The Brigadier-General Commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since. It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so, the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them, unless you should see sufficient reasons for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn toward the Little Horn,[[68]] he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the head-waters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank. The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course its future movements must be controlled by circumstances, as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible.
Courtesy of The Century Co.
GEN. GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER
Killed with half his regiment at the Little Big Horn
The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock’s Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon’s column, with information of the result of your examination. The lower part of this Creek will be examined by a detachment from Colonel Gibbon’s command. The supply steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks if the river is found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the command of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the meantime you receive further orders.
Very respectfully your obedient servant,
E. W. Smith,
Captain 18th Infantry,
Acting Assistant Adjutant General.
Custer was directed to march southward until he struck the trail Reno had discovered. If, as Terry supposed, it led across the Rosebud, he was not to follow it westward to the Little Big Horn, or until he met the Indians, but he was to turn to the southward until he struck the head-waters of the Tongue River. If he found no Indians there, he was to swing northward down the valley of the Little Big Horn, toward the spot where Terry supposed the Indians to be, and where, in reality, they were. Meanwhile Gibbon was to come up the Little Big Horn from the north toward the same spot. In the general plan of the campaign, Crook and his force were supposed to prevent the Indians from moving south—which they did, by the way. Custer was to keep them from going east, and, as he advanced, was “to feel to his left” to preclude all possibility of their slipping between him and Crook, while Gibbon was to keep them from going off to the north. The Indians would have no direction open to them for flight except westward, and in that case the troops hoped to overtake them in a difficult country, inclosed by mountains and rivers.
Terry, although he was not an experienced Indian fighter, had divined the position of the Indians with remarkable accuracy, and he fully expected to find them on the Little Big Horn. If Custer had followed Terry’s orders, he would have reached the Indians on the day that Gibbon’s men, as we shall see, rescued Reno. After the disaster Terry magnanimously strove at first to conceal from the public the fact that Custer had disobeyed his orders. Custer had paid the penalty for his disobedience with his life, and Terry was willing to bear the odium of the defeat and failure. His self-sacrifice was noble and characteristic; but a mistake, caused by the carelessness of General Sherman, coupled with the enterprise of a brilliant newspaper reporter, who posed as a regularly accredited government messenger, defeated Terry’s intent, and instead of the first report, which made no allusion to the disobedience of orders, being made public,[[69]] a second report, which told the whole story, and which was intended for the authorities alone, was given to the press and immediately spread broadcast. The first report soon turned up, and Terry thereafter was made the victim of unmerited obloquy by Custer’s partizans, who said that the absence of any mention in the original report of any disobedience on the part of Custer, and the alleged failure to allude to the plan of campaign which Custer had frustrated, was evidence that no importance was attached to the plan by Terry or any one until after the failure and consequent popular indignation. Terry’s answer to this was a noble silence, to save Custer’s reputation. The living assumed the responsibility to protect the fame of the dead—honor to him!