arrive at the mouth of Rosebud Creek.
Besides the surprising snowstorm that kept them sitting for two days back in May, the men had also suffered through drenching spring rains and stinging hail, and more recently had blistered beneath a relentless sun interrupted each afternoon by a brief interlude of thunderstorms before sunset. It could be that way this time of year on the northern plains. Good reason for a man to keep his “rubber blanket” handy—what others called their “gum blanket”—a rubber poncho to turn the rain. Slipped over the head and measuring some four feet by six feet, it had already proved itself on this campaign.
Certain fragments of the regiment had marched off on one or the other of two long, tough scouts that convinced the expedition commanders they were narrowing the noose around the hostiles. Now that General Alfred H. Terry’s Dakota column had joined up with Gibbon’s Montana column, everyone figured the Sioux were gathering to the south of them.
At three P.M. on 21 June, General Terry brought to order a conference of the high-echelon officers of his combined regiments aboard the
What had so far been a hot and sultry Wednesday appeared to offer some relief on the far horizon. Gray and purple thunderheads were building with a fury on the distant rim of the prairie as the officers crammed themselves into Captain Grant Marsh’s dining room for their war conference. Custer himself preferred standing by the door as many of Gibbon’s officers and most of Terry’s infantry commanders set fire to their cheroots, cigars, and pipes. Breathing deep of that freshening breeze slipping along the river, Terry himself eagerly awaited the afternoon’s cooling storm.
“The Commissioner of Indian Affairs claims we might see only some five hundred to eight hundred warriors, counting all of fighting age.” Terry plunged ahead with his introductory remarks as most every man settled back with a glass of trader Coleman’s whiskey.
“He’s wrong,” declared a new voice.
The room fell silent as the attention shifted toward Custer at the doorway.
“Care to tell us just how the commissioner’s figures could be so wrong, sir?”
Custer turned toward the speaker, Colonel John Gibbon. Above his bulbous nose the colonel’s dark eyes peered cold like chips of iron. Gibbon had been Custer’s artillery instructor during his studies at West Point.
“Those agents, sir, with all due respect,” Custer began, pushing himself back into the close, smoky room from the narrow doorway, “either don’t know how to count, or they’re nothing more than liars.”
He waited for the murmurs to quiet themselves before continuing. “I prefer to think they are simply lying through their teeth to their superiors.”
“Can you substantiate that, General?” Another officer rose to confront Custer. “And why in blazes would they lie to the army about those goddamned figures?” Major James S. Brisbin, commander of Gibbon’s Second Cavalry out of Fort Ellis, was known among his army friends as Grasshopper Jim because of his oft-quick and erratic marches. He stepped near Custer. “What reason would those agents have to give us bad intelligence?”
Custer measured him a moment. “For exactly the same reason those traders become rich men on their meager salaries—sutlering for the government on hardscrabble reservations.”
“Explain yourself, Custer,” Terry demanded.
“Of course.” He stepped into the room that extended the full width of the steamboat. “If those venal traders inform their bosses in the Indian Department how few Indians they really have left on their reservations, they won’t get their normal allotments. And when that happens, the traders won’t have all those government goods they can continue to sell privately for exorbitant profits at the expense of the Indians living on those godforsaken refuges some call reservations.”
“You’re claiming those agents have been lying to us, sir?” Brisbin turned to Gibbon as he asked his question. “For the sake of padding their own pockets?”
“Nothing more complicated than that.”
The silence grew as thick as the blue smoke in the room until a slight breeze slipped through the open windows and deck doors to stir Terry’s papers on the oak table before him.
Terry rose slowly and ground the chair away from him across the plank flooring. “Appears Custer has presented us with quite a salient dilemma here, gentlemen. A real doozy, in fact. For the moment let’s assume he’s correct—that there are more Indians flowing from the reservations than anyone really understands, in addition to those noncompliers who were already off the reservations to begin with when any counts were made.”
Stuffing the moist stub of a cigar in his mouth, Terry scooped up a handful of coffee-stained papers from the table before him. “Here is my telegram to Division HQ in Chicago last Christmas.
The Indians at Standing Rock are selling their hides for ammunition, Indians are closely connected to Sitting Bull’s band. I ordered a stop to such sales, and I suggested that the Interior Department be requested to give similar orders to the traders.”
“Yet those orders weren’t issued until the eighteenth of January,” Gibbon noted sourly.
“That’s correct, John,” Terry replied somberly. “Plenty of time for the hostiles to acquire all the Henry repeaters they’ve wanted for ‘hunting purposes.’ But allow me to continue the progression of Custer’s point. On sixteen February I again wrote Division HQ with my own intelligence, requesting that the three companies of the Seventh Cavalry serving in the Department of the Gulf rejoin their regiment in this department.”
Terry looked up from his sheaf of papers, allowing his eyes to touch most of the officers in the room. “I believe every one among you will realize exactly why I was requesting to have every available man, horse, company, and gun made ready for this campaign. Simply because, gentlemen—we weren’t all that damned sure just what we’d be facing.”
He let that sink in for a moment before continuing. “For if the Indians who passed the winter in the Yellowstone and Powder rivers country should be found gathered in one camp, or in continuous camps, as they usually are so gathered, they could not be attacked without great risk of defeat.”
After the embittered mumbling had passed through the assembled officers, Terry emphasized, “Fellas, I want to repeat. Such a great force of Indians could not be attacked by a flimsy force of troops without great risk.”
As the last words fell from the general’s lips, Custer noticed his commander’s eyes were on him. “The Seventh has never let you or General Sheridan down before, sir,” Custer stated. “With our full compliment of troops, we aren’t about to fail you now.”
“Exactly, Custer,” Terry said. The smile within the general’s dark beard was not lost on a man in the room.
Terry could be quite charming and amiable among his peers—looking more like a professional scholar than a military strategist. Beneath the kind blue eyes and a gently lined face, bronzed by the outdoor life to a hue of old saddle leather, resided a heart brimming with sentiment.
“I merely want all your fellow officers gathered here to understand just what I had to go through to get the Seventh Cavalry put back together for this fight. On twenty-four March I telegraphed Sheridan, asking for the three troops of the Seventh he had stationed down in Louisiana, simply because the most trustworthy scout I had on the Missouri reported not less than two thousand lodges and that the Indians were loaded down with ammunition.”
“Two thousand lodges?” Gibbon bolted upright in his ladder-back chair, ripping the dead cigar from his lips.
“Reported as fact, John. He’s regarded as one of our best.”
“Why, that would make over three thousand warriors ready to fight,” Major Brisbin exclaimed in wonder.
Someone else whistled low and long to fill the silence as thick as the storm clouds gathering outside on the Yellowstone prairie.
“More,” Custer said. “If you count every weapon-carrying male between thirteen and sixty, you very well could have twice that number to take the field.”
“Gentlemen!” Terry held up his hand to quiet the clamor. “Custer could well be right in fearing what numbers we’ll confront. Gentlemen, I want to emphasize what I’ve said. The Indians are confident and intend on making a
