The Plot to Kidnap Benedict Arnold

 

Sergeant Major John Champe (1752 -1798) was a senior enlisted soldier in the Continental Army serving in the Virginia Cavalry under “Light Horse Harry” Lee.  In October 1780, “Lee’s Legion” was encamped near Bergen, New Jersey, a few miles from the Hudson River.  It was   here that Champe, a native of Loudon County, became involved in one of the most fantastic plots of the war.  Namely, the kidnapping of the traitor Benedict Arnold.

In September 1780, Arnold’s plot to surrender the stronghold of West Point (and possibly George Washington as his prisoner) to the British unraveled.  Arnold fled to the British and was rewarded with cash and the rank of brigadier general in the British Army.  George Washington wanted the traitor brought before him alive, “My aim is to make a public example of him.”  Washington’s plan called for a soldier to cross the Hudson River and present himself in New York as a deserter.  With the aid of spies already in New York, this secret agent would then kidnap Arnold and bring him back across the Hudson into American lines. Did General Lee know of a man up to the task?  Indeed he did, one John Champe who “was about twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, had enlisted in 1776, rather above the common size, full of bone and muscle, with a saturnine countenance, grave, thoughtful, and taciturn, of tried courage and inflexible perseverance.”

Champe was intrigued with the plan which he found “powerful and delicious.” Champe was not concerned with the danger but was troubled by the idea of being seen as a deserter.  General Lee assured Champe that his reputation would be protected if the enterprise failed.  And so the die was cast.  On the night of October 20, 1780, John Champe rode off with his arms to desert to the British.  An American patrol spotted him and, when he did not halt when given the command, the patrol gave chase. Only moments ahead of the pursuing patrol, Champe plunged into the Hudson River and swam toward a British warship. The warship sent a boat to pick him up and fired upon the pursuing Americans.

Champe was questioned by a series of ever-higher-ranking British officers to whom he told the same story over and over.  Men like himself were following Benedict Arnold's example.  The morale among American troops was low.  The British already believed disaffection was rampant in Washington’s army and so were only too willing to believe Champe’s story.

He was introduced to Benedict Arnold, who made Champe one of his recruiting sergeants for the Loyalist American Legion.  Champe now had continuous access to Arnold’s house overlooking the Hudson River.  Champe sent General Lee his plan to abduct the traitor. Arnold’s fenced garden overlooked the river, and Arnold strolled in the garden every night before he went to bed.  Champe intended to pry fence boards loose, and with the help of one of Washington’s spies already in the city, would tie and gag Arnold and drag him to a waiting small boat.  If stopped by anyone Champe would say they were taking a drunken soldier to the guard house.

The plan now went awry.  The day before the planned abduction, Arnold moved his quarters to another part of Manhattan, taking Champe, his recruiter, with him.  Soon after, Arnold's American Legion sailed to join other British units in an invasion of Virginia.  After sailing up the James River, Arnold and his invasion force took Richmond. The British moved freely about Virginia burning and pillaging.  Washington’s attitude toward Arnold hardened, he no longer worried about Arnold becoming a martyr. After ordering Major General the Marquis de Lafayette to Virginia to confront the invaders, Washington ordered that if Arnold were captured he was to be summarily executed.

Back in his native Virginia, John Champe found himself in the odd position of fighting with Arnold’s troops, sometimes against his old commander General Lee.  Finally, Champe was able to escape through British lines and make his way to the Appalachian Mountains, eventually returning to “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s command. When Lee’s men learned the true story, they showed Champe “love and respect” for his “daring” adventure, Lee wrote years later in his memoir.

Widows of Custer's Seventh Cavalry

 

On June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, five companies of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped out.  News of Custer’s death reached Fort Abraham Lincoln and his wife Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer, on July 6.

On July 29, 1876, “Libbie” Custer met with the widows and children of the enlisted men who died at the battle of the Little Bighorn.  She thanked them for their friendship and bade them farewell.  She presented each child with a picture of her husband George Armstrong Custer in uniform.

The next morning four widows, Libbie Custer, Maggie Custer Calhoun the widow of Lt. James Calhoun, “The Adonis of the 7^th”, Nettie Brown Smith the widow of Lt. Algernon Smith, and Annie Yates the widow of Captain George Yates traveled by carriage and steamboat to Bismarck in the Dakota Territory.  From Bismarck they went by train on toward their final destinations.

The journey of the widows was widely reported in the press.  An article in The Findlay Jeffersonian reported, “It is a tragic sight.  It is now thought that Mrs. Custer will not long survive her husband.  Her condition is a critical one, and her death may be looked for at any time.  The bullet that pierced the brave Custer was also the death wound for his loving wife.”

Once settled in at her in-law’s home in Monroe Michigan, Libbie transformed the room she occupied into a shrine to her late husband, making the room a replica of their quarters at Fort Abraham Lincoln.  Custer’s uniforms were even placed in the wardrobe next to her own clothes.

The widows, especially Libbie were perplexed and irritated that some newspapers blamed Custer’s recklessness for the disaster at the Little Bighorn.  Much more congenial was a letter of condolence from Major General George B. McClellan under whom Custer once served during the Civil War.

“As a man, I mourn in your noble husband’s death the loss of a warm, unselfish and devoted friend.  As a soldier and citizen, I lament the death of one of the most brilliant ornaments of the service and the nation, a most able and gallant soldier, a pure and noble gentleman….It is some consolation to me, I cannot doubt it is to you, that he died as he had lived, a gallant gentleman, a true hero, fighting unflinchingly to the last desperate odds.” 

Libbie Custer found success as an author.  Her three books, Boots and Saddles (1885), Following the Guidon (1890), and Tenting on the Plains (1893) recount her life with Custer on the frontier.  Elizabeth Custer paints a human portrait of Custer as, “boyish”, as the soldier’s friend, and as a man devoted to his mother. 

 Elizabeth Custer was widowed at the age of thirty-four and spent the next fifty-seven years, until her death in 1933, glorifying and defending her husband’s reputation.   Only after her death did historians begin seriously re-examining the Custer legend.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Whiskey: the Death of Custer?

 

Heavy drinking was common in the frontier army. But did it lead to the death of George Armstrong Custer?

Was Major Marcus Reno drunk at the Battle of the Little Bighorn?  Did this cause Custer’s death?  Pro-Custer partisans have argued for almost one hundred and fifty years that this was the case.  But the evidence is mixed.

 Captain Edward S. Godfrey recounts that Major Reno had a half a gallon keg of whiskey with the pack train.

 We have two eyewitness accounts of Reno having liquor on the battlefield on June 25,1876.  Private William O. Taylor recounts that when Major Reno charged the village, “The Major and Lieutenant Hodgson were riding side by side a short distance in the rear of my Company. As I looked back Major Reno was just taking a bottle from his lips. He then passed it to (the Lt) Lieutenant Hodgson. It appeared to be a quart flask, and about one half or two thirds full of an amber colored liquid. There was nothing strange about this, and yet the circumstances remained indelibly fixed in my memory.

Much later in the afternoon, when the pack train joined Major Reno’s command on Reno Hill, Lieutenant Edward Mathey reported that Reno greeted them holding a bottle of whiskey and calling out, “I got half a bottle yet.”

 Assuming that Major Reno started the day with a fresh flask and consumed all of the alcohol himself, he may have consumed from 7-11 straight shots of whiskey between approximately 12 PM and 5 PM when the pack train arrived.

 Heavy drinking was common in the frontier army. Many soldiers drank because they believed liquor was nutritious, stimulated digestion, and relaxed the nerves. Liquor was also consumed to help wash down food that was often poorly cooked, greasy, salty, and sometimes even rancid.

 During the Civil War, a variety of alcoholic beverages were distributed as medicine, thought to cure a host of ailments.

 Major Reno drank, but so did other officers, including many in the Seventh Cavalry.   One of Reno’s predecessors, Major Robert Wickliffe Cooper, who served with Custer in 1866-1867, was a serious alcoholic.  During an expedition against the Cheyenne and Sioux, Cooper ran out of whiskey causing him to experience extreme withdrawal symptoms.  He committed suicide on June 8, 1867 while in a fit of delirium. 

Prior to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Major Reno’s drinking had never been said to have impaired his abilities.

At the Reno Court of Inquiry, the accusation of Major Reno’s drunkenness came from the testimony of civilian mule packers B.F. Churchill and John Frett who had personal grievances against Reno because he demanded to know why they were not on the battle line during the siege of Reno Hill. 

Lt. Edward G. Mathey stated that Reno showed no signs of drunkenness. Lieutenant Wallace testified that he saw no evidence of insobriety and had never even heard the accusation until the court convened. Lt. Edgerly testified that Major Reno was perfectly sober.  Captain Benteen testified that Reno was entirely sober at the time.  Custer partisans considered such testimony as part of an Army cover-up.

Ultimately, the court of inquiry did not find Major Reno remiss in his duty in any way, which did not save him from being found guilty by the pro-Custer Press and partisans, leading to his descent into alcoholism and personal degradation.

While there were witnesses to testify on Major Reno’s behalf, there were no such witnesses to testify for the soldiers who died with Custer.  Many Sioux and Cheyenne eyewitnesses, including Lazy White Bull, Soldier Wolf, Hollow Horn Bear and Iron Hawk all said Custer’s men acted “drunk” and this explained why the soldiers became crazy and shot each other and themselves instead of shooting at their enemies.

Other warriors including Wooden Leg, Little Hawk and Bobtail Horse found bottles of whiskey on dead troopers.

Custer’s Crow scout Goes Ahead reported that even Custer was drunk during the battle. While implausible, this testimony still stands as part of the historical record.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

The Price of Glory: The Parallel lives of Wesley Merritt and George Armstrong Custer

 

 

Merritt and Custer opposite each other across the table

     Two outstanding Civil War era cavalry officers had remarkably similar careers: Wesley Merritt and George Armstrong Custer.  One became a footnote in history.  The other became a legend.

     Merritt was born in 1836.  Custer was born in 1839.  Both men graduated from West Point.  Merritt in 1860, Custer in 1861.  Both were commissioned as second lieutenants.  Both men became captains in 1862.

     In 1863, Merritt was appointed brigadier general of volunteers for his "gallant and meritorious service" at the Battle of Brandy Station.  Being promoted directly from being a 26-year-old captain to brigadier general was unusual, but in addition to Wesley Merritt two others attained this distinction in 1863, Captain Elon J. Farnsworth and 23-year-old Captain George Armstrong Custer. Custer became a brigadier general of volunteers, commanding the Michigan Cavalry Brigade (the "Wolverines").

     Both Wesley Merritt and George Custer were in the thick of the fighting in the East for the duration of the war, and both became brevet Major Generals, Custer in March 1865 and Merritt in April 1865.

     After the war both Merritt and Custer reverted to their permanent ranks in the regular army.  Merritt was appointed lieutenant colonel of the newly raised U.S. 9th Cavalry on July 28, 1866, and in July 1867 was sent to command Fort Davis, Texas.  On July 28, 1866, Custer was appointed lieutenant colonel of the newly created 7th Cavalry Regiment.

     In 1868, Custer led the 7th Cavalry in an attack on the Cheyenne encampment of Chief Black Kettle at the Battle of Washita. The Battle of Washita was regarded as the first substantial U.S. victory in the Southern Plains War, and it helped force a large portion of the Southern Cheyenne onto a U.S.-assigned reservation.  In 1873, Custer was sent to the Dakota Territory to protect a railroad survey party against the Lakota. In 1874 Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and announced the discovery of gold. On June 25, 1876, George Armstrong Custer and all the men under his direct command were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

     Wesley Merritt was made colonel of the 5th Cavalry on July 1, 1876, which he commanded in the Battle of Slim Buttes. The Battle of Slim Buttes was fought on September 9–10, 1876, in the Great Sioux Reservation between the United States Army and Miniconjou Sioux.  It marked the first significant victory for the army since the stunning defeat of Custer at the Little Bighorn. 

     As colonel of the 5th Cavalry, Merritt was a member of the court of inquiry convened to consider the behavior of Major Marcus Reno at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The court of inquiry did not find Major Reno remiss in his duty.  The court found that Reno had been confronted with so overwhelming a force of Indians that to have charged into the village would have resulted in the total annihilation of his battalion.  The court found that had he held his second position in the timber, the same result would probably have occurred. 

     In the later career of Wesley Merritt, we get an inkling of what might have happened to George Armstrong Custer had he not been killed at the Little Bighorn. Merritt served on the frontier until being appointed superintendent of West Point, a post he filled from 1882 to 1887. In 1887, he was appointed brigadier general in the Regular Army. He was promoted to major general in the U.S. Army in 1895.

     Merritt served during the Spanish American War of 1898 and became the first American military governor of the Philippines.  General Merritt retired from the Army in 1900 and died from natural causes at the age of 74 in 1910. He is buried at West Point Cemetery.

    After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the bodies of George Custer and his brother Tom were wrapped in canvas and blankets, then buried on the field in a shallow grave.  When soldiers returned a year later, the brothers' grave had been scavenged by animals and the bones scattered. "Not more than a double handful of small bones were picked up." George Custer was reinterred with full military honors at West Point Cemetery on October 10, 1877. 

     Today, the highly successful, respected and decorated Wesley Merritt is remembered, if at all, as a footnote to history.  George Armstrong Custer is, for good or ill, a household name.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Custer and the Trading Post Scandal

 

The classic Custer movie, They Died with Their Boots On, starring Errol Flynn, presents a mangled version of the life and death of George Armstrong Custer.  According to the movie a few corrupt politicians goaded the western tribes into war for personal profit, threatening the survival of all settlers in the Dakota Territories. Custer and his men give their lives at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in order to slow the Native American advance. A letter left behind by Custer, now considered his dying declaration, names the culprits and absolves the Indians of all responsibility for the war.  Custer dies but wins his final campaign for the right and the good.

Although almost totally nonsensical, there is a nugget of truth here.  In 1870, Secretary of War William Belknap lobbied Congress to pass a law vesting sole authority in the War Department to license and choose sutlers at Western military forts. The authority previously granted to U.S. Army regimental officers, at the individual forts, was revoked.  Both U.S. Army soldiers and reservation Indians bought supplies at these trading posts now under the patronage of William Belknap. 

Belknap awarded traderships at the forts based largely on the size of the kickbacks he received from the investor to support his lavish lifestyle.  To increase profits, Belknap forced soldiers and reservation Indians to buy supplies only from these authorized traderships, which charged exorbitant prices.  Belknap, awarded Orvil Grant, the brother of President Ulysses S. Grant, four traderships.  In February 1876, the New York Herald reported that Orvil Grant made money in the Sioux country by starving the squaws and children while selling repeating rifles to Indian tribes, to make even more money.  It was known that the Lakota Sioux on the reservations were buying frayed blankets, rotten beef and concrete-hard flour at the traderships with the money appropriated by the government for their maintenance and well-being.

Democratic Representative Hiester Clymer launched an investigation into corruption in the Grant administration. George Armstrong Custer was called to testify before Clymer’s committee.     Custer accused President Grant's brother and Secretary of War Belknap of corruption. An enraged President Grant stripped Custer of overall command of a column chosen to subdue the Sioux and placed him under the command of Brigadier General Alfred Terry.  Custer was on the brink of professional and financial ruin, having run up massive gambling debts and then having alienated the President of the United States.

Only one thing could save Custer, victory on the battlefield.  If Custer could win a smashing victory over Indians in the West, all would be well again. In his most hopeful fantasies Custer imagined a draft Custer for President Movement at the Democratic convention which was to open in St. Louis on June 27, 1876.  Custer had spent part of his trip East jawboning with political “King Makers” and had a following among some Democratic politicians. 

More realistically, a victorious Custer could expect accolades at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and big box office receipts for a lecture tour for which he was already scheduled.

Instead of being swept into either riches or the White House in a wave of martial euphoria, George Armstrong Custer met his death along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876. 

Custer’s death was immediately politicized.  Enemies of the administration …pointed accusing fingers at President Grant, blaming him for Custer’s death, and urging voters to settle with the Republican Party in the fall elections.  Grant’s partisans struck back vilifying Custer.  Grant weighed in personally claiming that Custer overextended himself and his men to deprive fellow officers of their share of victory.

 As for Belknap.  He confessed to President Grant that kickback payments had been made, but that they were engineered by his wife, unbeknownst to him.  The President accepted Belknap’s resignation.  The Democratic House of Representatives went on to impeach Belknap, notwithstanding his resignation.  Belknap was acquitted by the Senate, many Senators believing that that a private citizen could not be impeached by the House or put on trial by the Senate.

 William Belknap is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Frank Finkel: The Great Liar of the Little Bighorn?

 

      In 1920, sixty six year old Frank Finkel was a moderately wealthy farmer in Dayton, Washington, living a quiet life with his wife and children.  This changed in April 1920 when Finkel got into a public (perhaps beer enhanced) argument with one of his cronies who made some ill-chosen comments about George Armstrong Custer being ambushed by Indians.

 

      “You don’t know what you are talking about,” roared Finkel.

  

      “What makes you such an authority,” asked the neighbor.

 

       “I was there,” retorted Finkel.

    

     Was Finkel just an obnoxious know-it-all shooting off his mouth, a man making a grab for “stolen glory”, or the sole survivor of Custer’s Last Fight?  Within a week Finkel was telling his story at a Kiwanis Club meeting and the press was there.  A breathless article stated that Finkel:

“GAVE TO THE CLUB THE ACCOUNT OF HIS THRILLING ESCAPE AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT PREVENTED THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS SURVIVAL FROM REACHING THE GOVERNMENT AT THE TIME.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN W. SUMMERS OF WALLA WALLA WAS A GUEST AT THE LUNCHEON AND HE WILL MAKE AN EFFORT TO GET GOVERNMENT RECOGNITION OF MR. FINKLE’S STORY.”

     Finkel claimed that, early in the battle, both he and his horse were shot, and the horse bolted. Days after the disaster, Finkel shot his dying horse in the head. Finkel wandered on and then discovered a shack in the middle of the uncharted territory. A man called Bill doctored him back to health. When Finkel returned to civilization he discovered that his own name appeared in the Bismarck Tribune as among the dead.  He said he reported to an Army officer to request a discharge, but gave up on the matter when the officer required him to provide two witnesses to vouch for his identity.  Now, officially dead, Finkel never returned to the Army.

     Historians who support Finkel's claim argue that several details in his account could only be known by someone who was at the Little Bighorn and that Frank Finkel was actually George August Finckle, a sergeant in Tom Custer's Company C.  Historians in the pro-Frank Finkel camp, such as John Koster, author of the book Custer Survivor, argue that George August Finckle was erroneously reported as killed in action.

     Maybe, but there seems to be a great deal of evidence running against Frank Finkel’s story.  Frank Finkel himself was adamant that he was a private and occasionally an acting corporal, but never a sergeant.  Did he perhaps forget a false name under which he enlisted? Those who dispute Finkel's claim argue that army records at the time do not indicate the existence of a Frank Finkel and that the fate of all the people who have been suggested as possible false names for Finkel are known.

     What about Frank Finkel’s encyclopedic knowledge of the battle and the local terrain?  By 1920 a great deal had been written about the battle, including a lengthy account written in 1892 for The Century Magazine by Lt. Edward Godfrey, who had survived the fight at Reno Hill. In 1892, Lieutenant Godfrey also told of finding a dead 7th Cavalry horse, at the place Frank Finkel claimed he had shot his wounded horse.  By 1912, there had even been a movie made about the battle called Custer’s Last Fight, which Frank Finkel and his wife saw at the Keylor Grand Theater in Walla Walla, Washington.

     What additional evidence is there that Frank Finkel was not George August Finckle, the sergeant in Tom Custer's Company C?  The sergeant’s body was identified, but is it possible that the identification was an error?  Although the bodies of the cavalrymen were bloated and badly mutilated, sergeant Finckle’s body was identified by three people who knew him, Sgt. Samuel Alcott, Sgt. Daniel Kanipe, and Lt. Edward Godfrey.  Sergeant George August Finckle was also the tallest enlisted man in the 7th Cavalry and one of the heaviest, making his identification that much easier.  Further research has demonstrated the sergeant’s handwriting was totally different from that of Frank Finkel.

     Frank Finkel died in 1930 at the age of seventy six, never having tried to profit from his lone survivor story.  We can only guess at his motives for telling the story.  Perhaps he had just become obsessed with the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Custer’s Last Stand: Were There Really Survivors?

 

     On June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, five companies of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped out.  Over the course of the next seventy years, however, more than 120 men would come forward claiming to be the sole survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. 

     Custer’s widow received dozens of letters detailing the horrors of the battle and the writer’s lucky escape.  There were basically three types of stories: (1) the survivor disguised himself as an Indian, (2) the survivor hid inside a scooped out horse, (3) the survivor was saved by an Indian maiden who instantly fell in love with him.   Some of these so-called survivors, such as “Arizona Bill” Gardner became minor celebrities.

     Not everyone who rode out with Custer’s five companies died of course, simply because they never made it to the final fight.  Sergeant Daniel Kanipe was dispatched by Custer to hurry up the pack train, and trumpeter Giovanni Martini was sent with orders for Captain Benteen to “Come quick”.  There were others.  Privates Peter Thompson, James Watson, John Fitzgerald and John Brennan, claiming problems with their horses, could not keep up with Custer and finally limped back to Reno’s position.

     The Crow scouts were not in the fight.  Custer sent his Crow scouts away about an hour before the final battle.  The scout Curly was the first to report Custer’s annihilation. Curly did not claim he fought in the battle, but only that he witnessed it from a distance.  When accounts of “Custer's Last Stand” began to circulate in the press, however, legends grew that Curly had actively participated in the battle, but had managed to escape. 

     Historian, Albert Winkler, asserts that Private Gustave Korn was a genuine survivor of the battle: Several contemporary accounts note that Korn's wounded horse bolted in the early stages of the battle, while he was serving with  ' I '  company.  Winkler speculates that the horse took Korn on a mad ride through the Indian village, back toward Reno’s original position, and up the bluffs to safety, before dropping dead from loss of blood.  However improbable this may seem, Korn did end up joining Reno's companies making their stand on Reno Hill.  The Bismarck Tribune printed the first known newspaper account of Korn's story in 1884.

     There were other stories of bolting horses taking men away from the scene of battle.  Corporal John Foley of C Company was chased for miles by three Indians armed only with bows. The pursuers were out of arrows when Foley panicked and shot himself in the head.  Others might have initially gotten away, only to be ridden down and killed.  Loyal Crow Indians found six skeletons with 7th Cavalry equipment years later, far from the battlefield.

     The most controversial survivor claimant is Frank Finkel.   The story goes like this:  Finkel claimed that, early in the battle, both he and his horse were shot, and the horse bolted. Days after the disaster, Finkel shot his dying horse in the head. Finkel wandered on and then discovered a shack in the middle of the uncharted territory. A man called Bill doctored him back to health. When Finkel returned to civilization he discovered that his own name appeared in the Bismarck Tribune as among the dead.  Now, officially dead, he never returned to the Army.

Historians who support Finkel's claim argue that several details in his account could only be known by someone who was at the Little Bighorn.  Those who dispute Finkel's claim argue that records at the time do not indicate the existence of a Frank Finkel and that the fate of all the people who have been suggested as possible false names for Finkel are known.  This controversy, like many others inspired by the Battle of the Little Bighorn, rages on.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

George Custer and the Death of Lieutenant Sturgis

 

On June 16, 1875, James “Jack” Sturgis graduated from West Point and was appointed a 2nd Lt, in the 7th Cavalry.  Jack Sturgis, at twenty-two, was the youngest officer in the regiment.  He was also the son of the 7^th cavalry’s commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Sturgis. 

Colonel Sturgis and Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer had a sometimes-prickly relationship.  Colonel Sturgis found himself almost always on detached duty leaving Custer in command of the troops in the field most of the time.  Sturgis suspected that this was the preference of Custer’s mentor Lt. General Philip Sheridan and often felt slighted.

Lt. Jack Sturgis would have had little time to get to know Custer.  He arrived at his duty station at Fort Abraham Lincoln in October 1875.  In March 1876 Custer went East to testifying before Congress.  Custer would not return until May 1876 in time to lead the troops in the field in the campaign against the Sioux.

On June 25, 1876, on the day of Custer’s last fight, Lt. Sturgis was with Company E, one of the five companies under Custer’s direct command that day, all of which were destroyed.  According to archaeological evidence and Native American accounts, it appears that Company E conducted a disciplined retreat toward Last Stand Hill until overwhelmed. 

Jack Sturgis’s body was never officially identified.  His blood-soaked underwear was picked up by General Terry’s troops across the river in the remnants of a Lakota camp. Several decapitated corpses were found near the river, and one soldier later claimed he recognized Sturgis’s scorched head along with several others in a Lakota fire pit.

It is believed that the unidentified remains of Jack Sturgis were buried in a mass grave with the enlisted soldiers.  In 1877 his mother, Jerusha Sturgis, insisted on seeing the spot where her son died. A marker was placed in the vicinity of Last Stand Hill in deference to his visiting mother. A photograph in the U/S. Signal Corps archives shows a heap of stones beside a crudely labeled board.  This fictitious grave was dismantled after the grief-stricken woman’s departure.

Colonel Samuel Sturgis never forgave Custer for the death of his son and became one of Custer’s most vocal critics.  Sturgis wrote that Custer, “was a brave man, but also a very selfish man.  He was insanely ambitious of glory.”

He wrote that Custer was “tyrannical and had no regard for the soldiers under him.”  Sturgis accused Custer of making his attack, “recklessly, earlier by thirty-six hours than he should have done, and with men tired out from forced marches.”   Pro-Custer editors rushed to Custer’s defense, which prompted a further stinging attack by Sturgis.

In 1877, plans were being made for a memorial statue to honor Custer. Colonel Sturgis wrote, “If a monument is to be erected to General Custer for God’s sake let them hide it in some dark valley, or veil it, or put it anywhere the bleeding hearts of the widows, orphans, fathers and mothers of the men so uselessly sacrificed to Custer’s ambition can never be wrung at the sight.”  The statue was eventually placed at West Point.

The watch of Jack Sturgis was restored to his parents in 1878, having been traded by Sioux who had escaped to Canada.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Doctor: Dr. Henry R. Porter

 

Three doctors were attached to the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

George Edwin Lord, commissioned as a first lieutenant, was the only commissioned medical officer.  The other two, Dr. James Madison DeWolf and Dr. Henry R. Porter, were civilian surgeons under contract with the army.  Dr. Lord accompanied Custer and the headquarters battalion and was killed along with all of the men under Custer’s direct command. 

Dr. DeWolf was killed during Reno's retreat from the timber to Reno Hill. He successfully crossed the ford before being shot from his horse and scalped in full view of Reno’s retreating men.

Dr. Henry R. Porter was attached to Reno’s command and successfully escaped from the timber to Reno Hill.  For two days Dr. Porter cared for some thirty wounded men, improvising a field hospital which was under constant fire.  The majority of these thirty men survived. Porter had laudanum to ease pain, and used a carbolic-acid solution to sterilize wounds

Porter’s accounts of the battle were published in the New York Herald, in 1876, and the in Bismarck Tribune in 1878.

In an interview given in 1900, Dr, Porter recounted: “As soon as we could, several of the officers and myself went over to where Custer had fought…. We found Custer's body stark naked, as white and clean as a baby's. He was shot in the head and breast. The body of Captain Tom Custer, General Custer's brother, was horribly mutilated. He was disemboweled, and his head had been crushed in by a blow from a stone hammer used by the Indians. The only arrow wound I found was in his head. He had the Sioux mark of death, which was a cut from the hip to the knee, reaching to the bone. His heart was not cut out, as has been reported…. I cut a lock of hair from the head of each officer as he lay and gave it to their families on my return home…. After burying the dead, we took the wounded on litters ten or twelve miles to the (the steamer Far West), and I was detailed to go down to Fort Lincoln with them.” 

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time