witnessed by friends. Grim instructions given, agreed to, and sworn over for the dispersal of personal effects to family members back east should the unthinkable happen in the coming days as they followed Custer up the Rosebud in search of Sioux. What to be done with the few trinkets each man had accumulated during his time in the army—whether he carried his possessions on his back or in his pockets, or they simply lay waiting back at Fort Abraham Lincoln at the bottom of a near-empty trunk.
On the eve of battle every man wanted to know he would have something that could go back to his family to show that he had indeed been of some worth during his short time on this earth … each man wanting to pass something on to show for his brief service in the army of the west.
Like some cold fingers slipping around a tin cup at Coleman’s tent on that north bank of the Yellowstone, the mood in camp slowly changed as more and more of those men of the Seventh left the whiskey and returned to a somber camp to scratch at their letters, write their wills, swear death pacts with bunkies to see that an old watch made it back to Cape Girardeau, Missouri … or a special wedding band made it back to a little cabin near Cold Springs, Arkansas … or that neck chain he wore was delivered to a widowed mother somewhere down a holler outside Cross Plains, Tennessee.
As the clock crept into the wee hours, fewer men stood drinking at the trader’s kegs. This late only the old, fire-hardened veterans still drank, staring up the Rosebud, wondering what awaited them as they rode in Custer’s wake come morning.
Custer scratched a metal nib across sheets of foolscap at his field desk, while striker Burkman polished bridle and crupper, saddle, holsters, and belt, with a nervous energy. With a peculiar flair for understatement, the general was penning his last, long letter to Libbie, though he promised her he would dash off a few lines in the morning before departure.
Terry appears to retain the highest of confidence in me, holding up to others to emulate my zeal, energy, and ability. Yes, Dear Heart—Alfred knows all too well he is an administrator and that I am the Indian Fighter. He used his abilities as an administrator to assure that I will do what I do best … nay, better than any man in the army.
For the longest time after he had laid his pen aside and stepped to the tent flaps, Custer stared out at the cloudy, starless night, soaking in that somber mood cloaking the camp. It was no stranger to him, this blackness. Veteran of all but one of those battles of the Army of the Potomac. Veteran of campaigns along the Platte River Road and successful strikes into the heart of Indian Territory itself. Campaigns along the Yellowstone and an exploration of the Black Hills—that most sacred place of the northern plains tribes.
He sighed deeply and turned back to his desk, where he took pen in hand.
If I were an Indian, he wrote, I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people adhered to the free, open plains rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation—there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without stint or measure.
“There!” he whispered to himself. He had admitted it to himself and to Libbie at last.
If by a twist of fate he found himself cast as one of the hostile chiefs he would be hunting down come morning, Custer admitted he would have to elect to go on living the free, unfettered nomadic life of old rather than suffer the stifling stagnation of the squalid reservations. To live as wild and free warriors always had, or to die a warrior.
There were times, Rosebud, when I so desperately hoped to find you aboard one of the steamboats plying the waters of the Yellowstone. To hold not only one of your sweet letters, but to once again hold you close. When the
I hope to begin another
Reno’s scouting party has returned. They saw the trail and deserted camps of a village of three hundred and eighty lodges. The trail was about one week old. The scouts reported that they could have overtaken the village in one day and a half. I am now going to take up the trail where the scouting party turned back. I fear their failure to follow up the Indians has imperiled our plans by giving the village an intimation of our presence. Think of the valuable time lost!
But I feel hopeful of accomplishing great results. I will move directly up the valley of the Rosebud. General Gibbon’s command and General Terry, with steamer, will proceed up the Big Horn as far as the boat can go.
I will like campaigning with pack mules much better than with wagons, leaving out the question of luxuries. We take no tents and desire none.
I now have some Crow scouts with me, as they are familiar with the country. They are magnificent-looking men, so much handsomer and more Indian-like than any we have ever seen, and so jolly and sportive; nothing of the gloomy, silent red man about them. They have formally given themselves to me, after the usual talk. In their speech they said they had heard that I never abandoned a trail; that when my food gave out, I ate a mule. That was the kind of man they wanted to fight under; they are willing to eat mule too.
I am sending six Ree scouts to Powder River with the mail; from there it will go with other scouts to Fort Buford.
From here on out the men will sleep in overcoats and saddle blankets. I have arranged for the hounds to be left with the mules when battle is assured. At the very least John can care for them in my absence. Tuck is such a problem tonight. She is in and out, dashing out with a playful yip when a wolf howls, scurrying back in with her tail fast between her legs to cower at my knee. Let us hope the Sioux are as discerning as Tuck … to know when to stick their tails between their legs!
I also wanted you to share in the good news—I have seen that Boston and Autie were transferred from Quartermaster Corps for the next fifteen days so they can accompany us on our scout up the Rosebud. Along with Tom, Boston, Autie, James, and Fred Calhoun, I want all the Custer clan in on the fun! We have such a dear, dear family gathered round us, Libbie. We are indeed fortunate in this life to share that family together.…
To the end, Custers all!
His pen fell silent above the page as he grew pensive again. Listening to the wolf howl … seeing her dark eyes conjured up before him on the tent wall once more. He clenched his eyes, trying to block out the vision. Still they haunted him. Dark black-cherry eyes gleaming out at him from the back of that wagon as it rumbled out of Fort Hays, heading south and out of his life.
Less than fifty yards downstream stood Mark Kellogg’s tent where the late-night oil burned just as brightly as Custer’s lamps.
Although both Sherman and Sheridan had warned him against taking any reporters along, Custer found it impossible to refuse that fervent request from the former telegraph operator working for the summer in a Bismarck law office and writing an occasional article printed in the Bismarck paper, even the New York
After all, Custer had reasoned, the
Kellogg was a likable fellow, sharing much in common with Custer anyway. He favored a get-tough policy with the “noncompliers,” those Indians refusing to come in to their reservations. Custer was sure Kellogg would write a favorable account of the coming battle, since there had been so much concern after the Washita debacle and how aspects of that winter’s campaign had been manhandled in the press. After all, Kellogg had stated publicly, “I say turn the dogs of war loose and drive the savages off the face of the earth, if they do not behave themselves.”
A widower with two girls, who smoked Bull Durham, and enjoyed a rare game of chess, the reporter had once preached a temperance lecture at the graveside interment of a drunk who died of consumption. Since he shared Custer’s teetotaling habits when it came to whiskey and other spirits, Kellogg was not among those who bolstered trader Coleman’s profits that cloudy night of 21 June.
