My Dear Sir:
Replying to your esteemed favor of the eleventh inst. I regret to say that I have no means of recalling with certainty the source of my information touching the Custer affidavit. My impression is, however, that my informant was Gen. Miles, with whom I communicated on the subject while I was writing my account. I also conversed personally with Hughes and with a very intimate friend, now deceased, of Gen. Terry’s.
I shall be extremely pleased to read your views upon this subject.
Very truly yours,
E. Benj. Andrews.
I also wrote to General Miles and received the following reply from him:
1736 N Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C., November 20, 1903.
My Dear Sir:
In reply to your two letters, you will find in my book, “Personal Recollections, or from New England to the Golden Gate,” published by Werner & Co., Akron, Ohio, perhaps all the information you will require. I can not give the time now to going over the campaign in detail. I presume you will find the book in most libraries.[[116]] You will notice in it a chapter on the Custer campaign. General Custer did not disobey orders. When General Terry divided his command, taking one portion of it with him up the Yellowstone, and sending General Custer with the other portion far out in the Indian country, it necessarily put from seventy-five to one hundred miles between the two commands, and therefore placed upon General Custer the responsibility of acting on the offensive or defensive, for he could have been attacked by the whole body of the combined tribes, and, on the other hand, if he allowed them to escape without attacking them, he would have been severely censured. It would be silly to suppose that Indian chiefs like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse would permit two columns to march around over the country with infantry, cavalry, wagon trains, etc.,[[117]] and wait for them to come up on both sides simultaneously, and one must believe the American people very gullible if they thought such a proposition had military merit.