An Obituary for Major Reno

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Mrs. Fanshawe, I propose that we get a buggy and go toward Rapid City and meet your husband. I think it’d do you good to take the air, after all you’ve been through.”

  “Why, Major, I’m not sure …”

  “Hush now, we’ll go find him.”

  “But I think …”

  “It’ll do you good. Take the air.”

  He would not take no for an answer and soon brought the horse and buggy to her door, and they set off through the long August evening toward Rapid City, driving through quiet, empty reaches of grassland. But they did not see him.

  After a couple of hours she stopped him.

  “Major, we’ve come far enough. I wish to go home now.”

  He nodded, wheeled the buggy around, and they rode slowly back to Fort Meade.

  The conversation went badly. She sat as far from him as she could, wrung her hands, and plainly felt distressed. But he was affable, making talk about the buffalo and army life and the mining in the Black Hills. He dropped her off but suggested he would sit at her porch to guard her until her husband, William Fanshawe, should arrive.

  She joined him there, along with Lieutenant Nicholson, Dr. Bell, and another civilian, Edward Johnson, who had a part interest in the ruined trading post.

  Fanshaw didn’t return until late at night and was greatly troubled by the bad news, which Reno broke to him on the porch, along with the other men who had vigiled into the night.

  “Why, gentlemen, thank you for keeping a watch over my house and home. Why don’t we have a supper? It’s late but it would be a most fitting thing to do.”

  “Yes, I can put some things on quite quickly,” Mrs. Fanshawe added.

  Reno saw the lamps bloom in the kitchen as she stirred about back there. “Gentlemen, come over to my quarters for a drink, and we’ll leave the Fanshawes to themselves for a while,” he said, and the others acquiesced at once. At his quarters he struck a lucifer, lit a lamp, quickly poured Tennessee whiskey neat for them all, and they downed it and had another.

  “Time for dinner, I imagine,” Nicholson said.

  “I’ll join you in a moment,” Reno said, and saw them to the door. Then he wheeled back to his kitchen and poured himself a double and downed it. He was tense and needed something to quiet his nerves. Then he, too, returned to the Fanshawes for a midnight dinner.

  The meal was quiet and decorous, but Reno was half asleep, having been numbed by the sudden charge of spirits in his veins. More spirits were served, and he had his fill, and sunk into ever deeper quietness. The conversation flowed around him, and he nodded amiably, said little, and then it was time to leave.

  “Here, major, let me help you down this porch step,” Johnson said.

  “I’m able to care for myself, thank you,” he said, and meandered home, aware that they were watching.

  It didn’t mean a thing. He had not been on duty.

  The dog days of August stretched long and hot and wearisome, but at least he could repair to the Officers’ Club Room for a drink and some billiards. On the seventh he did, engaging in a four-handed game of billiards with Captain Benteen and Doctors Bell and Brechemin. Reno bought himself some rye whiskey and another and another, and settled into the game, playing a little clumsily as the spirits thickened his tongue and slowed his fingers. Then he popped off an easy shot but the ball careened away from the pocket.

  Peeved, Reno lifted a chair, smacked it down, and then threw it into a window, shattering a pane. Men stared.

  He handed Lieutenant Scott a bill and told him to pay the bartender, Smythe, for both the booze and the windowpane. The lieutenant hastened to the barkeep, who totted up the damages, made change, and handed it to Scott.

  But Reno wasn’t happy.

  “Why are you bringing the change to him? It’s my bill.”

  The barkeep retrieved the coins and handed them to Reno, but Reno dashed them to the floor. Smythe picked up the change and handed it to Reno, and again Reno smacked the change down. So Smythe left the coins on the top of the wainscoting and walked away.

  There were plenty of officers staring, but Reno didn’t give a damn. He was steaming, and he didn’t care who knew it.

  The summer slid away, and Reno filled his lonely evenings at the Officers’ Club Room, playing billiards, betting on games, and losing heavily at times. What else was there to do?

  Then, in October, everything blew up.

  A billiards debt triggered it. Reno owed Lieutenant Nicholson $380, a lot of money. When he apologized for not paying, Nicholson said it was all right.

  That night of October 25 at the Officers’ Club Room, Reno bet Nicholson a hundred dollars on a pool game, and Nicholson agreed.

  Reno won, and Nicholson said, “That leaves two hundred eighty dollars on pool.”

  “But you told me the pool debt was square.”

  “No, I just said it was all right. You still owe it.”

  “I don’t owe any such damned thing.”

  “Look, let’s get Smythe over here to settle this, major.”

  “No, I don’t want him to settle it. He’s not the proper person to settle it.”

  Nicholson flew into a rage. “I could lick you in two minutes any way you want.”

  That was too much the insult for Reno, but he remained at the end of the table, punching balls into pockets with his cue.

  Nicholson threatened him again, hammering the pool table.

  That did it. Reno walked straight in to Nicholson, and whacked him with the cue. It struck Nicholson’s left arm and broke. Nicholson jumped Reno, dragged him to the floor, and pounded him.

  The rest of the officers in the club leapt in to pull the pair apart.

  Captain Peale and Lieutenant Pettit warned that the brawlers would be arrested if they didn’t quit, and both men quieted down. Reno sat up, brushed himself off, saw the way things were going, pulled his coat over him, and vanished into the night. It was a cold, bleak walk to his quarters.

  Three days later he was put under arrest by Colonel Sturgis, and again faced court-martial charges.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CONDUCT UNBECOMING TO AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.

  There were three specifications:

  Reno “did create and engage in a disreputable disturbance or brawl in a public billiard saloon, and did violently assault and strike Second Lieutenant Wm. J. Nicholson, Seventh Cavalry, with a billiard cue, with the manifest intent of inflicting severe bodily injury … and did persist in continuing said disturbance until threatened with arrest …”

  Reno “was drunk and disorderly in a public billiard saloon, and did several times wantonly and in riotous manner, knock money out of the hands of the saloon keeper (or tender) Mr. Joseph Smythe, scattering said money over the floor, and did in a wanton and riotous manner, smash in with chairs the glass of one or more windows of said billiard saloon …”

  Reno “was in a disgusting condition of intoxication at the residence of Mr. W. D. Fanshawe, post trader … on or about the third of August, 1879.”

  So they had been lying in wait after all, he thought. Watching, watching, watching.

  General Terry set the court-martial for November 28, to be convened at Fort Meade, with Colonel W. C. Wood, Eleventh Infantry, presiding.

  So they were going to try him for getting mad and busting some window glass. And being drowsy at the Fanshawes. As for the fight, Nicholson had started it, and there were witnesses enough, and he could beat that one, too. He felt fairly optimistic but still something bleak and mean was lurking below the surface. Many of the officers of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment wanted him out and were determined to achieve it.

  He was confined to the post, which wasn’t so bad. He had become something of a pariah, but he had a few friends, and he could beat this rap too. Sturgis had become hostile, though; danger loomed there. Reno had long since been unwelcome at the commander’s home and Sturgis had made it plain that his family was to be left entirely alone.

  At least
Reno could solace himself with a drink or two or three at the Officers’ Club Room, and that is how the next days ticked by.

  But then, one quiet evening while he was taking the air after a few nips, he passed the Sturgis residence, which was well lit, and noticed Ella sitting in the parlor. His long-suppressed affection bloomed. She sat reading, the glow of the coal oil lamp turning her face golden, her dark hair sweetly framing her lovely oval face. He could not visit her. He could not even step onto the grounds of the commander’s home. He was under arrest and facing new charges.

  And yet, he yearned to let her know of his fondness.

  He saw no sign of the colonel. Maybe it would be a small amusement to rap on her window. Someone passed him in the darkness, and he continued on, but when he was alone, he returned. There she was, dressed primly, passing a pleasant evening in her parlor, reading a book.

  He drifted across the yard, smitten. How lovely she looked, how much he yearned for someone just like her sitting in his own parlor. And yes, there was her mother, too, invisible from the front window, but plain now; both reading.

  He would let her know his admiration. He approached the window, having to stand as high as he could, and tapped cheerfully on the glass. She gazed at him. He tapped and waved his hand.

  The look on her face was one of horror, as if he were committing some heinous crime, as if this weren’t a downstairs parlor window, but a bedroom. He waved cheerfully, and seeing her start, and her mother rise, he smiled, waved, and wandered on to his quarters. It had been a pleasant eve, and he began to prepare himself for bed.

  But there was a knock at his door and Reno admitted Lieutenant Garlington, who stood stiffly and ill at ease.

  “Colonel Sturgis sent me to get some explanation of your conduct,” Garlington said.

  “Conduct?”

  “Did you invade the colonel’s yard and tap at the colonel’s window?”

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “They don’t think so. Ella is distraught. She nearly fainted away. She could barely speak. They feared she might succumb to Saint Vitus Dance. The colonel searched his yard with cane in hand, ready to thrash you. You’ll explain now, and I will convey your explanation to the commander.”

  “But there’s nothing to explain.”

  “You admit tapping on the Sturgis family’s window?”

  “It was just a whim, that’s all.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t do, major. The colonel is, shall we simply say, in a rage.”

  “Well, no offense was intended, lieutenant. I’ll write her a note of apology.”

  “I’ll tell the colonel you have no explanation, then. I am authorized to tell you that you’re confined to your quarters by his command.”

  Garlington wheeled about and vanished into the night.

  Reno knew he faced the gravest charge of all.

  He could not explain to himself why he did it. Impulse, whimsy. One thing he knew: he had meant no offense to her, especially her, and this was not something foul or unspeakable.

  He bit off a cigar, lit it, and smoked and paced half the night, wondering what to do. An apology was in order, not only to Ella but to Mrs. Sturgis, so he sat down and penned one. He explained himself as best he could; he had been for a walk, and saw her, and was drawn to her.

  “It would be a matter of deep regret to my dying day should you and she think me capable of an untruth of being a spy or doing anything with a mean motive. This is the truth as I expect to answer for it before my God and I sincerely ask your pardon for all that does not seem to you as innocent, for I do assure you if not guiltless the fault was in the judgment and not the heart.”

  But there was only frosty silence in response.

  The charge, added to the rest, was:

  That Reno “did in the darkness and at a late hour in the evening surreptitiously enter the side grounds adjoining the private residence or quarters of his commanding officer … and did peer into a side (and retired) widow of the family sitting room of said private residence or quarters, approaching so near and so stealthily as to very seriously affright and alarm that portion of the family …”

  His brief interlude in sunlight was over and for the saddest of all reasons. From the moment he had set eyes on Ella, he had loved her. He could not explain it; he just did, and each day at Fort Meade that he was separated from her by her father’s rejection of him as a suitor, he pined. Not since Mary Hannah, his great love, had a woman affected him the way Ella Sturgis did. He had never known what he might do about it, if anything; only that she was there, he pined for her, and could not ever have her.

  The court-martial began November 24, 1879, at ten o’clock.

  The Department of Dakota had lined up a fancy row of judges, including Colonel W. C. Wood, Colonel William R. Shafter, First Infantry; Colonel John W. Davidson, Second Cavalry; Lieutenant Colonel Elmer Otis, Seventh Cavalry; Lieutenant Colonel A. J. Alexander, Second Cavalry; Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Townsend, Eleventh Infantry; Major Bernard D. Irwin, Medical Department; Major Orlando Moore, Sixth Infantry; and Major Joseph S. Conrad, Seventeenth Infantry. Captain W. W. Sanders, Sixth Infantry, would prosecute.

  But not enough judges were on hand, and the proceeding was delayed until the twenty-eighth. Reno pleaded not guilty to all but one charge, and pleaded bar of trial—that the charge was beyond the purview of the military—to the accusation that he had been drunk at dinner at Fanshawes. The court did not agree with him.

  For the next several days, various officers, along with the Fanshawes, Dr. Bell, Colonel Sturgis, and Ella Sturgis, all testified. Reno acted as his own counsel and when the prosecution was done, swore himself in and gave the court his version of events. He thought he was making good progress: the charges were, at bottom, frivolous, and even if one stuck, it might be worth a brief suspension, or half pay or something of that sort. But he saw nothing in any of it that could result in being suspended for long, or any worse punishment. What did he do? Got into a fight he didn’t start. Got mad and broke a window. Got sleepy at the post trader’s house. And … went rapping on a window where he should not have been.

  The last worried him the most. Ella Sturgis testified about the fright that had visited her. The colonel testified about the disarray of his wife and daughter when he was summoned from bed.

  Benteen testified as to whether Reno’s motives toward Ella Sturgis had been honorable and said that he thought that Reno’s letter of apology did not fully express what Reno felt. It was a hint to the court of something that Reno’s old friend and occasional adversary Benteen well understood: that Marcus Reno was in love.

  Not one to pass by any opportunity, Reno labored hard at night to produce a closing statement, and this he read to the court on its final day, December 8. He took pains to point out that “it has been my misfortune to have attained a widespread notoriety through the country by means of the press …” He pointed to his twenty-two years given to the service of his country, and tried to cast his offenses as indiscretions rather than the serious matters that could result in being expelled from the army.

  The court deliberated, and when it reconvened, with the major standing stiffly before it on a cold December day at Fort Meade, it found Reno guilty on the first specification, the brawl with Nicholson, though it moderated the language a bit; on the second, the occasion when he pitched a chair at a window, they found him guilty, but toned down the language; on the third, being drunk at the Fanshawe residence, they found him guilty but not to the extent of disgracing the military service; and on the fourth, invading the grounds of the Sturgis home, Reno was convicted as well, of conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman.

  That was the torpedo that could sink him. He felt himself slump as the court adjourned, and then he was all alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE VARIABLE DAKOTA WINTER RAN COLD AND WARM, MATCHING THE major’s moods. He remained under close quarters at Fort Meade while his case wound its way up the chain of reviewers. It
would end on the president’s desk.

  He was often solitary, but not alone. People addressed him. And yet a veil had fallen between himself and most of those on the post, intangible, maddening, but always present. Most doors were closed to him. Most officers avoided him, or had little to say beyond a pleasantry.

  Christmas arrived, and he found himself in painful solitude, broken only by a visit from a few old, enduring friends, such as Captain Benteen, who cared little what others thought and brought Reno a bottle of good brandy to tide him over the sacred feast.

  Some days the winds blew cold through Dakota, racing south out of Canada, and those days reminded him of what lay ahead. Other times the high plains basked in an odd warmth, a pleasant winter of a sort unknown in the East, when the low sun shone sweetly and the breezes were mild.

  The case had a long way to go before anything was final. It would be reviewed by the judge advocate for the Department of Dakota, and by General Terry, and then it would go on to Washington.

  Reno heard a rumor or two, mostly gotten from Benteen, who had a way of picking up gossip not intended for Reno’s ear. Five of the seven judges who sat for the case had recommended leniency; they felt that they had to convict Reno in order to comply with military codes of justice, but that the punishment was too severe for such offenses, which did little harm to anyone.

  In the end, he had no way of knowing. The walls of military officialdom rose high and impervious. The day after his melancholy Christmas, he wired the Secretary of War, Alexander Ramsey: “Do not let me be dismissed. Rather resign if such conclusion be reached.”

  He heard nothing. He knew nothing. He wondered what General Terry would do. Terry had always treated him fairly enough, and was in fact a lawyer. That struck him as hopeful.

  But the winds of January and February blew cold and carried stinging snow upon them, and Marcus Reno scarcely knew what to think. The case would go from Terry to the Bureau of Military Justice in Washington, where it would again be reviewed and passed to the general of the army, the secretary of war, and the president.