ArizonaRealCountry.com 43 June 2018 continued on page 46 In the truncated post-Civil War U.S. Army, commanding officers could not pick and choose their subordinate commanders. Whereas Crook was blessed with having as subordinates (after the Rosebud) capable, ambitious, proven men like MacKenzie and Nelson Miles, Custer was stuck with Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen. Reno had a fine Civil War record but he had no experience whatsoever in Indian fighting and was absent during the Washita campaign. Worse, he had a serious problem with the "bottle" that was so prevalent in the army at the time. Benteen, on the other hand, was a very brave and under different circumstances would have been a capable and loyal subordinate but he was a very bitter man, disowned by his Virginia family for staying loyal to the Union during the Civil War. He was prone to jealousy and hate. During the war, he served under General James Harrison Wilson, a rival of Custer's who performed so poorly under Sheridan in the Shenandoah that he was transferred out west to Alabama. Custer took command of his old division. Benteen, who served loyally under Wilson in Alabama, had conversations with his then commanding officer that formed a very unhealthy and hostile attitude towards his new post-war chief. Benteen may have been brave, but he was spiteful, jealous, a psychological mess, and like Reno, he too had a problem with alcohol, though much less so. Could Custer depend on his subordinates to carry out his plans to the fullest or remain calm in the heat of battle? He couldn't. As for that fourth assumption about the 7th Cavalry being the best-mounted regiment in the army, well, on the surface it was true enough. Scratching beneath the surface it was altogether a different story. One, the Cavalry regiment itself had comparatively few Civil War veterans remaining within its ranks. Many, if not most of the men were foreign-born, chiefly German and Irish who had come to America seeking a better life, but with little education and rudimentary skills found employment hard to find. Worse, the Panic of 1873, consumed the majority of well-paying jobs that were still available in the country. These men had no future except enlistment in the army. The native-born Americans were mainly young recruits; most of who had not served in the Civil War and like their European counterparts had found employment difficult as a result of the financial collapse. Most recruits had little military experience (some of the Germans and European recruits did), much less fighting Indians. Worse, the equipment, especially the rifles carried by these men were sub-standard due to the constraints of a penny-pinching Congress. The Army relied almost without question on the one-shot Springfield "trapdoor" rifle, which in sufficient numbers and at long range might have been enough to hold off the oncoming Sioux and Cheyenne but they were known to jam. The recruits, especially the green ones had difficulty extricating the spent cartridges, and obviously, the rifle was practically useless after that one shot against an overwhelming force armed in many cases with the latest Henry and Winchester repeaters sold to them mainly by unscrupulous Indian traders. All of these factors doomed whatever daring and logic that there might have been in the original planning. Still, even though the Indians were aware of Cavalry movements in the area, Custer's descent on them was almost a complete surprise and he very well might have pulled it off. Without virtually writing a book here are the factors that led to Custer's immortal ride into Valhalla. First, Custer had planned to rest on the afternoon and early evening of Sunday, June 25, 1876. His rested command would then swoop down on the Sioux and Cheyenne camps in the late evening or the very early morning of June 26th, just as he had done in his Washita surprise attack. But mid- morning of the 25th, some of his men left a box of hardtack on the trail and when they went back to get it, they found Indians surrounding the box. They were able to drive off the Indians but the element of surprise was gone and so was any thought of a late night/early morning attack. Custer felt he could no longer afford to wait, that the Indians would break camp and flee. So he chose to make his attack right then and there. Secondly, he chose to break up his command into three battalions. Reno's battalion would first directly attack the Indian encampment while Custer and his own battalion would descend from the north trapping (the hopefully) fleeing Indians. Captain Benteen would then come up with his men supporting Custer. The trouble was it unraveled from the get-go. Not only was Reno drunk (one of his officers had seen him swigging from a bottle of amber-colored liquid shortly before the attack began), he totally lost confidence and halted his charging men abruptly just as they were about to ride into the Indian camp along the Little Big Horn river. His order to dismount and form skirmish lines was uttered so quickly that a few men, including Sergeant Miles O'Hara, rode directly into the camp and to their deaths. Sitting Bull, present within the camp, thought that Reno's abrupt halt meant a willingness to parlay according to Historian Nathaniel Philbrick. In fact, Sitting Bull did want to seek a truce because he didn't want the cavalry to attack a camp filled with women and children. The emissary he sent out (his nephew) was shot and wounded in his legs and when Reno's Crow scouts (the Crows being deadly foes of the Sioux) penetrated the camp and murdered the family of Gall, his warrior chief, Sitting Bull finally called for revenge. Reno, addled by alcohol, not only removed any element of surprise that might have seized the day but by dismounting and being hesitant, he also jeopardized his own command and doomed Custer. He totally lost it when the Crow chief (and Custer's favorite scout) Bloody Knife's head was blown to pieces by a Sioux shot, his brains splattering Reno's face and uniform. For Reno, it was every man for himself as he and those near him fled across the river to the bluffs overlooking the Indian camp, leaving many of his officers and men behind to pay the ultimate price. Reno, safely entrenched on the other side of the river, saw Benteen and his men coming up and begged, "for God's sake, Benteen, halt your command and help me." Benteen, who never liked Reno but hating Custer even more, halted to the dismay of some of his own lieutenants and even some of Reno's own officers thoroughly disgusted with their drunken commander. Benteen, behaving much cooler and in command than Reno, effectively saved the remnants of their joint command but he not only disobeyed the orders sent from Custer, doing nothing to help Custer. Custer by then was being attacked from all sides by the returning warriors of Crazy Horse and Gall, a combined Indian force that outnumbered the entire almost 700 men of the 7th Cavalry by at least six-to-one. Captain Thomas B. Weir, one of Benteen's officers and a Custer loyalist, was chagrined by the decision to stop and urged Benteen to keep riding to the sound of the guns. Benteen demurred, so in disgust Weir, followed by his own company rode east to the sugar loaf peak that now bears his name (Weir Point) about three miles from where Custer and his battalion were by that time being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Weir could see in the distance, through his binoculars, riders shooting down at men on the ground, but even as he urged his men to go forward and succor Custer (who by then was probably dead or dying), one of them merely told him that those are Indians, Sir, coming after us. Weir too scurried back in a rushed retreat back to the safety of Benteen's sharpshooters and the perimeter. And what of Custer and his immediate command? It was approximately three and a half hours from the time of Reno's failed attack on the encampment (2 p.m.) to the time Weir sadly gazed into the distance and realized he could do nothing for Custer (5:30 p.m.). Custer and his battalion, divided by three, attempted to ford the river and descend upon the Indian camp but increased resistance from Gall's warriors forced them back. Under ever-increasing pressure, plus the arrival of Crazy Horse and his warriors, he ordered his men to set up skirmish lines from about 1 ½ miles out to that small hill that forever bears the name Last Stand Hill. He sent out two messengers, a Sergeant Kanipe and his Italian-born bugler, Giovanni (John) Martin with a scribbled order signed by his adjutant, the Canadian born William W. "Queen's Own" Cooke, to Benteen, urging him to hurry up and bring ammunition packs. Both Kanipe and Martin were able to get through under fire to Benteen, but as we have already noted, he was in no hurry to move on from the perimeter. Slowly but surely the overwhelming number of Sioux, Cheyenne, Sans Arc and other allied tribes beat down Custer's command who were short on ammunition in the vicinity of the Indian Camp Major Reno assaulted in the early afternoon of June 25, 1876. Photo by Alan Rockman, October 5, 2011 Custer Controversies continued from page 34