He was still moody and depressed, but declared his willingness to do his duty.
Terry did not like his attitude and told him so. Poor Custer was stung by the reprimand.
He was only a boy, thirty-seven years old, to be sure, but with the whimsical, daring, ambitious and jealous quality of the center-rush. Custer at times had his eye on the White House—why not! Had not Grant been a soldier?
Women worshiped Custer, and men who knew him, never doubted his earnestness and honesty. He lacked humor.
He was both sincere and serious.
The expedition moved on up the tortuous Missouri, tying up at night to avoid the treacherous sandbars that lay in wait.
They had reached the Yellowstone River, and were getting into the Indian Country.
To lighten the boats, Terry divided his force into two parts. Custer disembarked on the morning of the Twenty-fifth of June, with four hundred forty-three men, besides a dozen who looked after the pack-train.
Scouts reported that the hostile Sioux were camped on the Little Big Horn, seventy-five miles across the country.
Terry gave Custer orders to march the seventy-five miles in forty-eight hours, and attack the Indians at the head of their camp at daylight on the morning of the Twenty-seventh. There was to be no parley—panic was the thing desired, and when Custer had started the savages on the run, Terry would attack them at the other end of their village, and the two fleeing mobs of savages would be driven on each other, and then they would cast down their arms and the trick would be done.