George Armstrong Custer and Onions

 

George Armstrong Custer’s life is usually told in the language of cavalry charges, velvet jackets, cinnamon‑scented curls, and the tragedy of the Little Bighorn. But tucked inside the historical record is a surprisingly earthy thread: Custer’s relationship with onions.

Far from a mere dietary preference, onions were a staple that Custer devoured with enthusiasm.

Onions were not always easy to come by on the Western plains in the 1870s, but when they were available, Custer treated them like a delicacy.

His wife, Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer, documented this habit vividly in her memoir Boots and Saddles. She recounted how, during expeditions, Custer would eagerly consume raw onions, noting their scarcity and value on the frontier — “as rare out there, and more appreciated than pomegranates are in New York.”

In an 1873 letter to Libbie while on the Yellowstone River expedition, Custer wrote with glee: “I supped on RAW ONIONS; I will probably breakfast, lunch and dine on them tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after.”

He and his younger brother Tom Custer, who also perished at Little Bighorn, were both enthusiastic onion lovers.

Libbie herself was less enamored with the results. The strong odor of raw onions on her husband’s breath became a running theme in their correspondence and her writings.

Custer's Last Stand Re-Examined

Mysterious Treasure Legends of Arizona

After the Little Bighorn: Surviving Officers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment

 

The Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25-26, 1876, resulted in the complete annihilation of five companies (C, E, F, I, and L) under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, including all officers in those units. However, the remaining seven companies (A, B, D, G, H, K, and M) under Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen survived the engagement, though with significant casualties (around 53 killed and 84 wounded across the regiment's survivors). These units retreated to a defensive position on what is now known as Reno Hill, where they held off attacks until relieved by forces under Generals Alfred Terry and John Gibbon on June 27. The surviving officers continued their military careers, with some facing scrutiny over the battle's tactics. A U.S. Army Court of Inquiry in 1879, requested by Reno, examined the conduct during the retreat and defense but cleared the officers involved of wrongdoing. Many participated in subsequent campaigns against Native American tribes, and the 7th Cavalry was reconstituted with new recruits by late 1876. Below is a summary of key surviving officers, their roles in the battle, and their post-battle fates, based on historical records.

Marcus Reno

Major; commanded the initial valley attack (Companies A, G, M) and led the retreat to Reno Hill for defense. Cleared by the 1879 Court of Inquiry but faced ongoing criticism for not supporting Custer more aggressively. Continued in the Army but was court-martialed twice for unrelated conduct issues (drunkenness and improper advances); dismissed from service in 1880. Worked as a civilian clerk and died of cancer in 1889 at age 54. His remains were reinterred at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1967.

Frederick Benteen

Captain; commanded Companies D, H, K; reinforced Reno on the hill and led counterattacks. Testified at the 1879 inquiry, criticizing Custer's decisions and defending the defensive stand. Promoted to major in 1882; retired in 1888 due to health issues from rheumatism and alcoholism. Died in 1898 at age 63.

Edward S. Godfrey

First Lieutenant; Company K under Benteen; helped establish skirmish lines on Reno Hill. Promoted through the ranks, reaching brigadier general by 1907. Participated in the Nez Perce War (1877) and Wounded Knee Massacre (1890). Retired in 1907 and died in 1932 at age 88.

Thomas Weir

Captain; Company D under Benteen; led an advance toward Custer's position but retreated to the hill. Suffered from post-battle depression and heavy drinking; died suddenly in New York City on December 9, 1876, at age 38, possibly from complications related to alcoholism or suicide.

Thomas McDougall

Captain; commanded Company B and the pack train escort. Joined the defense on Reno Hill. Continued service in the 7th Cavalry; promoted to major in 1895. Retired in 1896 and died in 1909 at age 64.

Thomas French

Captain; Company M under Reno; fought in the valley retreat. Testified at the 1879 inquiry. Court-martialed in 1880 for drunkenness and dismissed from service. Died in 1882 at age 34 from complications of alcoholism.

Henry Rinaldo Porter

Acting Assistant Surgeon; provided medical care on Reno Hill (sole surviving surgeon). Treated over 30 wounded during the siege. Mustered out in September 1876; returned to private medical practice in Bismarck, Dakota Territory. Later practiced in various locations; died in 1903 at age 55.

Charles Varnum

Second Lieutenant; chief of scouts (detached from Company A); wounded in the defense. Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions at White Clay Creek (1890) during the Ghost Dance War. Rose to colonel; retired in 1907 and died in 1936 at age 86.

Luther Hare

Second Lieutenant; second-in-command of scouts (detached from Company K). Continued service; participated in the Spanish-American War. Retired as lieutenant colonel in 1905; died in 1929 at age 77.

Winfield Edgerly

First Lieutenant; Company D under Weir. Promoted to captain; served in the Spanish-American War and Philippine-American War. Retired as brigadier general in 1913; died in 1927 at age 81.

Francis Gibson

First Lieutenant; Company H under Benteen. Continued in the Army; retired as major in 1895. Died in 1919 at age 71.

Other junior officers and lieutenants (e.g., Edward Gustave Mathey with the pack train) also survived but had less prominent roles. Many survivors dealt with physical wounds, psychological trauma, and public controversy over the battle's outcome, with alcoholism affecting several careers. The 7th Cavalry went on to fight in other conflicts, including the Nez Perce War (1877) and Wounded Knee (1890), where some of these officers were involved.

Custer's Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer's Last Stand Re-Examined

Things George Armstrong Custer Said

 

On Ambition “When I was merging upon manhood, my every thought was ambitious—not to be wealthy, not to be learned, but to be great.”

On Education “I would rather have a good education and no money, than to have a fortune and be ignorant.”

On Perseverance “It's not how many times you get knocked down that counts, it's how many times you get back up.”

On the Value of Battle Experience “You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought... but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end and I would be willing, yes glad, to see a battle every day during my life.”

On Leadership and Duty “I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share its dangers.”

On the Nature of War “War isn't just killing, you know. It's a contest. It's a man against a man.”

On Preference for Freedom “If I were an Indian... I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhere to the free open plains, rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation.”

Custer's Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer's Last Stand Re-Examined

The Ten Oddest Things About the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

The Battle of the LittleBighorn on June 25-26, 1876, saw Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and over 260 men of the 7th Cavalry crushed by 1,500-2,000 Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. What should have been a routine scout became America’s most mythic military disaster, laced with bizarre quirks, miscalculations, and cultural collisions. Here are ten of the oddest:

One: Greasy Grass, Not Little Bighorn: The Native name came from the river’s slippery, grease-slicked grass after rain and butchering—far more poetic than the map label.

Two: Comanche the Sole “Survivor”: The only living creature from Custer’s five doomed companies was Captain Myles Keogh’s horse Comanche, found riddled with arrows and bullets but nursed back to health and retired with full honors.

Three: Custer’s Last-Minute Buzz Cut: The vain “Boy General” cropped his famous cinnamon-scented curls short days before to beat the heat—shattering the long-haired legend forever.

Four: Declined Gatling Guns: Offered modern rapid-fire cannons, Custer refused them, boasting “the Seventh can handle anything it meets.” They might have changed everything.

Five: Fought on Allies’ Land: The giant village sat illegally on Crow reservation territory. Custer’s own Crow and Arikara scouts were fighting their ancient Sioux enemies.

Six: Warriors’ Baffled Treasure Hunt: Sioux and Cheyenne found ticking watches “magic,” discarded them when they stopped, mistook paper money for children’s pictures, and believed compasses “pointed to dead white men.”

Seven: Dead-Horse Breastworks: On Last Stand Hill, troopers shot their own mounts to form a 30-foot circle of carcasses as makeshift barricades.

Eight: Mass Suicides in Panic: Multiple Native accounts describe soldiers turning guns on themselves or each other after Custer fell, rather than face capture and torture.

Nine: Sitting Bull’s Grasshopper Vision: Weeks earlier, the chief’s Sun Dance vision showed soldiers tumbling into camp “like grasshoppers from the sky”—eerily fulfilled.

Ten: Fake Survivors: Over the next 70 years, more than 120 men claimed to be the “lone survivor” of Custer’s battalion.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

The Ten Oddest Things About George Armstrong Custer

 

Here are the ten oddest things about George Armstrong Custer, whose glittering career ended in disaster at Little Bighorn

One:Baby-Talk Nickname: Family called him “Autie” his whole life after toddler George mispronounced his middle name “Armstrong.”

Two: West Point’s Worst Cadet: Graduated dead last (the infamous “goat”) in 1861 after racking up a mountain of demerits for pranks—snowball fights, stolen chickens, even wearing a wig to hide non-regulation hair.

Three: Cinnamon-Scented Locks: The vain cavalryman drenched his long golden curls in cinnamon oil so they smelled sweet during charges.

Four: Dandy Uniforms: Rode into battle wearing black velvet jackets trimmed with gold lace, bright red scarves, and wide-brimmed sombreros—looking more like a showman than a soldier.

Five: Boy General at 23: Promoted to brigadier general at age 23 after daring charges; newspapers dubbed him the youngest Union general.

Six: Surrender Table Trophy: His wife Libbie received the actual small table Grant used to draft Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. She loaned the table to the Smithsonian in 1912. Title to the table was transferred to the Smithsonian after her death.

Seven: Custer Family Massacre: Five members of his immediate family—including two brothers, a nephew, and brother-in-law—died with him atLittle Bighorn.

Eight: Court-Martialed for Love: Suspended a year in 1867 for abandoning his Kansas regiment without permission just to see his beloved Libbie.

Nine: Custer’s Luck: Eleven horses shot out from under him during the Civil War; he emerged unscathed every time—until June 25, 1876.

Ten: Last-Minute Haircut: Contrary to legend, he cropped his famous curls short right before Little Bighorn to beat the summer heat.

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

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

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

George Custer Accidentally Shoots His Horse

In 1874, George Armstrong Custer published My Life on the Plains, an account of his career as an Indian fighter to that time.  One story that Custer relates about his hunting a buffalo tells us much about his military skills.

“Determined to end the chase and bring down my game, I again placed the muzzle of the revolver close to the body of the buffalo, when, as if diving my intention, and feeling his inability to escape by flight, he suddenly determined to fight and at once wheeled, as only a buffalo can, to gore my horse.  So sudden was this movement, and so sudden was the corresponding veering of my horse to avoid the attack, that to retain my control over him I hastily brought up my pistol hand to the assistance of the other.  Unfortunately as I did so my finger, in the excitement of the occasion, pressed the trigger, discharged the pistol, and sent the fatal ball into the very brain of the noble animal I rode…. (I) found myself whirling through the air over and beyond the head of my horse.”

Custer now faced the buffalo on foot, but the animal wandered off without further ado.

Custer continues, “In a moment the danger I had unluckily brought myself stood out in bold relief before me….Here I was, alone in the heart of the Indian country, with warlike Indians known to be in the vicinity.  I was not familiar with the country.  How far I had travelled, or in what direction from the column, I was at a loss to know.  In the excitement of the chase I had lost all reckoning.  Indians were liable to pounce upon me at any moment.  My command would not note my absence probably for hours.  Two of my dogs overtook me, and with mute glances first at the dead steed, then at me, seemed to inquire the cause of this strange condition of affairs.  Their instinct appeared to tell them that were in misfortune.”

After wandering aimlessly “about three or four miles,” Custer saw a column of dust that he knew had one of three causes, “...white men, Indians, or buffaloes.”  Fortunately for him, on this occasion, Custer had stumbled on his own cavalry.

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Sneak Attack! (Four Alternative History Stories)

The False Narrative: The Man Who Loved Custer

Custer

     Six months after the battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876), Frederick Whittaker’s A Complete Life of General George A. Custer was published.  Whittaker’s book was a canonization which presented Custer as a dashing and brilliant military leader abandoned to his fate by lesser, disloyal, treacherous, and cowardly men.  Whittaker borrowed generously from Custer’s own book My Life on the Plains, as well as on his own imagination, which was fulsome, since Whittaker was a professional writer of nickel and dime novel fiction for a leading publisher.

     Whittaker opens, “Much of Custer success has been attributed to good fortune, while it was really the result of a wonderful capacity for hard, energetic work, and a rapidity of intuition which is seldom found apart from military genius of the highest order,” and continues.  “Few men had more enemies than Custer, and no man deserved them less. The world has never known half the real nobility of his life nor a tithe of the difficulties under which he struggled. It will be the author’s endeavor to remedy this want of knowledge, to paint in sober earnest colors the truthful portrait of such a knight of romance as has not honored the world with his presence since the days of Bayard.”

     Whittaker writes, “…Custer’s invariable method of attack was the same which he adopted at the Big Horn, an attack on front and flank…from all sides if he had time to execute it….He counted much on the moral effect to be produced on an enemy by combined attacks and a cross-fire, and always found his calculations correct.  In fact only one thing could vitiate them.  This was the cowardice or disobedience in the leader of any of the fractions which were to work simultaneously….” According to Whittaker, Custer died because of Major Reno’s incapacity and Captain Benteen’s disobedience.  “Reno was ordered to ‘charge’: he obeyed by opening a hesitating skirmish and then running away.  Benteen was ordered to ‘come on; be quick.’  He obeyed by advancing three miles in two hours, and joining Reno in a three hour halt….he stopped, and let his chief perish.”

     Whittaker now turns to the testimony of one of the Indian scouts, Curly, who claimed to have escaped from the field of battle.  When Curly saw that the party with Custer was about to be overwhelmed, he begged Custer to let him show him a way to escape.  “…Custer looked at Curly, waved him away and rode back to the little group of men, to die with them.”  Why, Whittaker asks, did Custer go back to certain death?  “Because he felt that such a death as that which that little band of heroes was about to die, was worth the lives of all the general officers in the world….He weighed, in that brief moment of reflection, all the consequences to America of the lesson of life and the lesson of heroic death, and he chose death.”

     Whittaker’s biography of Custer molded the public’s perception of George Armstrong Custer for over fifty years, because it was endorsed and defended by Custer’s widow and her powerful friends and allies.  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.

Sneak Attack! (Four Alternative HistoryStories) 

Sun Tzu, the Master of War, once said, “Those who are skilled in producing surprises will win. In conflict, surprise will lead to victory. ” Here are four stories about the history of the world IF wars we know about happened differently or IF wars that never happened actually took place.

Including:
1.The Hostage, in which Abraham Lincoln is kidnapped by the rebels.
2.The German Invasion of America of 1889, in which Germany unexpectedly launches its might against the United States.
3.The Invasion of Canada 1933, in which the new American dictator launches a sneak attack on Canada.
4.Cherry Blossoms at Night: Japan Attacks the American Homeland (1942), in which Japan attacks the American homeland in a very surprising way.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Since his death along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876, over five hundred books have been written about the life and career of George Armstrong Custer. Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.