Read Online The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer by Thom Hatch - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Thom Hatch
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subject of much conjecture. Several Irish regiments, including the Fifth Irish Lancers, had embraced it as a rowdy drinking song. Keoghâs father may or may not have been a member of the Fifth Irish Lancers.
Some researchers have disputed much of Keoghâs heretofore-accepted biography, which casts doubts about whether or not his father in fact ever served in that particular unit. Libbie Custer, however, was under the impression that Keogh had made her husband aware of âGarry Owenâ shortly after the formation of the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Riley. The tune apparently dates back to Revolutionary War days and might have been known to Custer as early as his schooling at West Point. Regardless of its origins, âGarry Owenâ became the regimental battle song of the Seventh Cavalry and was played during expeditions, campaigns, battles, and ceremonies to the delight of its members and onlookers alike.
Fort Wallace, the westernmost post in Kansas, had miserable, primitive living conditions and was under constant siege by hostile Plains Indians. Custer learned that mail and dispatches had not been able to get through on the Butterfield Overland stagecoach line due to the Indian presence along the Smoky Hill Trail.
General Hancock had recently passed through from Denver on his way east to the comforts of Fort Leavenworth but had not left behind any orders for Custer. Custer was also informed that Captain Albert Barnitz and his Company G, which had ridden to Pond Creek Station, had been attacked on June 26 by Roman Noseâs Cheyenne and sustained six killed and six wounded.
On July 15, Custer, in an act that defied explanation, impulsively assembled three officersâHamilton, brother Tom, and Cookeâalong with illustrator Theodore Davis and seventy-two men with the best stock available. After assigning Major Joel Elliott the command, Custer headed east with his detail on the Smoky Hill Trail toward Fort Hays, a distance of about 150 miles.
Along the way, the detail met a wagon train containing forage commanded by Captain Frederick William Benteen, which unknowingly carried cholera germs that would infect Fort Wallace. Later, two mail stages were stopped by Custer in a futile effort to find a letter from Libbie. Just east of Downerâs Station, a trooper disappeared, and Custer ordered Sergeant James Connelly and six men to chase after this deserter. The missing man was captured, but the party was attacked by Indians on the way back, suffering one man killed and another wounded, and took refuge at the station. Connelly reported the incident to Custer, whoâeven at the urging of Captain Hamiltonârefused to delay his march to rescue the beleaguered men, who were only about three miles away. Custer reasoned that there was an infantry detachment guarding the station and that time was of the essence in their march east. An infantry detail later found the victims, and the wounded man survived.
Custer and the exhausted cavalrymen arrived at Fort Hays on the morning of July 18, having covered the 150-mile distance in an extraordinarily fast time of fifty-five hours. Custer, his brother Tom, Cooke, and Davis immediately departed from Fort Hays with four government mules and an army ambulance and proceeded sixty miles to Fort Harker, where Custer expected to find his wife, and arrived at 2:00 A.M. Libbie, however, had returned to Fort Riley. After informing Colonel A. J. Smith of his presence, Custer boarded a train headed to Fort Riley. The next morning, Smith sent a telegram to Custer ordering him back to Fort Harker to be placed under arrest for deserting his post at Fort Wallace.
Exactly why did Custer act like a man possessed and leave his post in such a manner to make a mad dash across Kansasâsurely aware that he risked a court-martial?
Stories have circulated that Custer embarked upon his mad dash in a fit of jealous rage after hearing that his wife and Lieutenant Thomas Weir were
Some researchers have disputed much of Keoghâs heretofore-accepted biography, which casts doubts about whether or not his father in fact ever served in that particular unit. Libbie Custer, however, was under the impression that Keogh had made her husband aware of âGarry Owenâ shortly after the formation of the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Riley. The tune apparently dates back to Revolutionary War days and might have been known to Custer as early as his schooling at West Point. Regardless of its origins, âGarry Owenâ became the regimental battle song of the Seventh Cavalry and was played during expeditions, campaigns, battles, and ceremonies to the delight of its members and onlookers alike.
Fort Wallace, the westernmost post in Kansas, had miserable, primitive living conditions and was under constant siege by hostile Plains Indians. Custer learned that mail and dispatches had not been able to get through on the Butterfield Overland stagecoach line due to the Indian presence along the Smoky Hill Trail.
General Hancock had recently passed through from Denver on his way east to the comforts of Fort Leavenworth but had not left behind any orders for Custer. Custer was also informed that Captain Albert Barnitz and his Company G, which had ridden to Pond Creek Station, had been attacked on June 26 by Roman Noseâs Cheyenne and sustained six killed and six wounded.
On July 15, Custer, in an act that defied explanation, impulsively assembled three officersâHamilton, brother Tom, and Cookeâalong with illustrator Theodore Davis and seventy-two men with the best stock available. After assigning Major Joel Elliott the command, Custer headed east with his detail on the Smoky Hill Trail toward Fort Hays, a distance of about 150 miles.
Along the way, the detail met a wagon train containing forage commanded by Captain Frederick William Benteen, which unknowingly carried cholera germs that would infect Fort Wallace. Later, two mail stages were stopped by Custer in a futile effort to find a letter from Libbie. Just east of Downerâs Station, a trooper disappeared, and Custer ordered Sergeant James Connelly and six men to chase after this deserter. The missing man was captured, but the party was attacked by Indians on the way back, suffering one man killed and another wounded, and took refuge at the station. Connelly reported the incident to Custer, whoâeven at the urging of Captain Hamiltonârefused to delay his march to rescue the beleaguered men, who were only about three miles away. Custer reasoned that there was an infantry detachment guarding the station and that time was of the essence in their march east. An infantry detail later found the victims, and the wounded man survived.
Custer and the exhausted cavalrymen arrived at Fort Hays on the morning of July 18, having covered the 150-mile distance in an extraordinarily fast time of fifty-five hours. Custer, his brother Tom, Cooke, and Davis immediately departed from Fort Hays with four government mules and an army ambulance and proceeded sixty miles to Fort Harker, where Custer expected to find his wife, and arrived at 2:00 A.M. Libbie, however, had returned to Fort Riley. After informing Colonel A. J. Smith of his presence, Custer boarded a train headed to Fort Riley. The next morning, Smith sent a telegram to Custer ordering him back to Fort Harker to be placed under arrest for deserting his post at Fort Wallace.
Exactly why did Custer act like a man possessed and leave his post in such a manner to make a mad dash across Kansasâsurely aware that he risked a court-martial?
Stories have circulated that Custer embarked upon his mad dash in a fit of jealous rage after hearing that his wife and Lieutenant Thomas Weir were
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