Promoted major general, Custer, now in charge of the Third Cavalry Division, led the command on new exploits under the approving eye of Phil Sheridan. The flamboyant “Boy General” served with distinction at Cedar Creek, and in March 1865, his Third Division sent the last vestiges of Jubal Early’s butternuts reeling at Waynesboro. Custer’s blue demons blasted the Confederates under Maj. Gen. George Pickett at Five Forks. The indefatigable Custer and his cavalrymen were everywhere on the road to Appomattox. On April 8, the Third Division straddled the railroad tracks at Appomattox Station successfully blocking Robert E. Lee’s evacuation route and cutting him off from supplies.7

Following Lee’s surrender in Wilmer McLean’s house at Appo-mattox, Sheridan thrust 20 dollars in gold into McLean’s palm, payment for the small writing table upon which the surrender terms had been drafted. In a note to Libbie Custer, wife of General Custer, Sheridan scrawled a brief line that read, “I respectfully present to you the small writing table on which the conditions for the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia were written by Lt. General Grant—and permit me to say, Madam, that there is scarcely an individual in our service who has contributed more to bring about this desirable result than your very gallant husband.”8

Sheridan’s commentary paid high tribute to Custer’s Civil War service, a career punctuated with audacity, courage, leadership, and utter fearlessness in battle. No one surpassed Custer’s love for the sting of combat. His prowess in battle did not go unnoticed by his superiors. He earned brevet ranks up to major general in both the regular and volunteer service. By war’s end the 25-year-old Boy General emerged a national hero. If Custer’s rise was meteoric, his fall was just as rapid, mostly through no fault of his own.

On the Plains

The close of the Civil War resulted in the abolishment of the behemoth volunteer army. Thus, many Regular Army officers like Custer reverted to lesser rank. Custer, a major general in the volunteer army, had only risen to the rank of captain in the Regular Army. With few options available, he accepted the appointment of the lieutenant colonelcy of the 7th United States Cavalry, one of four new cavalry regiments authorized in 1866. He went from commanding a cavalry division to second-in-command of a regiment under Col. Samuel D. Sturgis.9

At the time of the Black Hills Expedition, Custer’s reputation as the army’s preeminent Indian War fighter centered on one encounter—the Battle of the Washita. But even this November 1868 victory in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), the total destruction of 51 lodges, mostly Cheyennes, was tainted. Westerners hailed the sacking of Black Kettle’s village as a decisive victory against a merciless foe who killed innocent men, women, and children, including instances of rape. Others, primarily Easterners, labeled the Washita a massacre by Custer’s men. The Eastern perception viewed soldiers as the fiends—destroyers of sleeping villages, murderers of innocent Indian women and children. A divided nation grappled with the dilemma of how to treat fairly with the American Indians. Government policies vacillated from loving the Indians to death, to advocating their near-extermination.10

Transferring to Dakota Territory in 1873, Custer and the 7th Cavalry’s headquarters staff occupied the newly-constructed Fort Abraham Lincoln across the Missouri River from the boomtown of Bismarck. Custer and ten companies of the 7th Cavalry formed part of the military escort for the Northern Pacific Railroad surveyors. The 1873 Yellowstone Expedition brought Custer no new laurels. He exchanged long-range shots with the Sioux on the Yellowstone River in August 1873, in an otherwise insignificant expedition.

The 1874 Black Hills Expedition turned into a long summer picnic, but Custer found what Sheridan was looking for—the site to establish a future post, Fort Meade (1878), to be named for the victor at Gettysburg, within the Sioux reservation. Custer’s miners confirmed what many already believed—the presence of gold in the Black Hills. A courier raced eastward with the news, touching off a gold rush that inundated the Black Hills.

The government attempted to honor its 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty obligations by keeping whites out of the Black Hills, but miners stampeded into the blue, hazy mountains, establishing mining camps. The army attempted to evict prospectors but discovered the mission was impossible. There were too few soldiers and too many miners. Meanwhile, the Sioux and their allies were seething under the wave of transgressors who desecrated the sacred mountains with pick-ax and shovel. The situation was volatile.

In an effort to save face, the government unsuccessfully endeavored to purchase the Black Hills, but found they were not for sale. Indian chiefs who might have advocated the selling of the Black Hills faced threats of death by the young warriors. Firmly seated on the horns of a dilemma, the government then attempted to stamp legitimacy to the taking of the Black Hills by accusing the Indians living in the unceded lands of failing to live up to the Fort Laramie Treaty, citing as evidence the perimeter attacks by Indians on white settlements adjacent to the unceded lands.11

In a November 1875 meeting at the Executive Mansion in Washington, which included Generals Sheridan and William T. Sherman, President Ulysses S. Grant approved a new policy whereby soldiers would no longer evict settlers nor would they bar miners from entering the Black Hills. A month later, Indian runners departed agencies with a message to all non-treaty Indians living in the unceded lands to report to a reservation by January 31, 1876, or face military consequences. Sitting Bull ignored the edict. On February 1, the matter of compliance fell into the lap of the United States Army.

This concludes the excerpt. Click the link below to purchase the complete issue. Don't Forget! Each issue of Blue & Gray includes a detailed Driving Tour of the featured site!

Page 3

Order this issue