Custer at Little Bighorn: A Deep Political Hypothesis

[Charles Drago]

In 1876, Custer was called to testify against Secretary of War William Belknap in an investigation by Congress. Custer's comments confirmed the suspicions held against Belknap, as well as Orville Grant, and Custer was arrested. While Custer was sitting in prison, Grant ordered his forces to advance on the Cheyenne Indians, which had become increasingly hostile.
Custer was distraught by the fact that his troops would be fighting without him and appealed to Grant to let him join them. Grant relented and Custer was allowed to return to command the 7th Cavalry at Fort Lincoln. They departed on May 17, 1876 and quickly found an encampment of Indians.
Custer realized that he was outnumbered, but decided to fight without infantry reinforcements. He split his troops into three parts and advanced on the village from several directions. However, the two parts led by his subordinates were repelled, leaving Custer's part to the full brunt of the Cheyenne forces. He fell back to a hill, where his group engaged in long range gunfire with the Cheyenne, until every soldier, including Custer, was dead.

George Custer died on June 25, 1876 and was given a funeral on the battlefield before being moved to the West Point Cemetery in late 1877.

Phil,

Your deep political analysis of Custer's fate is spot-on. The "history" cited above, however, is flawed to the point of unintentional comedy.

"Cheyenne forces"???

While a relatively small number of Northern Cheyenne were encamped along the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876 with impressive numbers of warriors and their families from the five Lakota (Sioux) nations, the implication here that they represented a major component of forces aligned against Custer is terribly wrong.

Nor did "he fall back to a hill" in the implied sense that "his" battalion moved as a single, cohesive unit. "He" -- Custer -- personally led five companies north along the eastern LBH riverbank. They were split along company lines into defensive positions, with only one troop formally positioned on what would become Last Stand Hill. As units were overrun, survivors made their way to Custer.

By the way, there was no "funeral" for Custer or anyone else at the site. Bodies were hastily buried and, in the case of officers, covered with stones in an effort to thwart predation. When a recovery detail arrive a year later, most if not all of the graves had been disturbed. Bones were scattered everywhere.

The chances that George Armstrong Custer's remains are interred beneath his West Point monument are slim.

Further, just one of the two battalions separated by Custer from his command unit and ordered to attack the huge village from the south and southwest was "repelled" -- Major Marcus Reno's unit that crossed the LBH under orders to "charge the village."

The suspect Captain Frederick Benteen, having been ordered by Custer in writing to "come on" and "be quick," kept his battalion out of the fight -- even when within earshot of Custer's "I'm over here!" volley fire.

In order to be "repelled," one first must attack. Benteen did not make an offensive move -- in the military sense -- during the entire fight.

Benteen's malingering (unnecessarily watering his horses and then moving forward at the most leisurely pace possible) -- his commanding officer's order to ride to his support in hand -- was later "explained" as having been necessitated by the need to reinforce Reno's whipped command as it sought shelter on high bluffs on the eastern side of the LBH five miles to Custer's south.

My hypothesis is that Benteen and/or another traitor positioned so as to influence the march was under orders from deep political authority to make certain that Custer's mission failed. And while I don't believe that such an entity knowingly would have taken actions to kill nearly 300 soldiers to "get" Custer, such were the consequences of perfidy that day.

Did Custer and his entire command nucleus have to die to accomplish the mission? Would an embarrassing but physically survivable defeat have done the trick?

Did WTC 1, 2, and 7 have to fall to accomplish the mission? Would smoldering yet standing ruins have done the trick?

Custer and a maximum number of his troopers had to perish if the larger deep political mission -- once and for all end public sympathy for the noble Red Man and enflame support for the eradication of North American tribal peoples -- were to be accomplished.

History is the beautiful story concocted by the winners.

Quite so.