The Commanders

by Robert M. Utley

  Scouts brought word of increasing signs of Sioux. On June 26, the day appointed for the junction with Custer, Terry and Gibbon reached the mouth of the Little Bighorn and turned up the valley. Lieutenant James H. Bradley and his Crow scouts ranged ahead of the column. Camping on the night of June 26, the command continued the march up the valley on June 27. Four miles from camp they discovered the great Sioux village, abandoned. Proceeding through the vacated village, they met two officers of the Seventh Cavalry. The two men and Terry burst out with the same question: “Where is Custer?”

  Lieutenant Bradley brought the answer. He and a mounted infantry detachment had been probing the rugged hills east of the valley. They had discovered the stripped and mutilated remains of Custer and 197 cavalrymen. The balance of the regiment, Terry learned, was entrenched atop high bluffs across the river. Major Reno commanded, backed by Captain Frederick W. Benteen.

  Although Terry had to remain in the field to continue the campaign against the Sioux, recriminations flared at once. Who was to blame for such a horrid disaster? Terry? Custer? Reno? Benteen? Unpredictably overwhelming numbers of Indians? As soon as word reached the East, controversy erupted.

  Unwittingly, Terry contributed to the controversy. In his official report, dated June 27, he cast no aspersions on Custer and took full responsibility for the disaster. Delayed en route, however, the telegraphic dispatch did not reach Sheridan until after a second report, dated July 2 and marked “confidential,” arrived and mysteriously appeared in the press as the official version. In this dispatch Terry outlined his plan and informed Sheridan that he believed it would have succeeded had not Custer departed from it. Typically, Terry had sought to screen his dead subordinate from blame but had failed.

  Never thereafter did Terry openly ascribe the catastrophe to Custer. The controversy continued decade after decade, growing ever more vehement, and rages to this day. Distressed by the blame heaped on Terry, in 1896 his longtime aide and brother-in-law, Colonel Robert P. Hughes, published a long treatise arguing the case against Custer in immense detail. It only fueled the conflict.

  Perhaps more telling than the military argument was Hughes’s assessment of Terry the man, which was bolstered throughout his life by the opinion of others: “I have been thoroughly conversant all these years with the noble and generous sacrifice, the complete abnegation of self that General Terry knowingly made for the avowed purpose of shielding a dead man from public blame. I have seen him receive thrust after thrust, year after year, on this matter, and quietly ignore it with some such remark as ‘Blinder Eifer schadet nur’” (blind zeal only does harm).

  Terry had more immediate concerns. Custer’s dead had to be buried and Major Reno’s wounded cared for. On June 28 the Seventh buried its dead while the infantry rigged mule-borne stretchers to carry Reno’s wounded. With their cargo, Gibbon’s men and Reno’s battered remnant of the Seventh Cavalry moved laboriously down the Little Bighorn to its mouth, arriving on June 30. Here Captain Grant Marsh had anchored the Far West. With the wounded bedded on its decks, the steamer moved down to the mouth of the Bighorn. Terry and Gibbon followed by land. On July 3 Marsh ferried the command to the north bank of the Yellowstone and began his voyage of 710 miles down the Yellowstone and Missouri to Fort Lincoln.

  The Sioux and Cheyennes who had destroyed Custer were now even more the objective of the troops in the field. The six camp circles had moved up the Little Bighorn and crossed to the Rosebud, then turned east toward the Tongue and the Powder. Beyond that they were uncertain.

  Terry spent most of July bringing fresh supplies upriver on the Far West and the Josephine. Also, he strove to find out where General Crook and his command were. He had no knowledge of Crook’s setback at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17 or what Crook’s plans were. Moreover, in the wake of a disaster such as Custer’s defeat, he awaited reinforcements. Low morale and petty feuding rocked the camp, and Terry himself seemed dispirited and uncertain. Scouts finally made contact with Crook. The Sioux village was thought to be on the middle Rosebud and might be caught between Terry and Gibbon. They agreed that Terry would march up the Rosebud and Crook down. If they were right about the location of the enemy, they could strike it from two directions. Late in July Terry moved his command down the Yellowstone and camped opposite the mouth of the Rosebud. Steamers brought reinforcements.

  On August 8 the Terry column began its march up the Rosebud. On August 10 the two columns met, but they were too late. The trail pointed east, inviting the generals to give chase.

  Terry was the senior brigadier, but Crook was the experienced Indian fighter. Terry offered Crook command of the combined outfit. Crook refused. The two had not only striking differences of character and personality but different ideas about strategy. Crook, heading the Department of the Platte, believed that the Sioux would turn south toward the Black Hills in his Department of the Platte. Terry, concerned for his Department of Dakota, thought that the Sioux would head north toward Canada. To counter this possibility, he detached the Fifth Infantry and sent it back to the Yellowstone with the supply wagons. This move had been suggested by the Fifth’s colonel, Nelson A. Miles, as always aggressively ambitious for an independent command. Miles would patrol the river by steamer to ensure that the Sioux did not try to cross and head north. The combined commands of Terry of Crook, relying on pack mules, would follow the Indian trail eastward.

  The campaign was doomed from the start. More than three thousand infantry and cavalry, burdened by pack mules, hardly constituted a force with the mobility to overtake and defeat the Sioux. Weather proved a formidable deterrent. Cold rains turned the hills and valleys, roiled by so many feet, into mud and took severe toll on the health and morale of the troops. Terry’s infantry constantly slowed the march because of inexperienced mule tenders. Both generals had their full staffs, which did not get along well. After a week of floundering in the Tongue and Powder valleys, the expedition went into camp at the mouth of the Powder on August 17. Fresh supplies alleviated some of the distress, but the men were demoralized.

  So were the two generals. They could not agree on the proper strategy, whether to operate against Sitting Bull to the north or head east and south on the Indian trail. At length, on August 24, Crook simply marched east without alerting Terry. Terry followed and overtook him, but after further discussion he accepted the separation and returned to the Yellowstone.

  Terry now turned his attention to the Yellowstone, where Colonel Miles had established himself with orders from Sheridan to build two posts: one at the mouth of the Tongue, the other at the mouth of the Little Bighorn. Miles would remain on the Yellowstone all winter to fight with Sioux if they intruded (they did, so he did). On September 5 Terry disbanded his army and ordered the components back to their stations. In St. Paul he returned to his life as a desk general.

  For Terry, the summer operations had been a failure. He had lost five companies of the Seventh Cavalry and their flamboyant commander. His campaign with Crook had demonstrated the futility of sending large columns into a remote country where logistics overrode mission. Crook demonstrated this reality in his famous “mud march” to the Black Hills.

  With Terry comfortably in his St. Paul headquarters, Colonel Miles had the independent command he so anxiously sought. In October, as Terry had foreseen, Sitting Bull and a large aggregation of Sioux crossed the Yellowstone and headed north. Miles handled the situation expertly, both fighting and negotiating with the Sioux and forcing some chiefs to surrender and return to the reservation. Miles’s infantry erected a “cantonment” at the mouth of the Tongue River and settled in for a brutal winter. Crazy Horse and his following had remained south of the Yellowstone, however, and aggressively attracted Miles’s attention. A winter campaign led to a successful battle with the chief and his warriors. Afterward Miles competed with General Crook, to the south, in trying to coax the Indians to surrender. Crook gained most of them; Crazy Horse gave up to Crook in the spring of 1877. Miles received what h
e deemed less than his fair share of surrenders. Throughout all the winter operations, Terry remained in his headquarters devoting himself to supporting Miles. Ungrateful, Miles constantly complained of lack of support from department headquarters.

  Miles, and to a lesser extent Crook, overseen by Sheridan, brought the Great Sioux War of 1876–77 to a successful conclusion. Throughout, public and official attention centered on them. Terry shared in none of the laurels but quietly performed his departmental duties from his headquarters—except for one more field mission.

  After negotiating and battling with Miles, Sitting Bull and his following took refuge in Canada, where they made friends with Major James M. Walsh of the North-West Mounted Police. But they were troublesome to the police and to the U.S. government, which foresaw raiding across the border. Therefore a peace commission headed by General Terry journeyed to Canada to persuade Sitting Bull to bring his people back to their reservation. The meeting took place at Fort Walsh on October 17, 1877. Sitting Bull heaped scorn on Terry and refused even to talk about surrender. He would stay with his red-coated friends.

  Indian hostilities in Montana continued for five more years after 1876. Terry quietly issued the orders for a series of operations, but Colonel Miles took the initiative and proceeded in his own way. Striving to be free of Terry, he wrote to his wife’s uncle, General Sherman: “I am satisfied that there is criminal neglect of duty at St. Paul or there is a determination that I shall not accomplish anything.” Therefore he wanted a command separate from Terry’s.13 In fact he already proceeded independently and repeatedly prevailed. All the acclaim attached to him.

  Despite Miles’s successes, Sitting Bull remained safely distant in Canada. Faced with starvation, however, he crossed the border in 1881 and surrendered at Fort Buford. This event marked the formal close of hostilities with the Sioux. Six months earlier Nelson A. Miles had donned the star of a brigadier.

  From St. Paul Terry oversaw the readjustment of his system of forts to reflect the end of Sioux hostilities. He abandoned old stations and created new ones. His department’s relative tranquillity was interrupted in 1877, however, by the flight of the Nez Perces from Idaho toward Canada. General Oliver O. Howard pursued but failed to overtake them. From his base at the mouth of Tongue River, now named Fort Keogh, Miles dashed northwest and headed off the fugitives. In the Battle of Bear Paw Mountains he added another victory to his record. The Northern Pacific resumed construction, and again military escorts protected workers.

  After Sitting Bull’s surrender, Terry pursued a routine life in his department headquarters. This lasted until 1886, when he received the two stars of a major general. Sherman had retired, and Sheridan replaced him as head of the army. Terry moved into Sheridan’s former command, the Division of the Missouri with headquarters in Chicago. With the Indian wars subsiding, the division no longer dealt with such large issues as in Sheridan’s time. Moreover, Terry’s health had been declining even while he still in St. Paul. He had Bright’s disease, a kidney disorder that added to other ills, including gout and heart disease. At sixty-one, three years shy of the mandatory retirement age, he asked to be retired in 1881 for medical disability.

  A lifetime bachelor with inherited wealth, well educated and with wide-ranging interests, Terry passed his declining years with his three sisters in New Haven. He died on December 16, 1891, and was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.

  As a soldier, Alfred Terry displays a paradox. His Civil War career was exemplary. He exercised command quietly, competently, and with due regard for the welfare of his troops. Terry demonstrated his leadership at the regimental, division, and corps levels. His setbacks were few, and those occurred when he was not exercising independent command. His victory at Fort Fisher, although subjected to controversy over who deserved the credit after the war, truly merited the accolades showered on him and justified his appointment to the Regular Army. He won the respect and friendship of his peers and the adulation of his subordinates. He gained promotion without the politicking so common among others. He did not boast of his achievements. In short, Terry was one of the most successful and admirable Union generals.

  Terry’s record in the West after the Civil War stands in marked contrast to his Civil War career. He cannot be classified a failure but was not a success. He ran his department competently from his desk in St. Paul but seems to have lacked the initiative to advance his beliefs as other department commanders did. Terry did nothing to stir trouble with either Sheridan or his subordinates. His subordinate field commanders ran their domains largely on their own, reporting their activities and receiving logistical support from headquarters. His membership on the Peace Commission of 1867–68 was substantial but was more a learning experience than a contribution. His one field experience, forced on him by President Grant and General Sheridan, turned out calamitously. He bears much of the blame, which he shares with General Crook. History has been kinder to both than was General Sheridan, whose remark at the end of the campaign of 1876 strikes the right note: “The fact of the case is, the operations of Genls. Terry and Crook will not bear criticism, and my only thought has been to let them sleep. I approved what was done, for the sake of the troops, but in doing so, I was not approving much, as you know.”14

  Terry’s competence as an administrator and his likable demeanor spared him harsh criticism. Compared to his colleagues heading departments, however, he emerges as a mediocre though extremely well-liked brigadier. The memorial plaque fixed to the wall of the United Church in New Haven, Connecticut, well phrases the legacy of Alfred H. Terry: “Honored by his countrymen for his unsullied patriotism, and his devoted service to the nation in war and in peace. Loved for the purity of his life, and the nobility of his character. 1827–1890.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  EVALUATING THE COMMANDERS

  The generals treated in these chapters shared a number of things in common. All were Union combat commanders during the Civil War. Their war records were substantial enough to lift them to the grade of major general, either in the Volunteer Army or by brevet in either the Volunteers or the Regulars. They all believed in placing their lives at risk for the preservation of the Union. They all served after the war as department commanders in the West in the rank of brigadier general. They all were born and raised east of the Mississippi River and so grew up with roughly the same mid-century values, either rural or urban. All but two gained their education at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, thus fostering a uniformity of military thought and ambition. One of these two was educated in the law, while the other educated himself. Of the seven, four served in the West before the war as junior officers, three in line combat units, and one in a staff position. These officers ventured west after the Civil War with insights denied to their colleagues.

  The generals approached the West and its Indian inhabitants with attitudes more or less typical of their time. Those who had not served in the West before the war thought of the West, if they thought of it at all, as a romantic land of adventure; those who had served there knew it for what it was: a hard land of beauty and sterility. All viewed the Indians as most easterners did: as exotic savages who disrupted the legitimate westward movement of the American people, who should be compelled or led to yield their lands to the “civilized race” and work to elevate themselves. To be sure, most generals sympathized with the Indians’ plight and believed that white people caused most Indian hostilities. Still, frontier officers of all ranks knew where their duty lay and harbored little hesitation in carrying it out.

  The generals represented their generation in believing that the nation’s destiny lay in uniting East and West in one political and economic polity. Exploiting land for agriculture, livestock grazing, minerals, and commerce took precedence over the rights of Indians. Settlements and travel routes—trails, roads, and railways—commanded high priority among the generals. Such manifestations of white culture both provoked and tempted the affected Indians. The gen
erals faced Indian hostilities, ranging from minor skirmishes to full-scale Indian wars as they took station in the West. Their adaptation to the new environment, so in contrast to Civil War operations, influenced the course of events and whether they gained a second star in the postwar army.

  Did the commanders treated in this volume shape the West, and if so how?

  They were department commanders, the most influential component of frontier military geography. The department was the shock absorber insulating the field units from the division commander. The way in which they carried out their function determined how their subordinates performed. And how their subordinates performed helped shaped the West that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. Many other factors—economic, political, environmental, demographic—combined to shape the postwar West, but the department commanders must be counted among the shapers. They and their troops helped open the West to settlement, helped subdue the Indians, helped protect westerners from Indians, pioneered wagon roads, aided the advance of railroads, erected telegraph lines, and fortified white citizens’ morale by their proximity. They also had a huge impact on the Indian peoples with whom they or the subordinates under their orders engaged.

  History holds the generals partly accountable for the tragedy of the American Indian. But like all other expansionists, they were products of their times. They were bound by the military code of obedience to orders—as men of their times they could not have acted otherwise. They should be judged within the context of their times—in this accounting as Indian fighters.