George Armstrong Custer: Changing Views of an American Legend

With Republican President Ulysses S. Grant pushing for a third term, the Democratic press called for an investigation into the criminal activities of his administration, and Pennsylvania Congressman Heister Clymer chaired the House Committee on Military Expenditures that oversaw the investigating. To escape prosecution, Belknap resigned on March 8, 1876, before the hearings began that spring. Even though he was preparing to command the Dakota column, which would soon take the field, Custer (who earlier had complained of the corrupt practices instituted by Belknap) was summoned to Washington to testify. His testimony on March 29 and April 4 implicated several government officials and Grant’s younger brother Orvil. Although much of Custer’s attestation was hearsay, history has proved him correct on all counts.

Trapped in Washington by the hearings, Custer wrote Libbie on April 17: The Radical papers continue to serve me up regularly. Neither has said one word against Belknap. He probably was referring to failed Republican attempts to prove he had committed perjury during his testimony before the committee. Custer had also earned the enmity of President Grant, who retaliated, as was reported in an article in the May 2 issue of the New York Herald headlined: Grant’s Revenge. He Relieves General Custer of His Command. The General’s Reward for Testifying Against the Administration.

Desperate, Custer appealed for help to Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry, who had assumed overall command of the Dakota column. When Sheridan added his endorsement, Grant relented, and Custer quickly headed west to report for duty.

Custer’s command was part of Sheridan’s tri-column policing action to round up non-reservation Indians (roamers) and force them back onto the reservations. None of Sheridan’s columns [Brig. Gen. George Crook, Colonel John Gibbon, or Terry, under whom Custer now served] feared or expected an attack, historian Robert Kershaw wrote. The military’s greatest fear was not being able to encircle its foe and therefore prevent him from escaping. Continuing, Kershaw wrote: Like modern peace-keeping armies conducting expeditionary police operations, the U.S. Army saw itself as restoring’sanity’ and ‘civilization’ in its support of continental westward expansion.

There is little doubt that Custer was aware that more warriors were off the reservations than reported by the Indian agents. He saw the signs as the trail he followed to the Little Bighorn grew. Interpreter Fred Gerard sat with Custer just before the night march of June 24-25. When Custer asked how many warriors were to their front, Gerard replied, not less than 2,500. The morning of the 25th, scout/interpreter Mitch Boyer told Custer: Well, general, if you don’t find more Indians in that valley than you ever saw together, you can hang me. Still, Custer never anticipated the massive size of the village or the number of warriors ready to fight for their freedom. Not a fool, Custer certainly listened to the warnings, but a village of this immensity probably hadn’t existed in the past, and it would never exist again. Fearing the Indians might scatter, he attacked immediately and, as he had done at the Battle of the Washita, he split his force so his columns could attack the camp from two sides at once. Contrary to his expectations, the warriors in the village didn’t flee. They counterattacked.

The results of the Battle of the Little Bighorn are well known. Many of the troopers who attacked from the south in Major Marcus Reno’s command escaped with their lives by retreating and taking up a defensive stand on a hilltop, where they were soon joined by Captain Frederick Benteen’s command. Custer and the roughly 210 men in his immediate command did not live to fight another day. The results of Custer’s Last Stand would shock the nation.

In the 100 years since the United States had declared independence, it had grown from a hodgepodge of 4 million people scattered thinly throughout 13 colonies to a nation of more than 40 million. Great increases in wealth, expansion of territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the growth of industrial centers such as New York, Chicago and St. Louis marked the passing of the nation’s first century. The future seemed boundless. With the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia as the center for the grand celebration, excitement gripped the nation as July 4, 1876, approached.