Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors (19 page)

On election night Custer, with many friends, stayed up long after “lights out” waiting for the final returns. By midnight the cadets knew that Lincoln had won. Some southern cadets hanged his body in effigy from a tree in front of the barracks; Custer and other northern cadets cut it down before dawn.
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In November 1860 two South Carolina cadets resigned from the Academy and returned home; in December the remainder of the South Carolina contingent, along with three Mississippians and two Alabamians also left. One of the Alabama cadets was Charles P. Ball, first sergeant of Company A, heir to the first captaincy of the Corps and one of the most popular cadets. When he was about to leave he called the cadets to attention in the mess hall and declared, “Good-bye, boys! God bless you all!” Thereupon the members of his class hoisted Ball onto their shoulders and carried him to the wharf. Custer was paying the usual penalty for demerits by extra marching. As Ball passed, Custer’s sense of loyalty to the Corps and his friendship for a classmate led him to halt, click his heels together and present arms.
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On Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1861, the band marched at dusk into the barracks area, playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was a warm late-winter evening. “Every room fronting the area was aglow,” Morris Schaff recorded, “every window up and filled with
men. With the appearance of the band at the Sally Port a thundering cheer broke, and, upon my soul! I believe it was begun at our window by Custer, for it took a man of his courage and heedlessness openly to violate the regulations.” The band then struck up “Dixie,” and Tom Rosser of Texas, another of Custer’s close friends, led a southern cheer. “Ah, it was a great night!” Schaff remembered. “Rosser at one window, Custer at another,” cheering madly.
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A week or so later Custer learned that a tall, muscular Southerner had threatened Schaff. Like Custer, Schaff was a Democrat, but he had come to the defense of Ohio Republican Senator Benjamin Wade when the southern cadet had damned Wade to eternity. Schaff was short and slim, but Custer told him not to worry: “If he lays a hand on you, Morris, we’ll maul the earth with him.”
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Throughout the secession period, Custer continued to spend much of his free time with southern classmates, even though they became louder and more boastful every day. Custer didn’t mind their swagger —he was that way himself. Nor did he object to their defense of slavery. But he did tell them, flatly, that to resign and go South to fight for the Confederacy was treason, pure and simple, and a direct violation of the oath of allegiance they had solemnly taken. But he said it as a statement of fact, without rancor, and lost no friends thereby.
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On April 10, 1861, Custer wrote his sister Lydia, “In case of war, I shall serve my country according to the oath I took …” He predicted war within a week—it came three days later. Custer noted the contrast of feelings among the cadets: “Those leaving for the South were impatient, enthusiastic, and hopeful. Their comrades from the North, whom they were leaving behind, were reserved almost to sullenness—were grave almost to stoicism.”
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It was a trying time for the northern cadets. Day after day their southern comrades resigned and returned home, there to pick up prized commissions in the Confederate or state volunteer forces. Meanwhile the northern boys fumed and fussed—they were stuck with their daily classes and recitations. They felt an acute sense of isolation. The war news from all over the country was intensely exciting, but at West Point, now that the Southerners had left, everything was quiet and normal—maddeningly so. All over the North, volunteer companies and regiments were being formed, men were marching off to war to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” with pretty girls’ kisses on their cheeks, and the great crusade was under way. But at West Point, nothing. The young heroes, eager to save
their nation, were ignored. To make a bad situation worse, high rank in the volunteer outfits was going to untrained civilians.

Like many Americans, the cadets assumed the war would consist of one gigantic battle, with the winner marching on and capturing the loser’s capital. The relative inactivity and isolation at West Point, the continuation of regular classes, and the seeming blindness of the authorities who refused to call them immediately into active service, all made the cadets frantic. They were certain the great battle would be fought without them. The nation needed all the help it could get, but the authorities were ignoring the dozens of potential Napoleons at West Point. The First Class (seniors) sent a petition to the Secretary of War begging for an early graduation; he granted it and on May 6 the senior cadets received their commissions and set out for active duty in Washington. Custer’s class was next in line—it was not due to graduate until June 1862, but it also sent a petition for graduation a full year early and had it granted.
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With his final examinations coming up, Custer worked harder than he ever had in his life. He was determined not to miss his opportunity. “We study incessantly,” he wrote Lydia on May 31. “I and others only average about four hours’ sleep in the twenty-four. I work until one at night, and get up at five. All my classmates are becoming pale and thin. I lost five lbs. already! We do not complain. On the contrary, everyone is anxious and willing.” He knew there were risks involved, but he wanted to meet the challenge. “It is my great expectation to fight for my country,” he wrote, “and to die for it if need be. The thought has often occurred to me that I might be killed in this war; and if so, so be it.”
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Custer’s family asked him to apply for a furlough and come home for a farewell visit. He would have none of it. “I would not ask for a leave when all are needed,” he explained. “It is my duty to take whatever position they assign me.” By this time, early June 1861, he had developed a realistic view of what lay ahead: “It is useless to hope the coming struggle will be bloodless or of short duration. Much blood will be spilled and thousands of lives, at the least, lost.” But he was neither dismayed nor afraid. “If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country’s rights, I will have no regrets.”
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On June 24, 1861, Custer graduated. As the last member in his class, he bowed solemnly as he received his diploma. His classmates cheered. He was now an officer in the United States Army.

For the next week, Custer and his classmates killed time as well as they could while waiting for orders. It must have been almost intolerable—the armies of the South and North were gathering between Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., in preparation for the first great battle of the war, while the new second lieutenants of the West Point Class of 1861 cooled their heels on the banks of the Hudson River. Custer had endured four years at the Academy. He had done what he could to relieve the boredom and oppression of cadet life, but withal he had taken the worst the Academy could throw at him and never stumbled. Despite his hundreds of demerits, Custer had met the Academy’s minimum standard. But enough was enough—he wanted to be off to war, not serving as an Officer of the Guard at the summer encampment, watching the antics of entering cadets.

As historian Jay Monaghan tells it: “On the evening of June 29, 1861, two newly arrived candidates got in a fight over their respective places before a water faucet. Instead of stopping the fisticuffs, Custer had stopped intervention, saying, ‘Let there be a fair fight.’ He himself became so engrossed in the contest that he did not notice the circle of onlookers melting away; they had spied Lieutenant William B. Hazen, Officer of the day, coming from the guard tent. Custer was placed under arrest and charges were preferred.”

Under arrest! Four years as a cadet and nothing remotely as serious had ever happened to him; now, an officer for less than a week, expecting to be sent to the battle front at any time, he was under arrest. His luck had run out. Not even Custer could make a joke out of this situation, especially not on the next day, when he watched from the guardhouse as the remainder of his class received orders and started out for active duty in Washington, leaving Custer behind.

The Commandant of Cadets, Lieutenant Colonel John F. Reynolds, interviewed Custer the next day. After getting all the facts, Reynolds asked Custer if he knew what his duty had been as Officer of the Guard.

“My duty,” Custer replied forthrightly, “was plain and simple. I should have arrested the two combatants and sent them to the guard tent for violating the peace and regulations of the Academy.” And why, Reynolds asked, had Custer not done his duty? “The instincts of a boy,” Custer responded, “prevailed over the obligations of an Officer of the Guard.”
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Custer went back to the guardhouse while Reynolds prepared court-martial proceedings.

The incident was revealing. Throughout his career, Custer allowed the instincts of the boy to prevail over his obligations as an officer. West Point had taught him how to behave, but it had not broken
his youthful spirit. Time and again he would neglect his “plain and simple duty” when an irresistible impulse led him off on another lark. But he had learned at the Academy how to play the system, how to violate the regulations and get away with it, how to appear contrite when contriteness was demanded.

For two weeks Custer remained in the guardhouse, while the West Point Protective Association came to his rescue. In Custer’s words, “My classmates who had preceded me to Washington interested themselves earnestly in my behalf to secure my release … and an order for me to join them at the national capital. Fortunately some of them had influential friends there, and it was but a few days after my trial that the superintendent of the Academy received a telegraphic order from Washington, directing him to release me at once, and order me to report to the Adjutant-General of the Army for duty. This order practically rendered the action and proceedings of the court-martial is my case nugatory.”
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When his trial came, on July 15, it was, in Custer’s words, “brief, scarcely occupying more time than did the primary difficulty.” Lieutenant Hazen, who had arrested Custer, spoke up for him. The court, acting under instructions from the War Department, let Custer off with a reprimand. He was immediately handed his orders directing him to report to Washington at once.
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Custer had made it through West Point and into the Army. That he had only just made it mattered not at all —he had his commission in his pocket and his future ahead of him. He was sure of himself, without any doubts as to his proper course of action. He wanted to fight and lead others into combat. He was as determined to stand out in battle as Crazy Horse was to count coup. Custer realized that he had a rare opportunity—under ordinary circumstances, a West Point graduate could expect to be a second lieutenant for five or more years, a first lieutenant for ten years, and a captain only when he reached middle age. But there was a war on, the biggest in the nation’s history, and for the young would-be hero there were opportunities at every hand. He would have to prove his courage to others, and to himself. He desperately wanted to rise rapidly in the Army, where he expected his West Point diploma would help him with the high command. In perfect health, bursting with strength and energy, twenty-one years old, Custer was ready.

* In the 1850s West Point had a five-year course.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Custer and Crazy Horse on the Eve of Manhood

Crazy Horse and Custer had happy childhoods. Each infant boy was loved and cherished by his parents and by a wider group—in Custer’s case by his large family, in Crazy Horse’s case by the whole of Old Smoke’s Oglala village. They were both well fed, adequately clothed, and nicely sheltered. Each boy was carefully taught by his society the skills necessary to survival, and each learned what was expected of him with regard to behavior and belief. Neither boy came from a prominent family, but by the time they were in their late teens both Custer and Crazy Horse stood out in their societies as individuals of unusual daring, drive, and initiative. Both red and white societies were sufficiently practical and realistic to recognize these valuable traits despite the boys’ modest backgrounds.

Both boys traveled extensively and learned to deal with different cultures and personalities. Although Custer had lived in only two states before he went to West Point, he had dealt with a wide variety of strong-willed personalities, beginning with his multitude of brothers and sisters and including most residents of New Rumley, Ohio, and Monroe, Michigan. At West Point, he met and lived with other youngsters from all across the United States. Crazy Horse had roamed across the northern Great Plains, living with different Sioux bands and with the Cheyennes.