, long before Grant’s inauguration. Lobbyists flourished in the 1850s, accused (convincingly) of bribing congressmen to influence awards of steamship subsidies. Crédit Mobilier’s corruption of Capitol Hill started under Andrew Johnson.

  Instead of numbing the public to graft, this history made it more sensitive. The 44th Congress launched its attack amid near paranoia. Railroad corporations were thought to be bribing state governments; at times they did, most notoriously in the Erie War of 1868, in which New York legislators lined up outside Jay Gould’s hotel room in order to be bought. When not accepting gifts, officials proposed damaging bills and demanded ransoms to table them. Then there was New York’s Boss Tweed and his ring, destroyed by the joint efforts of the New York Times and the most respectable citizens of New York. The press kettle-drummed these stories, editorializing on the disastrous state of public morals. Summers writes, “Exaggeration, misapprehension, and well-grounded allegations mingled together, and created a sense of crisis.”67

  Note, though, that he includes “well-grounded allegations” in his list. Corruption did exist within Grant’s administration. And it differed from past graft in key ways. First was the increased size of the take, skimmed from a bigger economy. Next was the proximity to the president. The scandals would implicate department heads as well as Grant’s closest friend, a man who dipped his beak in many mud puddles. Then there were the investigators. The House Democrats’ attacks followed where a member of Grant’s own cabinet led.

  That betrayal began, fittingly, with a scandal. In the spring of 1874, the revelation of fraud in the Internal Revenue Bureau forced Treasury Secretary William Richardson to resign. At the urging of the most respectable men around him, particularly Fish, Grant replaced Richardson with the former solicitor general Benjamin Bristow. This portly Kentuckian could not have had a cleaner reputation. Like Fish, he believed in the gold standard—or “honest money,” as gold ideologues called it. He also had dreams of higher office. No one is more untrustworthy than an honest man with ambition.68

  Bristow learned that whiskey tax revenues fell far below legitimate expectations. His undercover agents discovered the Whiskey Ring, a huge conspiracy of distillers and Internal Revenue agents who under-collected taxes in return for kickbacks. Part of the money maintained Grant’s political support. Much of it flowed into the hands of Orville Babcock. In his post as the president’s private secretary, this handsome West Pointer showed that he possessed great ability, almost no scruples, and Grant’s unshakable friendship. With Rawlins dead and the administration beset by enemies, Grant leaned heavily on Babcock.

  Bristow launched a wave of raids on May 13, 1875, arresting 350 distillers and government officials. When Grant learned that the evidence implicated Babcock, he burst into tears—but refused to admit its truth. He came to believe that Bristow’s real target was Grant himself, which made him more protective of Babcock. He saw the investigation as a betrayal by an ambitious cabinet secretary.69

  Bristow had not yet finished with Babcock before he targeted a fellow cabinet secretary and a member of Grant’s family. He found evidence that Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano’s department was a tangled nest of corruption. There were payoffs for Indian agency traderships (the stuff of Custer’s leaks to the New York Herald) and surveying contracts issued to Delano’s own non-surveyor son. The president’s younger brother, Orvil Grant, received a contract as well, though he did no work. “Grant was not close to his younger brother…and had more than once remonstrated with him for capitalizing on their relationship,” writes William McFeely. But he hated it when someone undermined him or his family. Even more aggravating, Bristow won. Grant replaced Delano in October 1875 with a loyal Republican, Senator Zachariah Chandler.70

  Despite all this intrigue and scandal, serious decision making could not wait. On November 3, Secretary Chandler came to the White House to meet with Grant, Belknap, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward Smith, Sheridan, and Gen. George Crook, commander of the Department of the Platte. The group discussed the Black Hills. Miners eluded military patrols, but no one particularly wanted to keep them out. It was a distasteful duty for Sheridan, and it forestalled the economic development of the region. But the Sioux had refused to sell.

  They did not discuss the significance of the Black Hills to the Lakotas. The region constituted a vitally important resource bank—a “food pack,” in Sitting Bull’s words. The hills’ wooded valleys, rich with game, functioned much as the river bottoms did on the open plains, providing year-round forage, food, and shelter from winter storms. Even worse, by demanding the Black Hills Washington insisted on a reversal of Lakota history. From a Lakota viewpoint, the Fort Laramie Treaty had recognized Sioux conquests; giving up the hills would do the opposite. It would cost them land they had captured decades before and seriously undermine their hunting and trading culture. They refused not because they were victims, but out of a sense of their hard-earned power. A conquering people could not be expected to surrender without a fight.

  Grant and his advisers agreed to stop enforcing the order to keep trespassers out of the Black Hills, though the order remained on the books. They believed that the sale of the land had been vetoed by the influence of Sitting Bull and his non-reservation allies and followers; therefore they would have to break his power. Sheridan’s goal of exterminating the bison remained too distant. They decided to order the hunting bands to report to the agencies; if they failed to do so Sheridan would launch a winter campaign to defeat them. As Robert Utley notes, they technically justified a war by citing Lakota attacks on the Crows, Arikaras, and others. But the purpose was clear: to seize title to the Black Hills and destroy Lakota nomadism.71

  Within a week of the meeting, Inspector E. C. Watkins of the Office of Indian Affairs submitted a report on Sitting Bull’s and allied bands. It made the White House group’s plan seem relatively easy, but absolutely necessary. “They are still as wild and untamable, as uncivilized and savage, as when Lewis and Clark first passed through their country,” he wrote. Worst of all, they “scorn the idea of white civilization.” He cast them as insolent inferiors who must be put in their place. “They openly set at defiance all law and authority,” held the U.S. Army “in contempt,” were “lofty and independent in their attitude to Govt. officials as well as the whites generally and claim to be the Sovereign Rulers of the land.” But Watkins thought them weak and divided, “all told, but a few hundred warriors,” easily crushed by a thousand troops.

  Watkins’s report did not shape the White House plan, but it articulated the thinking behind it and eliminated any hesitations. Preparations began for a winter offensive. Interior Secretary Chandler instructed the Sioux agents to send word to Sitting Bull and others that they must report in by January 31, 1876.72

  Grant’s Peace Policy, a hallmark of his administration and one of his most deeply felt initiatives, finally dissolved. He did not protest, but agreed that it was for the best. So much of what mattered to him had slipped away, like his daughter, married to an English cad with a distinguished name; his friend Rawlins, taken by disease; his intention to give justice to African Americans, nearly terminated. He felt isolated, besieged. Democrats took control of the House. Cabinet m
embers fell away, crippled by scandals, struck down by Bristow. Then, on December 9, Babcock was indicted.

  For him, Grant fought. He assigned an agent to Chandler’s department with orders to prove him innocent. It turned out to be impossible. He ordered a halt to plea bargains with prosecution witnesses. The trial proceeded just the same. On February 12, 1876, Grant gave a deposition that exonerated Babcock, who was acquitted on the 28th.73

  Yet the siege did not lift, the isolation did not end. The Democrats battered the administration with their tsunami of investigations. In hearing after hearing, the House aired tales of corruption. Most dramatically, they attacked Secretary of War Belknap. As an isolated case Grant might not have taken it personally, but he had lost too many friends, suffered too many blows. He believed that it, too, was an attack on himself.

  Ralph Meeker opened the battle with a story in the New York Herald on February 9, 1876, followed by Bennett’s editorial, “Extravagance and Corruption in the War Department.” The main assault began at 2 p.m. on February 28, when Caleb Marsh testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Expenditures in the War Department. In 1870, he said, Belknap’s wife, Carrie, urged him to apply to be the sutler for Fort Sill, Indian Territory, suggesting that he could sublet the store to an actual merchant. Using a front, Marsh received the appointment and collected large profits. He sent half directly to Belknap. When Carrie died and her sister Amanda married the secretary, she told Marsh to carry on. Marsh said he paid a total of $20,000 to Belknap, often in person.74

  The chairman of the committee, Representative Hiester Clymer of Pennsylvania, had shared a room with Belknap at Princeton University. Clymer fairly represented the postwar Democratic Party, in that he stood for racism. (One poster from his 1866 campaign for governor against John W. Geary featured a grotesque Sambo-style caricature of a black man; it declared, “CLYMER’S platform is for the White Man. GEARY’s Platform is for the Negro.”) Now he had clear evidence against a Republican cabinet secretary—head of the very department used to enforce civil rights laws in the South. Clymer wanted to impeach his old roommate as soon as possible.75

  On March 1, Belknap appeared before the committee with Montgomery Blair as his counsel. He wept as Blair read his statement aloud. He offered to make a full confession if his wife, Amanda, were left out of the affair. Clymer refused. The next day the committee drew up articles of impeachment. Belknap went to the White House to offer his resignation. To the outrage of Bristow and Fish, Grant accepted it.

  When Clymer learned of the resignation he rushed to the House floor. He read aloud Marsh’s testimony, concluding, “The late Secretary of War is but the proper outgrowth, the true exponent of the corruption, the extravagance, the misgovernment which has cursed this land for years past.” The House debated the legality of impeaching Belknap, who no longer held public office, then voted to do so.76

  Clymer’s statement confirmed Grant’s belief that the attack on Belknap was intended to destroy his presidency. As if to prove it, Clymer continued his hearings on Belknap. On March 29, he reached into Grant’s beloved army to find another betrayer to denounce the administration. He presented George Armstrong Custer. 77

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  CUSTER REMAINED IN MOTION from the moment he and Libbie left New York in February, crossing and recrossing the country. In St. Paul, General Terry explained to him his plan for their offensive against the Lakotas. They would move out from Fort Abraham Lincoln on April 6. Terry would establish a base on the Yellowstone River and simply unleash Custer and the 7th Cavalry. Armstrong and Libbie barely made it to Fort Lincoln alive. A blizzard snowed in their train between Fargo and Bismarck. Someone on board the train tapped a telegraph line and sent word of their plight. Tom Custer—now a captain—drove a sleigh out to rescue them, bringing them to the fort on March 13.

  On March 15, Armstrong received a telegram ordering him to return east to testify before Congress. He went back alone, stopping in Monroe on the way. The morning after he arrived in Washington, he appeared before Clymer’s committee.78

  The summons to Washington forestalled his advance against Sitting Bull, but he had already voiced ambivalence about his return to the field. “I was fully expecting to remain [in New York] until May,” he had told a reporter. “I had doffed the military guise for the sober civilian suit, and had begun to feel as if I were actually settled down to solid comfort.” The order to go west had been a surprise. “It was too bad, wasn’t it?” The reporter wrote, “The General heaved a melancholy sigh.” He might face as many as 8,000 to 10,000 warriors, Custer had added, “enough to do a vast amount of damage.”79

  He found himself in Washington only because he wanted to go. By choosing to work with the Herald, he willingly, if furtively, entered into politics. More than that, he must have been in contact with Clymer at some point. As a committee chairman, Clymer functioned as a prosecutor—and prosecutors never call witnesses unless they know what they will say. Somehow Clymer knew to summon him. Robert Utley writes that he found Custer on a list of recommended witnesses submitted by Col. William Hazen. But Clymer swore in Custer immediately after the latter reached Washington. If they did not communicate beforehand through one of the many available channels, then Clymer was guilty of gross negligence as a political inquisitor.80

  In Clymer’s committee room, Custer described the change of sutlers at Fort Abraham Lincoln, the rapid rise in prices, his confrontations with Robert Seip, his meeting with Belknap, and Seip’s admission that he paid off insiders, including “an intimate friend of the Secretary of War here in Washington.” Many observers remarked upon the hearsay quality of his testimony. “It was a matter of common report and common information among the officers and men that the trader had to pay a tax to outside people,” he declared, in a typical statement. The president’s brother Orvil had been implicated in questionable dealings with the Department of the Interior; Custer confirmed them, describing an encounter with him on his way back to Fort Abraham Lincoln. Custer even implied that the boundary of the Sioux reservation had been altered by the president to benefit the rings run by Delano and Belknap.81

  Custer’s relationship with the Herald did not stay secret. Robert Seip testified that he had cashed the newspaper’s drafts (i.e., checks) for Custer. On March 31 the Herald published an article with the headline, “Belknap’s Anaconda,” depicting a vast conspiracy of graft; many accused Custer of writing it. Clymer called Ralph Meeker to testify, at Custer’s request. The reporter claimed authorship of the Herald pieces and said that the drafts were to repay Custer for loans. This testimony was at least partially false. Some drafts must have been for Custer, given all the talk of payment in his communications with Bennett and Meeker. The Herald’s managing editor had promised to keep his identity as a writer secret. Even now he worked on a piece for the newspaper. He assured Libbie, “Its authorship cannot be traced.”82

  Political partisanship overcame him. Excited to be so close to power, thrilled to participate in “the glorious results of the last election,” he literally took a seat at the Democrats’ table. He wrote to Libbie at Clymer’s committee room desk and in his chair on the floor of the House, on official House of Representatives stationery. He ate with Clymer in the House restaurant, strolled across Capitol Hill with him, and called the proudly racist congressman “an exceedingly cultivated gentleman.” Democratic senator Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware held a dinner in Custer’s honor, attended by Clymer and a clutch of Confederate generals. Custer also dined with Representative Henry B. Banning, who consulted him on the army appropriations bill and called him to testify before the Committee on Military Affairs.

  Custer used his time before that committee to attack a senior officer in his own regiment, Maj. Lewis Merrill. Popular memory recalls Frederick Benteen as his greatest foe in the 7th Cavalry; Custer himself saw Merrill as a more insidious threat, having feuded with him since 1871. Richard Slotkin notes Custer’s political motives, since Merrill actively pursued the Ku Klux Klan in So
uth Carolina. Custer said Merrill had taken a bribe from the state legislature there. He had no direct evidence, but fed the story to the Herald, “calling attention to his disgraceful proceedings.” Custer happily implicated South Carolina’s Republican government, whose black legislators and officials were scorned by Democrats as incompetent and corrupt.83

  President Grant could not have been surprised by Custer’s participation in the congressional offensive. It was typical of his self-dramatizing self-righteousness, partisanship, and recklessness in insulting the chain of command. For the first time, though, Custer attacked Grant himself—or so it seemed from Grant’s perspective. The president had long disdained Custer; now he saw him as an enemy.

  An undemonstrative man, the president showed no emotion at Custer’s public betrayal of his administration and his family. But he was not inclined to reward an enemy, particularly not the enemy within. He knew that war sustained Custer—and the war against the Lakotas and their allies had already begun. On March 17, Gen. George Crook had dispatched Col. Joseph Reynolds to attack a Northern Cheyenne and Oglala camp on the Powder River, but Reynolds had retreated in the face of a counterattack. Sheridan planned for Custer to lead the next thrust, under Terry’s command. Custer had built his fame on battles, sustained his credibility upon Western adventures. And it was within Grant’s power to take them away.84

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  IN THE HALLS OF CONGRESS, Custer felt powerful. He was politically ascendant. Others saw him that way too. “The men who in Army circles had influence a few days ago now hide away,” he wrote. “You would be surprised if you knew the high rank of some of the Army people” who asked him to intercede for them. Then he wrote, in two curiously juxtaposed sentences, “I care not to use or abuse whatever influence I have. The House Committee is heavily opposed to Sheridan.” The client cut the patron loose.