The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn

1892, letter to Godfrey in Brininstool, p. 278. As Marshall comments in Crimsoned Plain, “Such deference to subordinates may be highly Christian but it is hardly military,” p. 118. Godfrey’s remark that “something must be wrong about Genl Terry” was recorded in The Field Diary of Lt. Edward Settle Godfrey, on Aug. 14, 1876, in Stewart, pp. 35–36.
    According to John Gray, “[W ]e must be wary . . . of statements made after the tragedy, not merely because of the vagaries of human memory, but because of the partisan interests and hindsight revisions,” Centennial Campaign, p. 141. According to Terry’s brother-in-law and aide Robert Hughes, if Custer had obeyed his orders, they would have won “one of the most brilliant victories over the Indians,” in “Campaign Against the Sioux in 1876,” p. 42. A good example of how the passage of time can change a person’s perception of a past event is the difference between Brisbin’s 1892 account of the meeting aboard the Far West (in which he claimed Custer was to postpone his attack until Gibbon and Terry had arrived) with what he claimed on June 28, 1876, as published in the New York Herald: “It was announced by General Terry that General Custer’s column would strike the blow and General Gibbon and his men received the decision without a murmur. . . . The Montana Column felt disappointed when they learned that they were not to be present at the final capture of the great village,” cited by Gray in Centennial Campaign, p. 145. Lieutenant James Bradley’s statement that “we have little hope of being in at the death, as Custer will undoubtedly exert himself to the utmost” was made in his Wednesday, June 21, 1876, journal entry, p. 215.
    Frances Holley in Once Their Home recounted Fred Gerard’s impressions of Terry’s verbal instructions to Custer: “with what he heard General Terry say . . . [Gerard thinks] General Custer did not disobey any instructions nor bring on the fight unnecessarily,” p. 266. Lawrence Barrett’s Oct. 3, 1876, letter in which he reported that Custer “was told to act according to his own judgment” is in Sandy Barnard’s “The Widow Custer: Consolation Comes from Custer’s Best Friend,” p. 4. There is also an affidavit in which Custer’s African American cook Mary Adams recorded her memory of Terry’s last words to Custer: “[U]se your own judgment and do what you think best if you strike the trail,” in John Manion’s fascinating analysis of this controversial document, General Terry’s Last Statement to Custer, p. 62. Mark Kellogg’s dispatch in the July 11, 1876, New York Herald records that Terry and the other officers estimated that fifteen hundred warriors were with Sitting Bull. Gibbon’s letter to Terry in which he says “perhaps we were expecting too much to anticipate a forbearance on [Custer’s] part” is in Brady’s Indian Fights, p. 223. Brisbin’s reference to how Terry “turned his wild man loose” is in his letter to Godfrey in Brininstool, p. 280. S. L. A. Marshall in Crimsoned Plain describes Custer as “the main sacrifice,” p. 121.
    Charles Hofling in Custer and the Little Big Horn: A Psychobiographical Inquiry comments on Custer’s “subdued, almost depressed state of mind in which he left the conference,” p. 96. Roger Darling in A Sad and Terrible Blunder writes that Custer’s “depression” may have “stemmed from the rejection of criticisms and proposals he may have presented,” p. 76. In a June 2, 1876, letter, Terry wrote, “I am becoming like ‘I.B. tough.’ I hope, however, that means [I] shall become like him not only ‘tough’ but ‘day-velish sly,’” p. 19. Bailey in Pacifying the Plains writes of Terry’s role in drafting the Treaty of 1868 and his assurance to Sheridan that an expedition into the Black Hills was legal, pp. 96, 108. Terry’s orders to Custer are reprinted in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 257–58. According to Hughes, the language of Terry’s written orders meant that “Custer had no business to be at that time [afternoon of June 25] ‘in the presence of the Indians,’ ” “Campaign Against the Sioux in 1876,” p. 39. According to Walter Camp, “Terry was a lawyer as well as a soldier, and this order was so drawn that Custer, in case Indians did escape, would have been charged with responsibility whether he attacked or not,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 263.
    Darling in A Sad and Terrible Blunder cites James