An Obituary for Major Reno

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “It is a matter of honor, sir.”

  “Indeed it is, major, and for the sake of honor, say what you must say, and let the record speak, and we can hope that you can keep the vultures at bay. I just wanted to warn you, as a lawyer, what you may expect. And to wish you every success.”

  Reno headed into the starlit night feeling no less alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  MORE RECRUITS AND UNITS POURED INTO GENERAL TERRY’S CAMP ON the Yellowstone in the latter part of July. Marcus Reno found he had another 150 men to integrate into his Seventh Cavalry command, along with three new officers, but no mounts for any of them. Then Colonel Nelson Miles arrived on the E. H. Durfee along with six companies of the Fifth Infantry.

  Reno now commanded 16 cavalry officers and 543 enlisted men, so the regiment was nearly up to its former strength, save for the fact that most of the newcomers had no mounts and could not do much more than guard duty. He divided his regiment into two battalions, one commanded by Benteen and the other by Weir, the two war-tried captains who were his best men. He made Wallace his Seventh Cavalry adjutant and Edgerly his quartermaster.

  For the most part, the Seventh was back in fighting shape. The sun-bronzed veterans, gaunt and ragged, were flanked now with pale newcomers in clean, shelf-creased uniforms, looking exactly as inexperienced as they were.

  He kept to his own business, retired early to his tent, and was scarcely aware that he was a solitary figure among the officers who gathered at General Terry’s headquarters tent to plan and talk. His flask was his only companion.

  James O’Kelly of the Herald hovered about, writing dispatches, interviewing officers, getting the gist of the new campaign. The man had gifts, and was able to worm stories out of silent officers and talk enlisted men into opening up. He had a veteran correspondent’s way of catching men unguarded and ingratiating himself with some of those who seemed to know what undercurrents were floating through the massive camp on the Yellowstone.

  O’Kelly had gotten exhaustive comment from both Reno and Benteen, elucidating and clarifying what had previously been written about the terrible fight on the Little Bighorn, but Reno had not seen the printed version of those statements, nor the publication of his letter to General Rosser.

  But what did it matter? He was a soldier, doing a soldier’s duty, whipping a regiment into combat-readiness amid the withering August heat, which had a way of enervating men there on the high plains.

  Reno didn’t much like O‘Kelly. The man should have been a big-game hunter in Africa rather than a reporter. And after the first interview, the major tried to steer clear. He wanted as little to do with the press as possible. O’Kelly probably would not come along on the forthcoming campaign, and the regiment would soon be rid of him.

  Thus it came as a surprise one evening when O’Kelly stood outside Reno’s command tent and asked for a private word.

  Reno nodded and stepped out. The prairie twilight caught the world in purple, and the first stars had broken through the veils of dusk.

  O’Kelly pumped the major’s hand. “The Herald is sending me out with the next campaign, major, attached to your regiment. I’ve covered the story of the Little Bighorn as well as a man can, and now I’ll be tagging along on the next push. There’s no mount for me except a condemned horse that can’t run, and I would just as soon fare better than Mark Kellogg of the Bismarck paper.”

  “You did me a service, Mr. O’Kelly, alerting me to General Rosser’s letter.”

  The man paused, sniffed the soft cool air, and came to some sort of conclusion. “I’ll do you another service, sir, but mind you, none of what I’ll say comes from me. This has nothing to do with the paper, nor my job. It is something you should know, and something a reporter who calls himself a friend can advise you about.”

  Reno nodded. He didn’t like gossip, and in his solitary way avoided the gossipers. And probably he was going to hear something from O’Kelly he wished he hadn’t.

  “The new officers, major, the ones from the Fifth Infantry, and Otis’ Twenty-second Infantry, and those in Gibbon’s Seventh Infantry, the new officers in your Seventh … well, sir, how shall I put this? They talk, sir. About, you know, the battle. Nothing else fires their minds as that fight. The battle, Custer’s death, and all that. And every one of them, without exception, believes the fight was, ah, not Custer’s to lose.”

  “Then it was Reno’s to lose. Thank you, Mr. O’Kelly, and I wish you a safe trip with us.” Reno turned away.

  “Your officers, the survivors, don’t agree with that. Not even Weir. There’s been some hot debate between the ones who were with you, and the ones who got the story from a distance.”

  “I’ve heard enough, Mr. O’Kelly. We’ll go into this next campaign united, and not torn by that sort of idle talk. There’s always some grousing in the army, and when the time comes to pull together, we do it without question.”

  The newsman held his ground. “Not idle talk, major. Not idle at all. Heated. I’ve heard plenty of it around these campfires. It’s all the talk when you’re not around. There are officers … Well, I’ve offered my little bit here. Probably stepped out of bounds. But I felt the need.”

  “I’ve already heard it, Mr. O’Kelly. Nelson Miles is saying that Custer could hardly expect to survive when seven-twelfths of his regiment camped on a hilltop instead of coming to his aid. I’ve heard it, and responded to it. The sonsofbitches can say whatever they want; I don’t care. If any one of them had been with us, he’d sing another tune.”

  “They weren’t there, sir. That’s the whole of it.”

  “Indeed they weren’t.”

  “You’re a hero to your men, major. There’s not a one who’s not grateful he was with your command and not Custer’s. Your men admire you, especially the sergeants, who’ve been in fights and know the tactics, and knew you were smart to back out of there. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Reno nodded. “Thank you, Mr. O’Kelly. I hope you get some good stories.”

  “One more thing, sir. Have you seen the other letter in the Herald?”

  “Other letter?”

  “The anonymous one, but plainly from General Custer, written well before his death and dispatched to my paper.” He handed Reno a clipping from the July 23rd Herald.

  Reno studied it. Here was George Custer at work, playing Benteen’s game of trying officers in the public press through anonymous letters. The letter focused on Reno’s scout before the fight.

  Had Reno, after first violating his orders, pursued and overtaken the Indians, his original disobedience of orders would have been overlooked, but his determination forsook him at this point, and instead of continuing the pursuit and at least bringing the Indians to bay, he gave the order to countermarch and faced his command to the rear, from which point he made his way back to the mouth of the Tongue River and reported the details of his gross and inexcusable blunder to General Terry, his commanding officer, who informed Reno in unmistakable language that the latter’s conduct amounted to positive disobedience of orders, the sad consequences of which could not be fully determined. The details of this affair will not bear investigation.

  That sounded like Custer, all right. But there was more:

  A court-martial is strongly hinted at, and if one is not ordered, it will not be because it is not richly deserved.

  Reno studied the lengthy letter, which celebrated Custer, in the third person, and denigrated himself. Was this the same Custer who, not long before, had been so enraged by Benteen’s anonymous letter to the St. Louis paper criticizing Custer’s conduct during the battle of the Washita? The Custer who threatened to horsewhip the author?

  “Thank you, Mr. O’Kelly. I should have expected something like this.”

  “You care to comment, major?”

  Reno shook his head, and returned the clipping. He had suspected all along that Custer wanted him out of the Seventh, and now there was proof of it in this trial by newspaper. “You are a thou
ghtful friend, Mr. O’Kelly, keeping me posted. But now I will beg leave.”

  “Certainly, major.”

  The newsman drifted into the soft evening, and Marcus Reno settled down in his tent. He hung his tunic from a post, unbuttoned his blouse, and opened his bedroll. He uncorked his flask and downed a good slug of fiery whiskey, and felt it melt into his belly and steal out into his limbs and quiet his mind. So the battle wasn’t Custer’s to lose. And every shavetail lieutenant in the army was privately thinking he could have done better.

  He grunted, pulled off his boots, rubbed his sore feet, and wrapped himself in his blanket. He was regular army, had been for a lifetime, and by God if push came to shove, he’d show them what an officer was made of. He had saved the command from disaster and they by God would respect that or he’d see to it that they got the lesson.

  That night he thought of Ross, and knew he should have written his son long since, and written the Rosses and Haldemans too, and let them know he was all right. They would have only the sensational newspaper reports. But whenever he tried to write, his pen froze in his fingers.

  He thought of Mary Hannah, her lithe, frail body beside him in the soft nights, her social charms that opened his own world for him and brought friends into their parlor. In the nights she was always asking questions, and he didn’t mind telling her about the cavalry, everything from “Boots and Saddles” to trumpeters to inspections to personalities. She would rest her head in the hollow of his shoulder and absorb it all, and sometimes kiss him.

  “My cavalry man,” she would say.

  It was a long time since he had had a woman. Just then, he would settle for any woman.

  He would ask for leave after the summer campaign was over. Travel, take his ease, go to Harrisburg, see his son, see his in-laws, shake the prairies out of his mind, let this cloud hovering over him drift away.

  The next day General Terry moved the whole command downriver a mile to new grass; the day after, they rode out to war once again, this time as the Yellowstone Column, and they were by God going to corral those hostiles and march them onto their reservations or see them pay the price. Not that Marcus Reno believed they would find any Indians, except by wild luck.

  They headed up the Rosebud, an enormous column slowed by heavy six-mule wagons hauling provisions to keep the ponderous column in the field. In the van was Major Brisbin’s Second Cavalry, followed by infantry, then the wagons with more infantry on the flanks, and finally Reno’s Seventh Cavalry as rear guard, the green troops all but worthless in war.

  Reno had kept his dismounted newcomers back, posting guard duty and building defensive works for “Fort Beans” as Terry’s camp at the mouth of the Rosebud had come to be known. But he had eight companies, some of them filled with veterans of the brutal fight; most of them green.

  They rode through brutal heat, an occasional downpour, hail, lightning, and howling winds, as well as prairie silences, and fields of yellow daisies, but there were no Indians around, and Reno didn’t expect to see any. Such a column, which raised huge clouds of dust, could well be spotted from many miles away, and wherever the hostiles were, they weren’t anywhere near and would stay a hundred miles away from this giant caterpillar plowing over their homeland.

  Then, after several days up the purling creek, the scouts ranging far ahead discovered a column of dust rising well to the south, a migration so formidable it had to be the hostiles.

  “Sioux!” the cried.

  Swiftly the two cavalry units formed a line of battle while the wagon masters boxed in the wagons and the infantry guarded its flanks. Major Reno ordered Weir’s battalion to form a skirmish line, and Benteen’s to move to the front.

  On General Terry’s orders to start a reconnaissance, Reno sent French’s Company M to the task. French’s men rode out to meet the oncoming horsemen, who were making the exaggerated signs of friendship, holding rifles above their heads, so the horsemen, Indians, half-breeds, scouts dressed in blue, and frontiersmen in buckskins were allowed to ride in.

  They were the advance guard of Crook’s column, and Crook’s scouts were being led by the actor William F. Cody, all duded up in buckskins with a dashing sombrero keeping the sun off his face.

  Reno stared, amazed. Here was a theater man, gotten up in the gaudy dress of the borders, erect and commanding and looking like he was born to the saddle, and riding for Crook! He was a handsome longhaired devil, but how capable he was Reno didn’t know. Perhaps this was all an actor’s publicity gimmick, but maybe not. Reno vaguely remembered that William Cody had fought for the army, gotten into hand-to-hand combat with Indians, and knew the plains as well as anyone alive.

  After the initial excitement, Terry’s column continued south, with the scouts from Crook’s command, to meet with the Crook column that was heading north down the Rosebud.

  Buffalo Bill hand-shook his way through Terry’s command, thoroughly enjoying himself. And at last he came to Reno, who stared stiffly at the man.

  “Ah! Reno! The hero of the Bighorn!” Cody exclaimed in a piercing voice, offering a hand across the withers of his horse.

  Reno nodded.

  “I am honored to meet you, sir. Much has been written of you and your gallant Seventh these last weeks. I’ve gobbled up every dispatch. I must say, I’m impressed. What fine, hard, seasoned men these are, major. How well they bear the burdens of their recent ordeal.

  “I’ve just ridden through your command, and see the marks of hard use on the veterans. Here are men who fought, sir, fought to the death, bullet for bullet. I see scars. I see bandages. I see the pale look of near death in their eyes. You have my boundless admiration, all of you, fighting there against overwhelming odds.”

  Reno nodded, taking the measure of the gaudy showman riding beside him. “They know as much about Indian warfare as any outfit in the army,” Reno said.

  “I was so inspired, major, that I closed my act. Yes, canceled twenty-three bookings, cut them off cold, caught the first train west, and volunteered my services. That’s what the gallant Seventh did to me: because of you, I am forgoing thousands of admission tickets!”

  Reno nodded. He had a command to run, and his gaze swept from company to company, looking for anything amiss. But now the column rushed ahead to join up with Crook’s, and men rode toward reunion, not war.

  Cody twisted in his shiny saddle, and drew close. “Say, major, I must tell you, when I return to the stage I’m going to do a tableau of the Little Bighorn fight; yes, the American people will soon see the brave Custer and his men surrounded by howling Indians, fighting to the last man. Oh, there will be goose bumps when the last man falls. And that last man will be Custer. I can see it now. A great hush after that howling melee. And then a lone bugle off in the wings playing ‘Taps.’ Ah! Won’t that be grand! Think of the tears in all those eyes! Oh, America will eat it up! It’ll pack every theater from San Francisco to New York. Now, I’m so pleased to meet you, sir, so that you can be my technical advisor, help me get it all right, eh?”

  “I’m not sure that’s something I’d ever want to do, Mr. Cody.”

  Cody steered his lively dappled horse close up. “Ah! Think on it. What I have in mind is for you to play the noble Custer before the footlights! Think how that would look on the broadsheets. Custer fight, authentic in all detail, with the great Reno playing the gallant Custer!”

  “I, ah, think perhaps you had better get an actor to do it, Mr. Cody. I’m regular army and the army is my life. And I could not imagine myself playing the part of a man who threw his command away.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  WHEN THE WEARY SEVENTH CAVALRY MARCHED INTO FORT ABRAHAM Lincoln, September 26, 1876, they found a post hung in crepe. The frames of doors and windows had been painted black in mourning. A desolation hung in the air. Major Reno, who had taken a riverboat a few days earlier, met the command, traveling to its home base under Captain Weir, and posted half of it to a camp below the post because there were not quarters for all
.

  The late-summer campaign had become a farce, and the combined infantry and artillery forces under General Terry had scarcely seen an Indian all summer. Terry’s and Crook’s and Miles’s and Reno’s forces had prowled the rivers south of the Yellowstone, closed pincers on nothing, and then Reno’s Seventh Cavalry had probed the Missouri River country far to the north, always well behind the fleeing fragments of that huge summer camp. Many hostiles had reached Canada.

  At last, as the weather turned, Terry posted all those infantry and cavalry units back to their bases in Montana and North Dakota Territories, and began preparing for a winter campaign, always effective against Indians whose ponies were weakened by a lack of forage.

  The Seventh Cavalry returning to Fort Lincoln was not the one that had marched away one fine May day. Recruits had swelled its ranks, and even these had acquired hard field service riding endless miles over empty prairie under a brutal sun. These men were sunburned, skeletal, and worn by hard use. Their eyes burned from dry air and hurt from squinting, their flesh had blistered, their slouch hats were stained, their blouses and britches were sun-faded and grimy.

  But the sought-for goal, resolving the Indian War, remained as elusive as ever.

  Reno watched his command ride silently home. He received them curtly, not knowing why, for they had distinguished themselves in the field. But there were dark currents flowing here, and perhaps spit and polish, barked commands, protocols, duties, and snapped salutes would veneer something that burdened the soul of each man.

  In time, after the horses were cared for and stabled, and the men settled, there would be time for letters, a hearty mess for a change, a real cot above the hard earth, cloth or planks overhead to ward off weather, and news to share.

  On General Terry’s instructions, he had caught a boat from Fort Buford and assumed command at Lincoln, finding the place steeped in a strange desolation. Awaiting him was a copy of the August 22nd New York Herald which contained Rosser’s reply to Reno’s letter and the statements given the paper by Reno and Benteen. Captain Benteen himself was no longer with the regiment, having been posted to recruiting duty, a transfer that Reno regarded with some suspicion.