four troops of cavalry.”
“Damn, if you can’t stir a fighting man’s blood, Autie!” Tom slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Why, fellas, we’re going to kill us some Sioux just like we done to Johnny Reb down at Saylor’s Creek!”
Tom had won his second of two Congressional Medals of Honor during the Civil War at Saylor’s Creek, charging a Confederate artillery position and single-handedly bringing back the rebel flag to Union lines. He also brought back a serious wound—a hole in his cheek where a Confederate ball had entered, smashing an exit wound behind the ear. More than eleven years later, Thomas Ward Custer still wore that rosy scar on his cheek. Wore it as proudly as he wore his medals.
“Hear! Hear!” shouted Captain George W. Yates, a hometown Monroe boy like the Custers. “Go, you wolverines!”
“That’s the spirit, men!” Tom hollered enthusiastically as he watched friends backslapping.
His was the sort of contagious enthusiasm that his older brother liked to see run through his officer corps. Here on the precipice of their march up the Rosebud, here with the men keyed up tight as a cat-gut fiddle string, brother Tom could work his singular magic on his fellow officers.
Irishman Myles W. Keogh pounded big James Calhoun on the back. Both members of the Custer inner circle cheered lustily with Tom.
“Nothing short of death stands in the way of the Wild I Company!” Captain Keogh growled in his peat-moss brogue.
“Appears nothing will stand in our way now, Myles,” Custer said as the huzzahs quieted. “Terry’s giving us all the help he can. I believe the old boy knows we’ll be the ones to save his hide on this campaign—not Gibbon, not even Crook.”
“Custer and the Seventh!” Tom shouted, amid cheers.
“All right!” Custer himself shouted. “Let’s get down to business so we can get you back to your units. There’s much to do and little time to do it. We are leaving tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Captain Frederick W. Benteen croaked.
“Damn! Old Sitting Bull himself better watch out for that mangy scalp of his now!” adjutant Cooke hollered.
“In the morning?”
“Dang-it-all—but I’m itchy for a good scrap a’ready!”
Waving a hand for silence, Custer began, “We’ll leave somewhere between late morning to early afternoon.”
“How long we expect to be out, General?” Major Marcus Reno shuffled a step forward to inquire. He would be second only to Custer himself on the scout.
“Just as long as it takes, Major. To put it in terms of something you can tell your men, I want to be ready for fifteen days of march.”
“Fifteen, sir?” Captain Yates asked.
“That’s correct, George. We’re being provisioned for fifteen days. For the first few days the marches won’t be all that long, but later on I figure the length of each march will be increased as need and circumstance arise.”
“Ol’ Iron Butt won’t go hard to wear us out—eh, Autie?” Tom joked.
“No,” he grinned. “It wouldn’t do to wear out a single man of you and run you into the ground trying to keep up with me! But on the lighter side, if more of you had done as I have, you would not have to brood on dying and leaving someone behind with nothing but your memory.”
“If you’re talking about that life-insurance policy you took out in your name for Libbie, I got myself one for Maggie as beneficiary,” Lieutenant James Calhoun boasted.
“Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Jim?”
“That’s right, General. Same as you.” Calhoun winked to those round him. “While I don’t expect to use it—you never know when old Iron Butt here will ride us all to our deaths chasing Sioux up and down some bloody river again!”
As the laughter subsided, Keogh stepped forward, slapping his chest. Many were the times Myles Keogh was not the most-liked man in the regiment. Too often a drunken braggart, strict to a fault with his men and most times prone to violence. There remained an electrifying aura about the man, especially in that effect he had over the fairer sex—and it all carried over to the unquestioned control he held over the men of his “wild” I Company. With Custer’s regiment from its inception, brooding Myles Keogh brought the best, and perhaps the worst, out in all his men.
“What’s to say ’bout me—eh, mates?” His thick brogue poured over every one.
“Why, who the hell would you name your beneficiary, you lady-humping rounder, you?” Tom Custer swung a fist into Keogh’s taut mid-section.
“Why, Tommy, me boy! You know I ’aven’t got a dolly to mourn me passing, a’tall … a’tall. But, still took me out a policy with the same blooming life insurance drummer. And, should these red buggers be-chance lift my scalp—why, them bankers’ll pay me dear ol’ mither back in Erin they will!”
Calhoun slapped Keogh on the back, pushing him back into line good-naturedly.
Calhoun and Keogh were quite a pair. Both serving long with Custer and his magical Seventh, both part of the inner clique that drew close around Custer himself, protecting the general. Fiercely loyal to a fault, both Keogh and Calhoun swore that should the day ever come that they could repay Custer’s kindnesses to them, neither of them would be found wanting.
“Gentlemen!” Custer held his arm up, and the officers’ laughter subsided. “We’ll move up the Rosebud tomorrow. There will be no wagons this time. Hence, no tents.”
He waited until the good-natured groans and complaints played out. “No wagons means we’re taking mules along. A pack train. Twelve mules per company. That forces us to march light, you understand. Fifteen days we’ll be out, so fifteen days’ rations packed for each man. Hardtack, coffee, and sugar to be carried on each man’s mount. Twelve days of bacon only. No more. Don’t overburden the mounts, gentlemen. There may well come a time when we can’t afford to overtax the animals, and we’ll need their energy and strength for a fight of it. Ammunition more than food, fellas. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” Cooke answered for them all.
Custer peered a moment at the cloudy sky, almost as if hoping for a peek at a star. “Speaking of our mounts, every man will carry twelve pounds of oats and a nose bag for his horse. In case we can’t locate good graze, we must be prepared to feed the animals. And every man will keep on him a hundred rounds for his carbine, twenty- four for his revolver. In addition, see that two thousand rounds of carbine ammo are loaded on each company mule. If you feel your assigned mules can take it, I might suggest some extra forage.”
“Sounds like you’re fixing to have us out even longer than fifteen days, General.”
Custer glared at Major Reno’s dark face. “We might be. Terry figured five days at the most before the jaws of his trap snap shut. However, I want us ready for fifteen at the least. These Indians won’t get away this time. My only fear is that the Sioux are going to run, that I’ll have to chase them as they scatter on us. But Sitting Bull won’t get away for long if we’re prepared to follow.”
“Beggin’ pardon, General.” The big Missourian stepped into the light between lieutenants Edgerly and Smith. “Are you prepared to support any unit that gets itself into trouble this time out?”
Custer tensed, turning slowly toward the strapping Benteen. “Captain, care to tell me just what you mean by your question?”
“Why, I was remembering the Washita and Major Elliott.…”
With Benteen’s acidic words Tom Custer sensed a stunned silence slash through the assembled officers like a saber.
“Major … Major Elliott?” Custer stammered.
“Yes, General. That time on the Washita when you failed to support one of your officers. I want to be assured in front of your officer corps that such an event will not occur again. You will follow and support as you have promised?”
“Promised?” Custer grew bright red. “This is war, Benteen! Not some sterile battle maneuver pitting us against civilized soldiers in the Shenandoah Valley. We’re preparing to do battle with hardened warriors. Don’t dare speak to me of promised support, for I won’t hear of it ever again! We’re soldiers, doing our job as best we can. Do you all understand?”
After a moment of reflection, Custer ripped off his hat and ran a hand over his freshly clipped hair. Back to
