Custer Mission Aborted

After finishing our tour of Custer's House, the soldiers' barracks, mess hall, stables, a walk down to the river and then back to the commissary (and towelling the car seats dry from their drenching by Custer's thunderstorm) we drove away from Fort Abraham Lincoln, and I snapped this parting shot.

I was thinking about when Custer and the 7th Cavalry left the fort for the last time 140 years ago, as described in the book written by one of the soldiers with him that day. What a contrast between our entourage -- two in a lone vehicle -- and theirs with over a thousand men in transport stretching two miles long:

"On a long but not very wide plateau, bordered by the Missouri river on the east and the everlasting prairie on the west, and about one half mile below the cavalry barracks at Fort Lincoln lay the camps of the forthcoming expedition... The fighting part of the expedition was composed of the following: 12 Troops, the entire regiment, of the 7th Cavalry; 2 Companies of the 7th Infantry; 1 Company of the 6th Infantry; 2 Gatling Guns; 34 Arikara Indian Scouts; 4 friendly Sioux Scouts; 2 Half-breeds; 2 Interpreters; 2 Guides; 2 of General Custer's relatives... The wagon train, which was a large and expensive one as it was necessary to transport an immense amount of forage and rations, consisted of 114 6-mule teams; 37 2-mule teams, and 35 pack mules, giving employment in various capacities to 179 men...the Expedition numbering in all about 1140 souls.

"Everything being in readiness it was decided to start on the 17th of May, 1876, and at 5-o'clock in the morning of that day the "General" was sounded by the Trumpeter at Headquarters. This was the Army signal bugle call to take down the tents and prepare to move. In a moment and almost as by magic the little white city was leveled to the ground. A few moments more and the tents were packed and the company wagons were starting for their place in the train. Before 7-o'clock the cavalry had mounted and was marching around the parade ground of the cavalry barracks passing in front of the officers' quarters and affording the officers' wives and families their last review of the 7th."

"The morning was raw and cold, and a heavy mist hung over the whole region round about. It gradually rose, however, as we passed Fort Lincoln, and when we reached the foot of the long ascent leading up to the prairie above, it was a very beautiful sight, that of the gradual fading out of the mist-bows and the rolling upward of the mist...

"From the hour of breaking camp, before the sun was up, a mist had enveloped everything. Soon the bright sun began to penetrate this veil and dispel the haze, and a scene of wonder and beauty appeared. The cavalry and infantry in the order named, the scouts, pack mules and artillery. All behind the long line of white covered wagons, made a column altogether some 2 miles in length. As the sun broke through the mist a mirage appeared, which took up about half of the line of cavalry, and thenceforth for a little distance it marched equally plain to the sight on the earth and in the sky. 'The future of the heroic band, whose days were even then numbered, seemed to be revealed, and already there seemed a premonition in the supernatural translation as their forms were reflected from the opaque mist of the early dawn'.

"After ascending the heights back of the cavalry barracks, and passing close by the Fort on the hill, which was originally Fort McKean, but was later renamed Fort Abraham Lincoln, and garrisoned by an infantry command, the line of march was taken up almost due west for Heart River. The route was over a rolling prairie, and at half past one in the afternoon, after a march of about 13 miles we encamped on Heart River. This was the first water we'd seen since leaving Fort Lincoln... Here soon after our camp was established, the military part of the command received their pay for the past 2 months from the Paymaster who has come out with us for that sole purpose, and who with a small escort returned to Fort Lincoln the next morning accompanied by Mrs Custer and Mrs Calhoun...."

After pulling out of Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, and getting back onto the highway going north, we soon turned west along the Heart River which flooded back memories of reading that Custer and his men had camped their first night along the Heart River. And amazingly there was a billboard along the side of the road that read, "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart".

And godcidently, just at that moment, our cell phone rang and it was our younger son, whose birthday was on June 27th but who we hadn't been able to reach on that day. What made this even more godcidental is that it brought me back full-circle to the issue -- abortion -- which resulted in the creation of my ORWELL TODAY website. After experiencing the emotional pain of secondary-infertility, and then the blessing of a second child, I joined the "pro-life" cause to fight against abortion-on-demand which was a raging battle in the 80s. This politically incorrect issue is what resulted in my being kicked out of college by the "feminists" who, in 1984, Orwell described as "the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy". See MY ORWELL CONVERSION

Another godcidental aspect of that "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" billboard being placed there, next to Custer's last home, is that Custer would approve and be thankful for its sentiments. That's because Custer and Libbie suffered the pain of infertility and longing for a child, which was never assuaged. At the end of her long life, dying at 91 years-old -- Libbie said she had two regrets in her life -- that her husband died and that they never had a child.

Below are passages from the 1993 book Elizabath Bacon Custer: The Making of a Myth by Shirley Leckie describing the Custers' infertility in 1867, three years after their marriage:

"...The court-martial, which convened on September 15, 1867 and concluded on October 11, resulted in a verdict of guilty on all counts. Custer's sentence deprived him of rank, command, and pay for one year... Libbie dismissed the outcome as 'nothing but a plan of persecution for Autie'. According to Armstrong, Sheridan saw it as 'an attempt by Hancock to cover up the failure of the Indian expedition', and many historians have since agreed... Whatever the couple's outward demeanor, the verdict bothered Armstrong. In his letter to the Sandusky, Ohio Daily Register, he portrayed the outcome of the court-martial as unfair... Under the circumstances Elizabeth and Armstrong passed their time agreeably at Fort Leavenworth....

"...In June, Libbie and Autie returned to Monroe. Elizabeth renewed old acquaintances, while Armstrong hunted and fished and visited Barker in Detroit... The Custers were visiting friends when Sheridan's telegram arrived. Libbie felt ambivalent as her husband, whooping with delight, read: 'General Sherman, Sully and myself and nearly all the officers of your regiment, have asked for you, and I hope the application will be successful. Can you come at once'? Without waiting to learn whether his old commander had obtained remission of his sentence, Armstrong left immediately for Fort Hays, Sheridan's headquarters for the impending campaign... In Monroe, Libbie packed for Leavenworth, where she and her friend, Nellie Bates, would await Autie's return. While Elizabeth wondered when she would see her husband again, his steady stream of fervent letters provided comfort. Recently she had chided him for being more demonstrative in correspondence than in person. 'I do not like to hear her say that it is only when I am away that I appreciate her', Armstrong had protested several weeks earlier. 'I will admit that I express more then, but when with her I feel and know how dear she is, feeling as much as when absent'. Autie's letters that fall stressed the misbehavior of some officers at nearby Fort Dodge, thereby contrasting the Custer marriage favorably with other unions. Some men were carrying on illicit affairs with laundresses, and one had recently accused an officer of fathering her child. Nor were all wives above reproach. One woman's infidelities had transformed her husband into an alcoholic, while a second had recently spent a night with another officer'. Earlier, Libbie had expressed her desire for children. Armstrong now suggested they adopt a boy, referred to as Autie Kirk. Here 'your wishes will be my guide. I will do nothing which in the future might interfere with or mar our happiness'. Since nothing came of the idea, Libbie probably dismissed it as unwise.

"Still, Elizabeth's thoughts turned to children from time to time. While visiting the Barkers in Detroit, she noted (perhaps in part to console herself) the care infants demanded. Armstrong was delighted 'that my little darling bride is having an opportunity of really seeing and determining how troublesome and embarrassing babies would be to us. Our pleasure would be continually marred and circumscribed. You will not find in all our travels a married couple possessing and enjoying so many means of pleasure and mutual happiness as you and your boy. Our married life to me has been one unbroken sea of pleasure'. Husband and wife may have agreed, especially since each made a child of the other. Libbie remained her husband's 'little Durl', and Autie was her 'bo', meaning both boy and beau. Years later, however, Libbie identified two regrets in her life -- her husband's death and the son she never bore..."

Another amazing connection to Custer, that the "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" billboard reminded me of is that Custer, in a book I'd read, had talked about knowing someone who'd got a woman pregnant and arranged for her to have an abortion. Custer had confided this "terrible" thing to Libbie in a letter in 1871, when he was in New York on leave from Kentucky where they were stationed since 1869 after Custer's victorious years fighting Indians on the Plains. I recall being totally shocked that abortion was around way back then -- exactly 100 years before it was legalized in USA during Roe vs Wade, which brought on the decimation of millions of the next generation this past 50 years to the point where the population pyramid's been turned on its head -- there's way more old and dying people than up and coming living. In fact the statistics say that abortion has killed more Americans than accidents, disease and war combined. See WHERE HAVE ALL OUR CHILDREN GONE?

Below is the abortion passage from a book compiled of the hundreds of letters Libbie and 'Autie' wrote to each other starting from their courtship in 1862 through to Custer's death in 1876. The amazing thing about this book is that it brings Custer's personality to life, through his own words and gives we readers the closest thing to being there with him and hearing him talk -- and feeling his wit, charm, humour, sarcasm, vast vocabulary, connoisseur of the arts, chronicler of culture, reader of history, poetry and classic literature. You can actually feel his presence here, in the now, or be transported back to his day and time.

Custer to Elizabeth in Kentucky, July 1871, from New York: "...Darling Standby -- The old Irish servant who takes care of my room looks at me with suspicion when I return, sometimes not till morning, the bed not having been touched. I think she believes I do not pass my nights in the most reputable manner. In fact, circumstances, as she sees them, are against me. Would Somebody appreciate my letters more if they were less frequent? Perhaps like immense riches they are less enjoyed because they leave nothing to be desired. A married man here told me -- in the presence of a young lady -- that he loved no one, nor ever had, except his child... Only think, little one, how much pleasure we have, planning to procure this or that article, make this or that journey.

"I have yet to find husband and wife here who enjoy life as we do... Oh, something astounding -- a married gentleman took me to call on a married lady, her husband being away. Two young ladies, her intimates, were present. He told me her illness was the result of an abortion -- a condition for which he was responsible -- Is it not terrible? Do not leave my letters lying about... Dined at 6.30 with the McKeenes at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Genl McK told me that Captain Chandler, formerly of Genl Hancock's staff, who was Judge Advocate at my trial, is now in an insane asylum, in Washington... What would you think of a Bunkey grown so corpulent bout the waist he cannot keep his pants up without suspenders? I have had to buy a pair. At the theatre with the Howards. Shakespeare's 'Winter's Tale' beautiful beyond words... To me the crowning beauty was the closing Act, the 'Statue Scene', arousing the same emotions as 'Othello'. 'I'd rather be a toad and live upon the vapors of a dungeon than keep a corner in the thing I love for others'. A fear from which I am free, for if ever husband had unlimited confidence in his wife's purity...."

When I got home, after the Pilgrimage to Custer, and was sorting through the photos and writing the chapters of the journey, I saw meaning in the "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" billboard that went beyond its salute to Custer's horror of a life snuffed out before birth. I saw symbolism comparing abortion -- which stops a beating heart -- to the abortion of Custer's mission at Little Big Horn which stopped the beating hearts of over 300 of his men. I made a pop-up of the billboard by overlaying it with the beautiful painting of Custer I'd seen at the Fort Lincoln commissary and re-wrote its message, "Custer's Aborted Mission Stopped Beating Hearts".

The abortionist at the Little Big Horn was Major Reno. I say this because Reno's disobeying of Custer's orders to cross the Big Horn and charge the village caused the death of Custer's tactical plan, ie flank and attack, which he'd deployed successfully thru the Civil War and Indian War so far. Custer had earned his first star as general because of a cavalry charge that saved the day for the Union:

The charge at Aldie, June 16, 1863
Leading the charge that gave Confederate General JEB Stuart his first cavalry defeat
had much to do with Custer being awarded a general's star.
"Come on, boys!"

And of course, as we all know -- even those who aren't Civil War buffs -- Custer rode to fame at Gettysburg in July 1863 when he led several charges that defeated the enemy and protected the Union's rear while Confederate's Pickett charged it from the front. So many anecdotes and articles told the story of Custer's courageous charges that he himself described it from his vantage point:

"Were you ever in a charge, you who read this now, by the winter fireside,
long after the bones of the slain have turned to dust, when peace covers the land?
If not, you have never known the fiercest pleasure of life.
The chase is nothing to it, the most headlong hunt is tame in comparison.
In the chase, the game flees and you shoot: here the game shoots back,
and every leap of the charging steed is a peril escaped or dashed aside.
The sense of power and audacity that possesses the cavalier,
the unity with his steed, both are perfect.
The horse is as wild as the man: with glaring eye-balls and red nostrils
he rushes frantically forward at the very top of his speed, with huge bounds,
as different from the rhythmic precision of the gallop
as the sweep of the hurricane is from the rustle of the breeze.
Horse and rider are drunk with excitement,
feeling and seeing nothing but the cloud of dust, the scattered flying figures,
conscious of only one mad desire, to reach them, to smite, smite, smite!"

~ end quoting Custer ~

Of all the books I've read on Custer, the one I love the most is that written by a soldier who, at 17 years-old, joined the 7th Cavalry in 1872 and fought with Custer at the Yellowstone and Big Horn Indian battles in 1873 and 1876 respectively. I've quoted from William Taylor's book many times throughout my Pilgrimage to Custer. He's a person who can answer "yes" to Custer's question "Were you ever in a charge?" because Taylor WAS in a charge -- his first and last at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He survived to tell the tale, and his is the only first-account version I've read of someone writing it down for posterity. Can you imagine being his kids when they'd ask, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" and getting the answer, "I rode in a charge at the Battle of Little Big Horn where Custer lost his life". Not only did Taylor's descendants get that answer verbally, they fulfilled his dream of having his "war story" published and recorded for history.

Taylor's book sets the record straight over the thousands of crooked lies blaming Custer for the disaster when in fact that falls squarely on two men -- Major Reno and Captain Benteen. And it starts with the charge Reno aborted that led to death and annihilation of Custer and his men at Last Stand Hill. Private Taylor was a trooper in Company "A" under Reno's command and here's his story. Discerning readers will notice that unlike Custer, Reno didn't "lead from the front" but was actually in the rear swigging whisky from a flask while he rode. Notice also that Taylor re-inforces what Custer had said when he spotted the village, ie "we caught them napping, boys" because when Reno's charge began the Indians were frantically running to the pony herd having been awakened by the "blue coats" galloping their way. When Reno aborted the charge, the troopers lost all momentum -- literally stopped dead in their tracks -- and made themselves sitting ducks lined up in a row for the now mounted Indians to charge THEM -- as in the photo I snapped at the 140th re-enactment:

"...Major Reno's Battalion, following the Indian trail, marched down a valley through which ran Sundance creek [now Reno creek]. The creek flowed into the Little Big Horn river, when there was any water in it, but at this time it was dry... When within a short distance of the river, Reno received an order that caused us to increase our speed and we soon came to the Little Bighorn, a stream some 50 to 70 feet wide, and from 2 to 4 feet deep of clear, icy cold water. Into it our horses plunged without any urging, their thirst was great and also their riders. While waiting for them to drink I took off my hat and, shaping the brim into a scoop, leaned over, filled it and drank the last drop of water I was to have for over 24 long hours. The horses having been watered, we rode out of the river and through the underbrush and then a few yards on the prairie, where we dismounted and tightened our saddle girths, and in about 10 minutes were heading down a long but rather narrow valley. On our right was the heavily wooded and very irregular course of the river, flanked by high bluffs. On our left were low foothills near which we could see a part of the pony herds, and as we came nearer, could distinguish mounted men riding in every direction, some in circles, others passing back and forth. They were gathering up their ponies and also making signals. We were then at a fast walk. Soon the command was given to "trot". Then as little puffs of smoke were seen and the "Ping" of bullets spoke out plainly, we were ordered to charge.

"...Custer's next, and final appearance was on a high point of the bluffs overlooking the river and the Indian camps, a short distance below the point where Reno's command made their hurried and difficult ascent. This occurred while Reno's Battalion was charging down the valley and, just before he dismounted the command to fight on foot. Custer was seen to wave his hat to the charging Battalion, a signal of encouragement, and a final farewell..."

"...Some of the men began to cheer in reply to the Indians war whoops when Major Reno shouted out, "Stop that noise", and once more there came the command, "Charge"! "Charrrge"! was the way it sounded to me, and it came in such a tone that I turned my head and glanced backward. The Major and Lieutenant Hodgson were riding side by side a short distance in the rear of my Company. As I looked back Major Reno was just taking a bottle from his lips. He then passed it to Lieutenant Hodgson. It appeared to be a quart flask, and about one half or two thirds full of an amber coloured liquid... What that flask contained, and effect its contents has...I have ever since had a very decided belief [that Reno was drunk]... Over sage and bulberry bushes, over prickly pears and through a prairie dog village without a thought we rode. A glance along the line shows a lot of set, determined faces, some of them a little pale perhaps, but not altogether with fear.... There was no flinching on the part of anyone. To most of us it was our first real battle at close range. Our baptism of fire, a new and strange experience, to sit up as a human target, to be shot at and not to return the fire, was a little trying, but our turn was at hand. "Halt!", came the sharp, quick order. "Prepare to fight on foot", follows at once. Every 4th man from the right remained in his saddle, the others dismounted and tying their horse together, handed the bridle reins to the number four man and sprang forward to their places in the skirmish line. When I look back and think of the sublime audacity of 150 Cavalrymen charging with a cheer down on an Indian village...and when within close range, dismounting to fight on foot leaving 1/4 of their number to hold the horses, it does seems like madness...."

These thoughts passed through my consciousness as we pulled over to talk to our son beside the "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" billboard before resuming the drive alongside Heart River following Custer's trail from Fort Abraham Lincoln.