by Owen J. Hurd
The master who owned York’s wife soon moved, and York was returned to Clark’s service, presumably never to see his wife again. Years later, Clark eventually did grant York his freedom and helped establish him in a delivery business. The business failed, and York decided to return to serve his master, but on his way he contracted cholera and died.
When Missouri achieved statehood in 1820, Clark lost the election for governor but was appointed superintendent of Indian Affairs. In this role, his attitude toward the native populations was inconsistent. He showed great sympathy to the Indians expelled by President Andrew Jackson, requisitioning supplies to relieve their suffering on the Trail of Tears. Yet he could also adopt a ruthless stance, as he did during the Black Hawk War, during which he pursued a war of extermination.
In 1834, Clark found himself in a financial predicament similar to Lewis’s: defending $30,000 in expenses that the government initially refused to honor. Things worked out better for Clark, and he returned to St. Louis to resume his duties. He died on September 1, 1838.
LOOSE ENDS
The Shoshone Indian woman Sacagawea provided crucial assistance to the expedition, acting as a guide and interpreter. The wife—more like property—of Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea had been acquired from Hidatsa warriors who had earlier captured her in a raiding party. Lewis and Clark met the couple at the Mandan village and hired them on for the rest of the expedition. Sacagawea gave birth to a son, Jean Baptiste, at the camp. He was just two months old when the Corps of Discovery resumed its westward journey in April 1805. It seems that Clark had formed a bond with Sacagawea, whom he nicknamed “Janey,” and her son, whom he liked to call “Pompey” or “Pomp.” On several occasions Clark offered to adopt and raise Pomp, an offer that Sacagawea and Charbonneau took him up on in 1809. Sacagawea later gave birth to a daughter named Lisette. Sacagawea died of some kind of fever in 1812 or thereabouts. By the following year, her daughter had also been entrusted to Clark’s care. Little is known about Lisette, but Jean Baptiste studied in St. Louis and as a young man traveled through Europe. He eventually returned to the American West where he worked as a mountain man and guide to the likes of explorer John C. Frémont. In 1848 he moved to California, taking part in the California Gold Rush.
Corps of Discovery member George Shannon was shot in the leg by Arikara Indians during the expedition to return Chief Sheheke to his tribe. Gangrene developed, so the leg had to be amputated. But Shannon survived and later became a lawyer, congressman, and district attorney.
After the expedition, several of the adventurous members of the corps returned to the wilds to seek their fortunes in the fur trade, including the team of John Potts and John Colter. The two were ambushed by Blackfoot Indians, who killed Potts but had other plans for Colter. Instead of killing him outright, they decided to make a sport of it. The Indians stripped him naked and gave him a running head start. Colter outsprinted all but one warrior, whom he disarmed and killed. He didn’t stop running again for eleven days, when he showed up at an American fort and trading post, exhausted, famished, and covered in wounds.
Expert hunter and trapper George Drouillard ran into trouble of a different sort. He killed a man during a fur trapping dispute and was brought back to St. Louis, where he was tried for murder. Fellow corps member George Shannon was on the jury, which may explain why he was acquitted of the crime. During a later trapping expedition, Drouillard was killed by Blackfoot Indians.
Sheheke provides one of the most pitiful stories related to the Lewis and Clark expedition. In the two years spent in St. Louis before returning to his people, the Mandan chief’s wife and son both died. By the time he finally returned to his people they had turned against him. Disgraced and disillusioned for the rest of his life, he was killed by hostile Sioux Indians in 1832.
In 1870, Patrick Gass, the last remaining member of the Corps of Discovery, died at the age of ninety-eight.
After the Last Stand
On June 27, 1876, Lieutenant Edward Godfrey led a scouting party toward the edge of the Little Bighorn River. He was looking for Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the 210 soldiers under his command—part of a three-pronged ambush on a Sioux Indian village. The battle had not gone well for the U.S. Army. The first wave of attack commanded by Major Marcus Reno was rebuffed by a larger than expected force of Sioux warriors. At the same moment Custer was launching his assault from the opposite side of the village, Reno was already in the midst of a panicked retreat to a hillside timber. Soon, Reno was reinforced by troops under the command of Major Frederick Benteen. The plan had called for Benteen to follow Custer’s charge, but he instead came to Reno’s aid—a decision that would earn Benteen short-term scorn and long-term praise. Benteen was no fan of Custer’s, it’s true, but his orders in the battle were vague, and he justifiably responded to an immediate and present need. If it hadn’t been for Benteen, Reno would have certainly lost many more than the 50-odd of his men who fell to the Sioux on June 25.
Custer, we all know, was not so lucky. As Godfrey approached the banks of the Little Bighorn, he found Custer and his men, the “marble-white bodies,” stripped and scalped, like inert figurines bleached by the glaring midday sun.
“The naked mutilated bodies, with their bloody fatal wounds,” Godfrey said, “were nearly all unrecognizable and presented a scene of sickening, ghastly horror!” The unmistakable visage of George Armstrong Custer, however, laid undisturbed, scalp intact. If not for the bullet holes—one in the head, the other through the ribs—the faint, unlikely smile lingering on Custer’s lips might have tricked Godfrey into believing that the legendary Indian fighter was yet living.
In all, the U.S. Army would lose 263 soldiers on that day, including all 210 of Custer’s men. It took another week to carry the news back to Fort Abraham Lincoln, located in the Dakota Territory, where twenty-four wives learned that they were now widows. Chief among them was Elizabeth Bacon Custer.
Now, without husband, children, or any other close relatives yet surviving, the thirty-four-year-old Libbie, as she was known, would spend the next fifty-seven years of widowhood, unwaveringly devoted to her late husband’s memory, shaping his reputation in the contemporary consciousness and building a legacy that she hoped would outlive her and her husband.
It wasn’t an easy task. The perception among many military men was that Custer had led his men to slaughter. According to the New York Times, “It is the opinion of Army officers…including Gens. Sherman and Sheridan, that Gen. Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number of Indians, Sitting Bull’s force being 4,000 strong.”
President Ulysses S. Grant agreed, telling reporters, “I regard Custer’s massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary—wholly unnecessary.”
The negative assessments were countered by more sentimental portrayals of the events penned by poets and sympathetic biographers. Custer’s most influential hagiographer was Frederick Whittaker. In his book, The Complete Life of General George A. Custer, published less than a year after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Whittaker placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Reno and Benteen. Libbie agreed, at least in terms of Reno, who she considered a coward. The theory was that Reno had beaten a too-hasty retreat in the face of Indian resistance. (It didn’t help that he was at the head of the retreat instead of bringing up the rear.) A court of inquiry later exonerated Reno of any wrongdoing in the battle, but his troubles weren’t over. Having a penchant for drink, Reno was implicated for several instances of drunken, boorish behavior. He got into barroom fistfights, made unwanted advances to a fellow officer’s wife, and was even caught peeping into the bedroom window of his commanding officer’s daughter. Reno was finally kicked out of the army in 1880.
Benteen’s post–Little Bighorn career was marred by alcohol, too. A military inspector sent to check on reports of Benteen’s “excessive use of intoxicating liquors” found the major “obstinate and unreasonable, and s
o abusive to those about him as to make it impossible to transact any business with him.” Found guilty in a court-martial, Benteen’s military career was over. It didn’t stop him from criticizing his deceased rival Custer. Benteen countered Whittaker’s biography with charges of Custer’s vanity, ineptitude, and even marital infidelity with a Cheyenne woman captured in a previous battle.
Many other would-be critics held their tongues, ostensibly out of respect for Custer’s widow, Libbie. Perhaps her most effective weapon in the public relations battle, then, was her longevity. Libbie lived to the age of ninety. Over those years, she also became a noted author and lecturer. She wrote three books glorifying her husband’s career in the American West, including Boots and Saddles (1885) and the most highly praised Tenting on the Plains (1893). In addition to lionizing her husband, these books also showed how challenging life on a western outpost was for extended military families. Her books included adventurous tales of prairie fires, storms, and Indian attacks. At one point she describes how she and her servant saved three drowning men from a rain-swollen river.
The Sioux Indians may have won the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but it would be the last victory in their struggle to maintain their precious and vanishing way of life. Fearing retribution, the Sioux splintered into smaller groups and scattered throughout the plains regions of the Dakota and Montana territories. Crazy Horse held out for six months before surrendering to the U.S. Army. He was taken to Camp Robinson in Nebraska, where he was killed in a scuffle with soldiers.
Chased by reinforced army regiments, Sitting Bull led a contingent of Sioux warriors and their families north into Canada, where they sought refuge for the next five years. Finally, facing starvation, Sitting Bull and about two hundred Sioux Indians surrendered at Fort Buford in North Dakota. Placed under house arrest, Sitting Bull was treated with a surprising level of hospitality. At various times, Sitting Bull was granted his freedom, long enough to make highly publicized visits to the white man’s metropolis. On trips to Bismarck, St. Paul, New York City, and Philadelphia the Sioux chief viewed his first locomotive (he refused to get on board), rode his first elevator, and tasted ice cream for the first time. He especially enjoyed Manhattan’s dancing girls.
In 1885 Sitting Bull was given leave to join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, parading about on horseback to the delight of large audiences and selling autographed portraits for two dollars apiece. During his theatrical tour, Sitting Bull developed a close friendship with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and especially Annie Oakley, whom he liked to call “Little Sure Shot.”
Libbie Custer was present at the first show featuring Sitting Bull and became a major supporter of the show’s “Custer’s Last Rally” segment. She wrote to thank Cody “for all that you have done to keep my husband’s memory green.” It appears Custer’s widow held surprisingly little contempt for the Indians who killed her husband at Little Bighorn.
After his stint in show biz, Sitting Bull led the quiet life of a reservation farmer, but he still managed to court controversy. He refused to sign treaties handing over Sioux lands to the United States. Things came to a head in December 1890, when government-allied Indian agents were instructed to arrest Sitting Bull. Rousing the naked chief from an early morning slumber, the agents caused a stir that attracted a crowd of Sitting Bull’s supporters. A scrum ensued followed by gunshots, and Sitting Bull was killed, along with his son and six supporters. Six Indian policemen also died in the fracas.
Sioux Indians loyal to Sitting Bull fled and were encamped at Wounded Knee, where troops in the Seventh Cavalry regiment attempted to broker a final surrender. But misunderstandings led once again to a disturbance, and ultimately violence. In the end, Custer’s old regiment wiped out between two to three hundred Sioux, exacting a brutal revenge and closing the final shameful chapter in the Great Sioux War.
When Libbie Custer died in 1933 at the age of ninety, she left behind an estate valued at $110,000—which was $120,000 more than her husband had left her back in 1876. But she had managed to work her way out of debt, earning the respect of her public in the process, at a time when it was far more difficult for a woman to earn her own living. She traveled the world, including trips to Europe, India, and the Middle East. It was a fulfilling, if lonely, life.
“I have two regrets,” she reflected, late in life, “my husband’s death and the fact that I had no son to bear his honored name.”
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show fell out of favor in the early 1900s, in part due to the nation’s increasingly skeptical perspective on the value of expansionism. As Manifest Destiny gave way to foreign imperialism, Cody actually incorporated scenes of foreign wars into his western tableaux. In re-creations of the Battle on San Juan Hill and the Battle of Tianjin (Boxer Rebellion), Cody inserted dark-skinned Indian actors to fill roles as Spanish and Chinese soldiers. The dubious authenticity of these performances—on several levels—spelled the show’s demise. William Cody himself suffered a slow, steady decline. Questionable—and wildly diverse—investments, from coffee suppliers to newspapers to gold mines to theatrical productions, drained his wealth. Cody’s most audacious enterprise turned out to be his most disastrous: the town of Cody, Wyoming. Situated in the Big Horn River Basin, alongside the unfortunately named—especially because it was accurate—Stinking Water River, the development project eventually cost Cody much of his wealth. Legal battles with his wife would account for much of the rest.
CHAPTER FIVE
LITERARY LEGACIES
THE mid-nineteenth century was an especially fertile period in American literature, but some of the most prominent authors of this era had a hard time making a living off of their masterpieces. Although authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott were very successful, the same cannot be said for Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville. Despite writing works that would be heralded by future generations, both Hawthorne and Melville were forced to work regular jobs in order to support their families.
Poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe enjoyed a degree of critical success but he too made very little money. Instead of resorting to a mind-numbing career in the civil service, he simply lived poor—and frequently borrowed money from wealthier associates.
Edgar Allan Poe: Ludwig’s Revenge
On October 3, 1849, a semiconscious man was found lying in a Baltimore street gutter. The man, dressed in ill-fitting, disheveled clothes—not his, it turned out—was highly distressed and mumbling incoherently. A Good Samaritan transported the man to a local hospital, where he was identified as Edgar Allan Poe. The renowned poet, critic, and writer of macabre stories was placed in the hospital’s mental ward. Four days later, he died of unknown causes.
Was Poe drugged, beaten, and robbed? Or had he gone on one too many monumental benders? Because he was found on election day, some suggested that Poe had been the victim of “cooping,” an obsolete electoral custom in which an individual was kidnapped, drugged, and forced to cast multiple votes for a political candidate. Cooping victims were often kept in a holding cell, akin to a chicken coop, and sometimes forced to swap clothes to fool election officials. That would explain Poe’s strange wardrobe, but this theory has never been proven. All records related to Poe’s hospital stay and death have been lost or destroyed, so it’s likely the cause of death will never be known.
Two days after Poe’s death, the New York Tribune published an obituary under the pseudonym, “Ludwig.” It began:
Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was well known personally or by reputation, in all this country. He had readers in England and in several states of Continental Europe. But he had few or no friends. The regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars.
Who was this mysterious Ludwig, and how did Poe get on his bad side? It could have been any numbe
r of people. Poe had a notoriously poisonous pen, which tended to make him more enemies than friends. As a literary critic he savaged the talents of contemporary writers, made spurious accusations of plagiarism, and even lobbed almost childish insults. Whoever it was showed a familiarity with—even a grudging respect for—Poe’s literary prowess.
“As a writer of tales it will be admitted generally, that he was scarcely surpassed in ingenuity of construction or effective painting,” the anonymous obituary writer conceded. Even so, this Ludwig could not resist taking shots at Poe’s “naturally unamiable character,” his “irascible, envious” nature, and his “cold repellant cynicism.” Most unbecoming, though, Poe “had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his species, only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve, but succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.”
An odd mix of praise and opprobrium, this obituary must have been written by a person intensely aggrieved by Poe, perhaps the victim of a stinging rebuke, delivered publicly, or a more private insult.
The list of individuals who likely felt justified in slandering the dead writer would have included fellow writer Charles Briggs, of whom Poe wrote, “Mr. Briggs has never composed in his life three consecutive sentences of grammatical English.” Of editor Thomas Dunn English, Poe said, “No spectacle can be more pitiable than that of a man without the commonest school education busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind on topics of polite literature.” English struck back in print, accusing Poe of forgery. Poe sued English for libel and won.
As Poe’s supporters sought to identify and expose the culprit, Poe’s mother-in-law (and aunt) Mrs. Maria Clemm, was already in negotiations with an editor named Rufus Griswold who was planning the definitive edition of Poe’s works. Mrs. Clemm, whom Poe had loved as a mother, hoped that the work would secure her famous son-in-law’s reputation as a literary genius. If the book also earned her a little cash, so much the better.