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

by Stiles, T. J.

  74. L. G. Estis to GAC, August 14, 1863, Old Book 89: 15, contained within Vol. 71: 3rd Cavalry Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, Entry 1593: Letters Sent August 1863–June 1865, Part 2, RG 393, NA.

  75. New York Times, September 20, 1863; Personal Reminiscences of Samuel Harris (Chicago: Rogerson Press, 1897), 45–46; Judson Kilpatrick to C. Ross Smith, September 12, 1863, Old Book 89: 42, contained within Vol. 71: 3rd Cavalry Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, Entry 1593: Letters Sent August 1863–June 1865, Part 2, RG 393, NA.

  76. Nettie Humphrey [Greene] to GAC, August 24, 1863, Folder 8, Box 2, LAFCC.

  77. GAC to LAR, July 26, 1863, LBH.

  78. James Christiancy to DSB, August 27, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  79. GAC to E. B. Parsons, September 5, 1863, CRM; AKR to GAC, August 24, 1863 [concluded on Sept. 4.], Folder 11, Box 2, LAFCC.

  80. OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 1: 111–19; George R. Agassiz, ed., Meade’s Headquarters, 1863–1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1922), 13–17; Longacre, Custer and His Wolverines, 183–85; Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 223–24.

  81. GAC to E. B. Parsons, September 13, 1863, Surgeon’s Certificate, September 13, 1863, Personnel Files, CRM; New York Herald, September 15, 1863.

  82. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 75.

  83. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 72–73; New York Tribune, September 17, 1863.

  84. Nettie Humphrey [Greene] to GAC, August 24, 1863, Folder 8, Box 2, LAFCC; Monroe Monitor, September 30, 1863; Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 75.

  85. Monroe Commercial, October 1, 1863; Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 75.

  86. Wert, 113–14; Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 76.

  87. GAC to EBC, October 6, 1863, quoted in Whittaker, 210–11.

  88. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 76–77.

  89. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, October 7, 1863, quoted in Whittaker, 211.

  90. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, quoted in Whittaker, 213.

  91. Whittaker, 214–15; Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 76–77.

  92. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 76–77.

  93. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 76–79; DSB to GAC, October 22, 1863, Folder 1, Box 1, LAFCC.

  Six: The General

  1. GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  2. This is a generalized observation of evangelical culture in the Civil War North. I have found no discussions of theater in the letters of any of GAC’s relatives apart from EBC. See Laurence Senelick, “Introduction,” in Senelick, ed., The American Stage: Writing on Theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner (New York: Library of America, 2010), xvii–xxxi.

  3. GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  4. LAR to GAC, August 24, 1863, Folder 11, Box 2; EHC to GAC, October 25 1863, Folder 20, Box 1; Margaret Custer to GAC, October 27, 1863, Folder 2, Box 2, LAFCC.

  5. GAC to LAR, November 6, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  6. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, October 9, 1863, quoted in Whittaker, 212–13; GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  7. Edward G. Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen: A History of the Mounted Forces of the Army of the Potomac (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2000), 226–28; Edward G. Longacre, Custer and His Wolverines: The Michigan Cavalry Brigade, 1861–1865 (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Publishing, 1997), 186–89; Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian (New York: Vintage, 1986 [orig. pub. 1963]), 786–92; Gregory J. W. Urwin, Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [orig. pub. 1983]), 102–03; Wert, 116–17; Starr 2: 23–27; Whittaker, 201–02; OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 1: 229–30, 389–90, 393–95; GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  8. Utley, Cavalier in Buckskin, 20; Starr 2: 26–27.

  9. OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 1: 390.

  10. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, October 12, 1863, quoted in Whittaker, 213; Merington, 66.

  11. See, for example, Thom Hatch, Glorious War: The Civil War Adventures of George Armstrong Custer (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014).

  12. OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 2: 448. On the bureaucratization of the supply of horses and the disputes over their quality, see Starr 2: 12–19. Victor E. Comte was detailed to obtain remounts, and found fewer than fifty that were “any good” to replace 150 worn-out horses that he brought to the Dismounted Camp. “In the Dismounted Camp there are about 7,000 soldiers who are waiting for arms and horses.” See Victor E. Comte to Elise, October 28, 1863, Victor E. Comte Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  13. Foote 2: 790–802. Foote’s massive work offers an excellent narrative, though his sympathies for the Confederacy consistently cloud his conclusions. In the Bristoe Station Campaign, Lee suffered more casualties in absolute numbers than Meade, and dramatically more as a percentage of his forces; he was defeated in the battle at Bristoe Station; and his brief advance proved fruitless, leaving him to retreat to his original position, his forces reduced for the effort. Yet Foote 2: 796, deems this a “highly successful” campaign for Lee. The claim is mystifying.

  14. GAC to Isaac P. Christiancy, October 29, 1863, Insert in Henry Clay Christiancy Diary, Christiancy and Pickett Families’ Papers, LOC; letter fragment, October 29, 1863, GAC Papers, USMA. I believe these two letter fragments are from the same piece of correspondence. The continuity, tone, and reference to “Jim,” meaning James Christiancy, strongly point to Judge Christiancy as the recipient of the latter fragment.

  15. Whittaker, 196–97; Victor E. Comte to Elise, November 6, 1863, Victor E. Comte Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  16. GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH; Thomas Ward to GAC, November 2, 1863, Folder 21, Box 1, LAFCC.

  17. Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1863; Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 226–31; Starr 2: 29–30; Wert, 118–20.

  18. OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 1: 390–92, 462–64; James H. Kidd to Father and Mother, October 26, 1863, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; New York Evangelist, November 19, 1863; Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 226–31; Starr 2: 29–30; Longacre, Custer and His Wolverines, 189–91; Wert, 118–20.

  19. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, quoted in Whittaker, 214, and Merington, 68–69.

  20. James H. Kidd to Father and Mother, October 26, 1863, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  21. OR, Series 1, Vol. 29, Part 1: 462–64; Longacre, Custer and His Wolverines, 190–91; Wert, 120–21; letter fragment, October 29, 1863, GAC Papers, USMA.

  22. GAC to Nettie Humphrey, quoted in Whittaker, 214, and Merington, 68–69. Whittaker seems to have been much more careful in quoting letters than Merington, who freely edited letters without indicating changes or excisions in the text. In this case, both quoted the same letter, but Merington did so at much greater length.

  23. Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 226.

  24. Quoted in Merington, 69. References in this letter to heavy losses and refitting and remounting indicate that it was written at the very end of October 1863.

  25. EHC to GAC, October 25, 1863, Folder 20, Box 1, LAFCC. On biographers’ views of Emmanuel Custer, see, for example, Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995 [orig. pub. 1985]), 374–35; Wert, 18–19.

  26. GAC to LAR, October 25, 1863, November 6, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  27. As with so many general observations of GAC’s personality offered in this book, this one is not original. See, for example, Slotkin, The Fatal Environment, 371–432.

  28. Isaac P. Christiancy to GAC, November 8, 1863, Folder 3, Box 1, LAFCC.r />
  29. Merington, 73–74; Leckie, 34.

  30. DSB to GAC, December 12, 1863, Folder 1, Box 1, LAFCC.

  31. GAC to DSB, December 18, 1863, Folder 1, Box 4, MMP; GAC to LAR, December 22, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  32. Merington, 74–80; Leckie, 32–33, 35–37.

  33. Merington, 76–77; Leckie, 32–33, 35–37; Wert, 143–45.

  34. Merington, 75, 77.

  35. Merington, 77; Nettie Humphrey to EBC, December 31, 1863, Folder 8, Box 2, LAFCC.

  36. Nettie Humphrey to EBC, December 31, 1863, Folder 8, Box 2, LAFCC.

  37. Leckie, 34–35; New York Times, November 18, 1863. GAC wrote that he awoke one morning in December to find fifty men from the 7th Michigan Infantry outside his headquarters, hoping to join his command; GAC to LAR, December 7, 1863, GAC Correspondence, LBH. He wrote to Christiancy, apparently, on December 19 that he was to be married in February, noting that James would accompany him home to Monroe. See GAC to Friend, December 19, 1863, GAC Papers, USMA.

  38. GAC to Jacob M. Howard, January 4, 1864, reproduced in Hamilton Gay Howard, Civil War Echoes: Character Sketches and State Secrets (Washington, D.C.: Howard Publishing, 1907), 304–05; GAC to Senator Zachariah Chandler, January 4, 1864, Roll 1, Zachariah Chandler Papers, LOC; James H. Kidd to Parents, April 16, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. See also Gregory J. W. Urwin, “Custer: The Civil War Years,” in Paul Andrew Hutton, ed., The Custer Reader (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004 [orig. pub. 1992]), 7–32.

  39. GAC to Friend, January 7, 1864, GAC to Dear Friend, January 7, 1864, GAC Papers, USMA. Both of these appear to be to Isaac Christiancy, the second written after the receipt of new information from Washington.

  40. GAC to DSB, January 19, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP; GAC to Friend, January 20, 1864, GAC Papers, USMA.

  41. Reynolds, 45; James H. Kidd to Parents, January 18, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Foner, 60–61; GAC to Friend, January 20, 1864, GAC Papers, USMA. For a discussion of this letter and GAC’s contrary political convictions, see Slotkin, The Fatal Environment, 383–84.

  42. GAC to Jacob Howard, January 19, 1864, reproduced in Howard, 306–13.

  43. As evidence of the ferocity of his desire to win, see GAC to Emmanuel Custer, October 16, 1864, typescript copy, GAC Papers, USMA.

  44. Reynolds, 74.

  45. GAC to Jacob Howard, January 19, 1864, reproduced in Howard, 306–13.

  46. Leckie, 36–37.

  47. GAC to DSB, January 19, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP.

  48. GAC to Friend, January 20, 1864, GAC Papers, USMA. The Senate did not vote on his confirmation until April 1, when it confirmed a large batch of some two dozen brigadier general appointments, including those of Adelbert Ames and Judson Kilpatrick; New York Times, April 2, 1864.

  49. DSB to Sister, April 13, 1864, Folder 1, Box 1, LAFCC.

  50. DSB to Sister, April 13, 1864, DSB to EBC and GAC, n.d., Folder 1, Box 1, LAFCC; Monroe Commercial, February 11, 1864; Monroe Monitor, February 10, 1864; Merington, 82; Leckie, 37.

  51. Merington, 82–83; Frost, 91–93; GAC to Friend, December 19, 1863, GAC Papers, USMA.

  52. GAC to EBC, March 30, 1865, Folder 3, Box 4, MMP.

  53. Merington, 83; McPherson, 88–91. Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 94, writes that the Custers stopped in Buffalo specifically to allow Libbie to see a play for the first time.

  54. Merington, 84–85; Leckie, 38; Leckie, “The Civil War Partnership of Elizabeth and George A. Custer,” in Carol K. Bleser and Lesley J. Gordon, eds., Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 178–98.

  55. Reynolds, 73–74.

  56. Reynolds, 73.

  57. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH; Merington, 82.

  58. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  59. GAC to S. Williams, February 13, 1864, Alfred Pleasonton to S. Williams, February 16, 1864, Alfred Pleasonton to E. B. Parsons, February 26, 1864, Personnel Files, CRM.

  60. Reynolds, 44–45, 48.

  61. Reynolds, 44–48, 66; Leckie, 40.

  62. Reynolds, 66–67; Leckie, 40.

  63. Reynolds, 45–48; Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 237–245; Stephen W. Sears, Controversies and Commanders: Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 225–52; Wert, 137–42.

  64. James H. Kidd to his parents, March 20, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  65. OR, Series 1, Vol. 33: 161–63, 164–66, 171.

  66. EBC to her parents, March 20 [n.d.], Folder 14, Box 4, MMP. The letter was written on a Sunday, which narrows the year to 1864.

  67. Merington, 86–87; EBC to her parents, March 20 [n.d.], Folder 14, Box 4, MMP; Rebecca Richmond to Aunt, Uncle, and Half-Cousin, March 30, 1864, Folder 18, Box 1, LAFCC; Statement of William Wysham [?], Surgeon in Chief, 2d Brig. 3 Div., March 24, 1864, Personnel Files, CRM.

  68. Wert, 142–44; Frost, General Custer’s Libbie, 96–97. I have located references to this case in the National Archives, but have been unable to find the original documents quoted, which appear in Wert and Frost.

  Seven: The Hero

  1. EBC to Aunt Eliza, July 3, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH; EBC to her parents, March 28, 1864, quoted in Merington, 87.

  2. Adams, Meade, and Wainwright quoted in John J. Hennessy, “I Dread the Spring: The Army of the Potomac Prepares for the Overland Campaign,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Wilderness Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 66–105; see also John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987), 202; William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), esp. 58–89; McPherson, 395–96, 588–90, 718.

  3. Merington, 87–88.

  4. Keegan, 205–12, 232–33 (New York World quoted on 208).

  5. EBC to Daniel and Rhoda Bacon, April 3, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP.

  6. GAC to EBC, April 16, 1864, GAC to EBC, May 17, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, GAC to EBC, April 20 [1864], GAC to EBC, undated fragment, Folder 14, Box 4, MMP.

  7. Jacob Greene to GAC, March 30, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP.

  8. EBC to Daniel and Rhoda Bacon, April 3, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP; Francis W. Kellogg to James H. Kidd, June 5, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Boston Herald, April 2, 1864. On EBC’s emerging role as GAC’s representative in Washington, see Leckie’s perceptive analysis, 43–45.

  9. EBC to Daniel and Rhoda Bacon, April 3, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP; Harper’s Weekly, March 19, 1864.

  10. Jacob Greene to GAC, March 30, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP; Starr 2: 68–77.

  11. Victor Comte to Elise, April 20, 1864, Victor E. Comte Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

  12. James H. Kidd to his parents, April 16, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers; Victor Comte to Elise, April 20, 1864, Victor E. Comte Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich; Wert, 148.

  13. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  14. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH.

  15. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH; GAC to EBC, April 16, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP.

  16. Starr 2: 74–75; PHS, Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992 [orig. pub. 1888]), 187, 193; Hennessy, “I Dread the Spring,” 66–105.

  17. GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH; Sheridan, 194–95; George Gray to James H. Kidd, April 28, 1864, James H. Kidd Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Edward G. Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen: A History of the Mounted Forces of the Army of the Potomac, 1861–1865 (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2000), 250–56.

  18.
GAC to EBC, April 20 [1864], Folder 14, Box 4, MMP.

  19. GAC to EBC, April 16, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP. GAC specifically told DSB that he had not informed EBC of his troubles, which is supported by GAC’s upbeat letter to her a few days earlier. See GAC to DSB, April 23, 1864, GAC Correspondence, LBH; GAC to EBC, April 16, 1864, Folder 2, Box 4, MMP.

  20. Merington, 94.

  21. James I. Christiancy to Father, May 3, 1864, Folder 4, Box 1, Christiancy and Pickett Families’ Papers, LOC.

  22. McPherson, 724–25; Gordon C. Rhea, “Union Cavalry in the Wilderness: The Education of Philip H. Sheridan and James H. Wilson,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Wilderness Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 106–35.

  23. McPherson, 725–26; Rhea, “Union Cavalry in the Wilderness.”

  24. Rhea, “Union Cavalry in the Wilderness”; Wert, 152–53; Edward G. Longacre, Custer’s Wolverines: The Michigan Cavalry Brigade, 1861–1865 (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Publishing, 1997), 206–07; Millard K. Bushong and Dean M. Bushong, Fightin’ Tom Rosser, C.S.A. (Shippensburg, Pa.: Beidel Printing House, 1983), 1–3, 12, 75; William Naylor McDonald, History of the Laurel Brigade (Baltimore, Md.: Sun Job Printing Office, 1907), 234–35; OR, Series 1, Vol. 36, Part 2: 774. McPherson, 724–28, places initial Union and Confederate strength at 115,000 and 64,000 respectively, and losses at 17,500 and nearly 11,000, though any such tallies can only be approximate.

  25. Circular, July 11, 1864; OR, Series 1, Vol. 36, Part 1: 776–78; New York Herald, May 16, 1864, reprinted in Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1864; McPherson, 728.

  26. Sheridan, 199–201.

  27. Circular, July 11, 1864; OR, Series 1, Vol. 36, Part 1: 776–78; New York Herald, May 16, 1864, reprinted in Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1864; Sheridan, 204.

  28. Sheridan, 205; McPherson, 728.

  29. OR, Series 1, Vol. 36, Part 1: 817–18; Longacre, Lincoln’s Cavalrymen, 266–68; Longacre, Custer’s Wolverines, 210–13; Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox (New York: Vintage, 1986 [orig. pub. 1974), 229–31; James H. Kidd, Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman (Ionia, Mich.: Sentinel Press, 1908), 282.