General Gibbon also has gone on record in a letter to Terry regarding the situation:
“So great was my fear that Custer’s zeal would carry him forward too rapidly, that the last thing I said to him when bidding him good-by after his regiment had filed past you when starting on his march was, ‘Now, Custer, don’t be greedy, but wait for us.’ He replied gaily as, with a wave of his hand, he dashed off to follow his regiment, ‘No, I will not.’ Poor fellow! Knowing what we do now, and what an effect a fresh Indian trail seemed to have had upon him, perhaps we were expecting too much to anticipate a forbearance on his part which would have rendered coöperation of the two columns practicable.[[70]]
“Except so far as to draw profit from past experience, it is perhaps useless to speculate as to what would have been the result had your plan, as originally agreed upon, been carried out. But I cannot help reflecting that in that case my column, supposing the Indian camp to have remained where it was when Custer struck it, would have been the first to reach it; that with our infantry and Gatling guns we should have been able to take care of ourselves, even though numbering only about two-thirds of Custer’s force; and that with six hundred cavalry in the neighborhood, led as only Custer could lead it, the result to the Indians would have been very different from what it was.”
With regard to Gibbon’s generous suggestion that Custer was suddenly carried away by the opportunity presented, the testimony of the late General Ludlow is interesting. According to him, Custer stated on the 8th of May, in St. Paul, Minnesota, that he intended, at the first chance he got in the campaign, to “cut loose from (and make his operations independent of) General Terry during the summer;” that he had “got away from Stanley and would be able to swung clear of Terry.”[[71]]
It is difficult, nay, it is impossible, therefore, to acquit Custer of a deliberate purpose to campaign on his own account so soon as he could get away from General Terry. The sentence of Terry’s orders commencing: “It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions,” etc., and expressing confidence in his zeal and energy, and Terry’s unwillingness to hamper him with precise directions, when nearly in contact with the enemy, did not warrant Custer in disobeying his orders. It was only to govern his conduct when he should be in contact with the enemy, in which case, of course, he would have to be the sole judge of what was best to be done. His conduct in that case will be considered later. In any event it has no bearing on the question of disobedience, for the crux is here: had Custer obeyed orders, he would not have come in contact with the enemy when and where he did. The conditions would have differed greatly.
Every student of military matters knows that the words used, “He desires that you should conform to them (his own views) unless,” etc., convey a direct, positive command.[[72]]
The abstract question of disobedience of orders is one that has often been discussed. It is impossible to maintain the position that an officer should never, under any circumstances, disobey his orders. Circumstances sometimes compel him to do so. But when an officer commanding troops which are supposed to act in coöperation with other troops receives orders to carry out a certain specified detail of a stated general plan, and in the exercise of his own discretion concludes to disobey his orders and do something other than what he was directed to do, he takes upon himself the onus of success or failure, not merely of his own immediate manœuver, but of the whole general plan. If the plan miscarries through his disobedience, whatever may have been his motives, woe be unto him! If by his disobedience he brings about the end at which the original plan aimed, the defeat of the enemy, that is another proposition. The event has then justified his disobedience.
Every soldier understands that reasons for disobedience must be so clear, so convincing, and so unexpected, that he is warranted in taking so prodigious a risk. Disregarding for the moment, for the sake of argument, General Ludlow’s testimony as to preconceived and deliberate intent on Custer’s part to disobey, supposing Custer’s disobedience to have been caused by some exigency or crisis, we may ask ourselves what were the reasons that caused him entirely to disregard Terry’s plan and so to manœuver as to bring himself directly in touch with the Indians in the shortest possible time, without attempting either to examine Tullock’s Creek[[73]] or to incline to the southward—“feel with his left”? These reasons—if any there were—can never be known, owing to Custer’s death. It can only be said that no satisfactory reasons appear which justify Custer’s action.
The best that can be urged in defense of Custer is contained in the following paragraph taken from Colonel Godfrey’s Century article.[[74]]
“Had Custer continued his march southward—that is, left the Indian trail—the Indians would have known of our movements on the 25th and a battle would have been fought very near the same field on which Crook had been attacked and forced back only a week before; the Indians would never have remained in camp and allowed a concentration of the several columns to attack them. If they escaped without punishment or battle, Custer would undoubtedly have been blamed.”