George Armstrong Custer: Changing Views of an American Legend

The Exposition was designed to show that the ‘American experiment’ had produced a society that was not only morally and ethically superior to that of the Old World, historian Richard Slotkin wrote, but economically more potent as well. Mechanical symbols dominated the halls in pseudo-Gothic temples proclaiming America’s emergence as the country leading the world into the 20th century. To honor their recent — and fast vanishing — frontier past, many states built pavilions resembling huge log cabins.

On July 5, a day after the official opening of the celebration, the shocking news of Custer’s demise reached Bismarck, Dakota Territory. The War Department had unconfirmed reports of the disaster by July 6, but Sheridan stated they arrived without any marks of credence. No one in his wildest dreams could imagine this happening. Custer was indomitable. The famed Civil War general and Indian fighter par excellence represented the nation’s pride, the preservation of the Union and the opening of an expansive frontier to a population ready to reap the benefits of a new fertile land.

Custer’s defeat was viewed as incomprehensible and tragic, and it left the public with a gaping wound. As news spread, the Little Bighorn debacle cast a dark shadow on the nation’s hopes for a glorious second century. Partially to regain the honor and prestige lost at the Little Bighorn and partially to fulfill Manifest Destiny once and for all, the U.S. Army redoubled its efforts to overwhelm the Plains Indians. Waging total war, soldiers destroyed Indian homes, food, clothing and supplies. They did not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. Although the so-called Great Sioux War was over by the spring of 1877, one last major action took place more than 14 years after Custer’s defeat. On December 29, 1890, elements of the 7th Cavalry surrounded a group of mostly Minneconjou Dakotas and killed about 150 of them at Wounded Knee Creek in Dakota Territory. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, which had ushered in this new era of fierce westward expansion, immediately created a firestorm of controversy that continues today.

At least two of Terry’s reports, written soon after Custer’s defeat, found their way into newspapers. In one of those reports, Terry stated: I do not tell you this to cast any reflection upon Custer. For whatever errors he may have committed he has paid the penalty and you cannot regret his loss more than I do, but I feel that our plan must have been successful had it been carried out….In the action itself, so far as I can make out, Custer acted under a misapprehension. He thought, I am confident, that the Indians were running. For fear that they might get away he attacked….

Although Terry attempted an explanation for Custer’s actions, he appeared to accuse Custer of disobeying orders by attacking too soon, and indeed Sheridan commented to Commander in Chief of the Army William T. Sherman after reading it: Terry’s column was sufficiently strong to have handled the Indians, if Custer had waited for the junction. President Grant, perhaps still seething at Custer for helping expose the corruption in his administration and his brother, declared in September, I regard Custer’s Massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary — wholly unnecessary.

To protect itself, the military scrambled to find a scapegoat on which to pin the blame for the disaster. As a result, fingers were pointed in many directions. Custer was accused of dividing his command prior to battle, even though this was the accepted mode for attacking villages, and of attacking early. Subordinates Major Reno and Captain Benteen were accused of disobeying Custer’s orders and not supporting him. Indian agents were accused of under-reporting the number of warriors off the reservations. But, for some, it was easier to blame a man who could not defend himself.

Later statements by Sheridan and Sherman that Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number of Indians marked a change in the public portrayal of Custer, as historian Craig Repass pointed out: Prior to his involvement in the Belknap Affair, Custer was not publicly referred to as ‘reckless’ or ‘imprudent.’ After his demise those labels were continually applied to him in the army’s efforts to discredit him. Still, Custer was buried with full military honors at West Point on October 10, 1877.