GREASY GRASS Chapter Seven

 

I ask you to witness the hilltop siege (above) during the morning of  Monday, 26 June, 1876. Laying flat behind their barricades the 300 plus survivors suffered few wounds. Several earned medals sneaking down to the river to collect desperately needed water for the rest.  Twice Captain Fredrick Benteen lead spoiling charges to break up groups of Indian snippers. By afternoon, the gunfire faded in intensity. About 7:00 pm the Sioux and Cheyenne set fire to the sparse prairie grasses to cover their retreat westward toward the Big Horn Mountains.  

Shortly after mid-day on the next day, Tuesday,  the survivors saw in the valley below (above, center) the approach of the Second Cavalry and 7th Infantry regiments.  These 450 men under Colonel John Gibbon had marched from the Idaho country. They were supposed to have been the anvil upon which Custer's 7th Cavalry hammer was to have crushed the hostile Indians.  Instead they were the recorders of the disaster.

Where once had the great gathering had camped the western soldiers found just two lodges, both  containing Indian dead on the ground (Sioux) and on scaffolds (Cheyenne) under the trees along the river. The abandoned site also contained bloody cavalry clothing and dead cavalry mounts, brought back in a failed attempt to treat their wounds.  Private  Eugene Geant, of H Company, 7th Infantry, said he saw little evidence of white men "...except a very few bodies and some heads evidently dragged from a distance."

Meanwhile, Lieutenant James H. Bradley, head of Gibbon's scouts, was the first white man to stumble upon Custer's graveyard. "I was scouting the hills some two or three miles to the left of the column upon the opposite bank of the river...  when the body of a horse attracted our attention (above)...and...the appalling sight was revealed to us of his entire command in the embrace of death," At first glance he counted 197 bodies. 

The next day, Custer supporter Lieutenant Godfrey called Last Stand Hill (above) one of "...sickening, ghastly horror". Pvt. Geant,  reported the bodies of more than 230 men, "mostly naked and mutilated in a horrible manner."   All of Custer's command had been stripped, scalped and mutilated, their dead white bodies bloating in the summer sun - Except, if we are to believe the white men, the corpse of Custer himself.  

On Wednesday, 28 June, 1873 Reno's command were assigned to bury the dead. They had few shovels, and graves for the enlisted were scrapped a few inches deep into the hard pan prairie with knives and axes (above). Some got little more than dirt thrown over their faces. A Second Cavalry officer admitted "A number were simply covered in sagebrush". The officers graves were  12 to 14 inches deep. 

The next day, Thursday, 29 June, the fifty wounded were loaded onto travois and began the painful bouncing journey to the Big Horn River, where the steamboat Far West waited. It set a record never equaled, by steaming  the 710 miles down the Yellowstone river to Fort Abraham Lincoln and Bismarck, North Dakota Territory in just 54 hours.  And then, on the first day of July, 1876, the Story of "Custer's Massacre" first reached the American public. 

Over some 10 hours of combat, out of the 650 American soldiers and civilians following Custer over that Wolf Mountain divide, 286 had died violently- 16 officers and 242 enlisted killed, (44% of the command) plus 1 officer and 51 enlisted wounded - for a total devastating 52% loss. 

The 210 men directly under the command of “General” Custer were dead within an hour after their first contact with the Sioux and Cheyenne.  Each dead officer left behind a family who would morn, often a wife and children thrown into the poverty of a small pension. The enlisted were usually young men, who left behind an emotional vacuum of lost potential and no pension. By definition, enlisted soldiers were "cannon fodder". 

To the stone age Sioux and Cheyenne peoples it was the battle of the Greasy Grass. Indian casualties were 40 to 50 providers, where every death left grief and often starvation and death for the youngest and oldest surviving family members.  Within a year the independent Indian nations had been crushed, their treaty lands seized. According to the U.S. Censes, in 1870 there were 313,712 Indians in the United States. By 1880 that number had been reduced to 306,543, and, by 1900 to just  237,200. 

Immediately after the battle the military judgments were unanimous. President Grant, who had been elevated to the White House based on his record as a military commander, told a reporter, “I regard Custer’s massacre as a sacrifice of troops brought on by Custer himself,…(which) was wholly unnecessary – wholly unnecessary.” 

General Philip Sheridan, who had lobbied for Custer’s inclusion on the expedition considered the disaster primarily Custer’s fault. “Had the Seventh Cavalry been held together, it would have been able to handle the Indians on the Little Big Horn." 

In fact all the officers who had insisted that Custer was the answer to the Indian problem in 1876 were the most determined to blame Custer for the failure. And finally, General Samuel Davis Sturgis (above), overall commander of the seventh, whose son, James, had died on the Little Big Horn under Custer, reacted negatively to the suggestion that a monument be dedicated to the memory of “The American Murat”, The Boy General" Custer; “For God’s sake let them hide it in some dark valley, or veil it, or put it anywhere the bleeding hearts of the widows, orphans, fathers and mothers of the men so uselessly sacrificed to Custer’s ambition, can never be wrung at the sight of it.”

If there was going to be a hero rise from the Little Big Horn, logic said it should  have been Major Marcus Reno. Most of the men under Custer's second in command made it out alive, held together over three horrible days of combat and thirst.  Yet, within half a dozen years after the "Last Stand" the public thought of Reno as a coward.     

The reason the army lost this second battle of the Little Big Horn was that their enemy was even more ruthless and relentless than the Sioux or the Cheyenne. She was a five foot four inch Victorian widow with blue-gray eyes and chestnut hair. Her name was Elizabeth Bacon Custer (above). And in this engagement she left no survivors - beginning with Marcus Reno.

Having dismissed Custer to cover their own behinds.  the army also dismissed his 34 year old widow. Barely a month after her husband had died amid the Montana scrub brush, “Libby” Custer (above) was forced to leave Fort Abraham Lincoln. As a widow Libby had no right to quarters on the post, and so lost the social support of her Army life and fellow wives and widows. Her income was immediately reduced to the widow’s pension of $30 a month; her total assets were worth barely $8,000, while the claims against Custer’s estate exceeded $13,000. And then, in her hour of need, Libby received support from an unexpected source.

His name was Frederick Whittaker. A Civil War cavalry hero in his own right, shot through the lung at the Battle the Wilderness, after the war he scratched out a living as a writer of pulp fiction and non-fiction for magazines of the day, “…about the best of its kind”. He had met Custer during the Civil War, and the General’s death inspired him to write a dramatic eulogy praising the fallen hero in Galaxy Magazine, where Whittaker referred to Custer’s “natural recklessness and vanity”. But Libby saw past that, and seduced the ex-lieutenant. Libby provided Whittaker with the couple’s personal letters, access to family and friends, war department correspondence and permission to use large sections from Custer’s own book, “My Life on the Plains,” which might have been largely written by Libby.

What emerged, just six months after Little Big Horn, was “A  Life of General George A. Custer”. It was pure pulp,  filled with inaccuracies and excessive praise for Custer, but it was also a best seller. “So fell the brave caviler, the Christian soldier, surrounded by foes, but dying in harness amid the men he loved.”

This time Whittaker saw no faults in Custer. Instead the blame was laid elsewhere. Whittaker wrote; “He could have run like Reno had he wished...It is clear, in the light of Custer’s previous character, that he held on to the last, expecting to be supported, as he had a right to expect. It was only when he clearly saw he had been betrayed, that he resolved to die game, as it was too late to retreat.” http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.Whittaker (Sheldon and Company, New York, 1876).

Most professional soldiers admitted that Whittaker had gotten it very wrong. But those same officers now withheld their criticism of Whittaker to avoid being attacked for having insisted on Custer commanding the cavalry in 1876, and to avoid being forced to also criticize Custer's widow in public.

Reno was eventually forced to ask for and received a Court of Inquiry (not a Court Martial) on his conduct at Little Big Horn, which cleared his name and revealed the character of the people Whittaker had relied upon for his version of the battle. But it made little difference to Libbie Custer or Whittaker and his publisher, who declared the Inquiry a whitewash.

The first who jumped on Libby's bandwagon was Edward Godfrey, who had been a Lieutenant at the Little Big Horn and a Custer “fan”.  His 1892 “Custer’s Last Battle” was unequivocal. “...had Reno made his charge as ordered,…the Hostiles would have been so engaged… that Custer’s approach…would have broken the moral of the warriors….(Reno’s) faltering ...his halting, his falling back to the defensive position in the woods...; his conduct up to and during the siege…was not such as to inspire confidence or even respect,…” 

Elizabeth Custer went on to support herself comfortably by public speaking and by writing three books; “Tenting on the Plains”, "Following the Guidon” and “Boots and Saddles”.  She was such a good writer that many believe she was the true author of her husband's "My Life on the Plains". In each of her books her "Audie" was idolized and lionized. 

In 1901 she managed to squeeze out one more, a children’s book, “The Boy General. Story of the Life of Major-General George A. Custer”: “The true soldier asks no questions; he obeys, and Custer was a true soldier. He gave his life in carrying out the orders of his commanding general… He had trained and exhorted his men and officers to loyalty, and with one exception they stood true to their trust, as was shown by the order in which they fell.” 

By the time Libby died, in 1933, at the age of ninety-one, her version of the Battle of the Little Big Horn was set in the concrete of the printed page.

The 1941 movie staring Errol Flynn as Custer, displays Libby's view as well as any tome, echoed even by respected historians such as Robert Utley who in the 1980’s described Reno as "… a besotted, socially inept mediocrity, (who) commanded little respect in the regiment and was the antithesis of the electric Custer in almost every way.”

So for over a century Marcus Reno was reviled and despised as the coward who did not charge as ordered, instead pleading weasel-like that Custer had not supported him as promised. It would not be until Ronald Nichols biography of Reno, “In Custer’s Shadow” (U. of Oklahoma Press, 1999) that Reno received a fair hearing.

About the same time the Indian accounts of the fight began to finally be given a serious consideration by white historians, including the story told to photographer Edward Curtis in 1907 by three of Custer’s Indian scouts. The trio said they watched amazed as Custer stood on the bluffs overlooking Reno’s fight in the valley, a story supported by some soldiers in the valley fight who reported seeing Custer on the bluffs. (To that point most historians had assumed the native warriors were lying.)

One of the scouts, White Man Runs Him (above), claimed to have scolded Custer; “Why don’t you cross the river and fight too?” To which the scouts say Custer replied, “It is early yet and plenty of time. Let them fight. Our turn will come.”

And it did. But it sure was a long time coming.

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A LIFE IN THE SERVICE

 

I would say the late 1870's were a very hard time for the women of Fort Abraham Lincoln. First there was the Saturday of  25 June, 1876, when over two hundred and twenty of their husbands and lovers were left dead and mutilated on the windswept hills overlooking the Little Big Horn River.  They called that Custer's Last Stand. 

But the horror of that day was simple to deal with compared with the trauma that followed in 1878, when the fort's women gathered to bury one their own, a resident of "Suds' Row", where the wives of  the enlisted men lived.  On that horrible day those poor women saw something they had never expected to see where they found it.

Picture America as she was approaching her centennial year - a nation of about 45 million people. And even though they had no Internet,  no electricity,  no antibiotics and no gummy bears, these people were no  different from the 350 million who reside in America today. 

In 1875 the theatrical moralizing "Our Boys" opened on Broadway.  It followed the adventures of an Englishman and his butler and their pair of disappointing sons.  A century and a quarter later the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" mined this same comedic vein..  And like a latter day series "Lost",  Jules Vernes' 1875 novel, "The Survivors of the Chancellor"  told an episodic science fiction adventure story of a British passenger ship, lost at sea.  And ala "Who Let the Dogs Out", the most popular song of the day consisted of the repeated lyrics, "Carve dat possum, carve dat possum, children."  It's title was "Carve dat possum"  

Oh, the future was coming. Just the year before, in far off Germany, Dr. Ernst von Brucke had suggested that all living organisms obeyed the laws of thermodynamics. He was wrong, course, since very few humans, other than politicians, behave like big clouds of hot gas. But Doctor von Brucke had a student who would make some sense out of  Burke's thinking - that student was Sigmund Freud.

But Freud's discovery of the subconscious mind and repressed psychosomatic phobias and dreams about locks and keys and milk maids and bows and arrows was still a decade in the future in 1878 - which was a shame because a little Freud sure would have helped those poor ladies at Fort Abraham Lincoln. 

The fort was on the west bank of the Missouri River, across from Bismarck, North Dakota. In that  town the tracks of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the telegraph lines ended,  making the army post across the river the very edge of the frontier. The fort was home to about 650 men and some 300 women attached to the U.S. Seventh Cavalry regiment. 

Robert Marlin tried to describe the type of desperate people would sign up for a year's service in such a place. “Immigrants, especially those from Ireland and German, filled the ranks," he wrote. "Others came from England, France and Italy. While most of the American recruits did not read or write, the immigrants who did not speak English compounded this problem…."

A trooper pay started off at $13 per month. Should he be such a glutton for punishment as to re-enlist, this was raised to $15. The trooper was now a “50-cent-a-day professional” soldier.  And it was a very long day, starting "...at 5:30 a.m.,” wrote Marlin, “with the dreaded call of Reveille, and ended at 10:00 p.m. with the bugle sounding Taps.” 

The average recruit in the Seventh was in his mid-twenties, and stood about five feet eight inches tall. He suffered from bad teeth, a bad back, and about 10% had suffered from some form of healed head trauma received even before they enlisted.  Twenty-two percent of the privates had been in the service for less than a year.  And few of them would re-enlist. Lord knows, the diet did not encourage them.

Each day every soldier received 12 ounces of pork or bacon, 22 ounces of flour or bread and less than an once of ground coffee. Every month they received a pound of beans or peas, a pound of rice or hominy, 3 pounds of potatoes, a cup of molasses, 1/2 cup of salt, 1 ounce of pepper and a little vinegar.   This was not a diet, it was a ration, and had little more flavor variation than "Spam,". 

As the army needed soldiers, it also needed laundresses. They were as much in  the service of their country as the soldiers they served. And in a culture without a social safety net, the reasons a young man might join the cavalry were similar to the reasons a young woman might become a laundress; a roof over her head, and food in her belly. But even though it needed them, the army did not encourage these women to stay a single day longer than necessary for the army.

Linda Grant De Pauw lays out the vulnerability of such women in “Battle Cries and Lullabys". She described, “…a laundress wrote to Major L.H. Marshall at Fort Boise, Idaho, describing how she had been arrested, charged as an attempted  murderess, and confined in a guardhouse for hitting her husband with a tin cup that he claimed was an ax…(she was) sentenced to be drummed off that post at fixed bayonets …she and her three children then had to live in a cold house, without the food ration they depended upon." 

But the scramble to hold onto the fragile level of security which a blue uniform provided only partly explains the woman known to history only as "Mrs. Nash". Shortly after the Seventh Cavalry regiment was formed in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1866, Mrs. Nash took up residence along “Suds Row”-  as the laundresses’ quarters were commonly called. She always wore a veil or a shawl, and it was assumed this was because of scaring from smallpox or one of the many other skin diseases common at the time. Besides earning a small income as a washer woman, Mrs. Nash showed talent as a seamstress and tailored officer's uniforms for extra money. She was also a noted baker and her pies were much sought after. After she built a reputation as a dependable mid-wife “few births occurred (on the post) without her expert help”. 

But there is no record Mrs. Nash ever served as a prostitute. This additional earning occupation was not uncommon for those laundresses who could neither bake nor sew, and who showed more talent for the other half of the midwife equation. And as a practical matter, prostitution by laundresses was not actively discouraged by the officers. This was the frontier and the only other option for amorous release by a trooper was with either his fellow troopers or the horses. Homophobic troopers tended to shoot first, and just say no afterward. And although the horses never complained, they were kind of important to survival on the plains and so that form of animal husbandry was also discouraged. So the practice of prostitution by the laundresses was tolerated as long as the woman did not become really good at it or "notorious".

Quickly Mrs. Nash was a valuable member of the unit, and had even amassed a tidy little nest egg. In 1868 she married a Quartermasters Clerk named Clifton. But a few days later he deserted with her money and was never seen again. Still it was expected that Mrs. Nash followed the regiment when it moved to Fort Abraham Lincoln, in Dakota Territory, in 1872.  That was also the year she married Sergeant James Nash, the “striker”, or personal servant, to Captain Tom Custer, younger brother of the regimental commander George Armstrong Custer. Although James and Mrs. Nash were seen to argue a great deal, still they seemed happy enough for a year or so.  During that year Libbie Custer, wife of the General, noted “…a company ball...(was) organized...Officers and ladies attended....Mrs. Nash wore a pink Tarleton (which she sewed herself) and false curls, and she had “constant (dancing) partners”.

Then, unexpectedly, Sergeant Nash stole his wife’s savings and deserted her and the service. Libbie wrote that Tom Custer was very “put out” by this desertion. Presumably, so was Mrs. Nash.  But she did not remain so for long. In 1873, the lady, now called “Old Mrs. Nash”, married Corporal John Noonan. She kept a bright and tidy home for John, planting and maintaining flowers in front of their modest quarters. And she restored her nest egg. And for five years they were a contended and happy couple, the center of the social circle of Suds Row east of the Fort Lincoln parade grounds, and they were both a significant part of the post’s social life.

Then, in the fall of 1878, while Corporal Noonan was out on patrol, his wife, Mrs. Nash, fell ill. As her condition  worsened she called for a priest, and after seeing him she told the ladies caring for her that she wanted to be buried as she was, without the usual washing and re-dressing. The ladies reluctantly agreed. Who would dare to argue with a dying woman. But after “Mrs. Nash" died on November 4th,  the women decided they could not show her such disrespect.

Two of her closest friends began to strip her, in preparation to washing and re-dressing her body. And that was when they made a most unexpected discovery. Underneath the veil and the dress and the petticoats Mrs. Nash was a man. The Bismarck Tribune was blunter:  “Mrs. Nash Has Balls As Big As a Bull!”

Although the story was based on hearsay and unqualified medical opinion, the eastern papers picked it up, and soon every yahoo with access to a printing press felt obligated to pontificate. The less they knew of the facts the more opinions they had. Public morality, it seems to me, is an excuse for being ignorant, loudly. And in this case the volume was a thunderclap in a drought.

When poor Corporal Noonan returned from patrol all his protestations of ignorance fell upon deaf ears. Quickly his grief, and the ridicule, stated and unstated, became too much to bear. Two days after returning from patrol to find his" wife” dead, John Noonan deserted his post and on 30 November, 1878, shot himself to death with his carbine -  not an easy thing to do.

John Noonan now lies buried in the National Cemetery adjacent to the Little Big Horn Battlefield, his tombstone identical to all the others who died in the service of their country on the Western Frontier.  And rightly so.

But there is no headstone (and no public grave) for Mrs. Nash. There is no memorial of her years of service to the unit, for the babies she delivered safely and with love, for the hardships she endured. And there is no recognition today that without a "liberal" media to encourage her, at least one human being found it preferable to live in constant fear of being revealed, in exchanged for the chance of living as God made her, internally as well as externally, perfectly and imperfectly. She was living proof that with all our technology and insights and with it all smothered under blankets of public morality, we are today just as screwed up as our ancestors were, not more and not less. And always will be. God bless us, every one. 

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