Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX A. Being a Further Discussion of General Custer's Course in the Little Big Horn Campaign.* I. WHETHER General Custer did, or did not, obey General Terry's orders; whether these orders were, or were not, well considered, and such as could be carried out; whether, if General Custer did disobey General Terry's orders he was warranted in so doing by the circumstances in which he found himself, are questions of the deepest interest to the student of military matters and the historian thereof. I presume the problem they present will never be authoritatively settled, and that men will continue to differ upon these questions until the end of time. The matter has been discussed, pro and con, at great length on many occasions. A number of books and magazine articles have been written upon different phases of the situation. I have come to the conclusion indicated in my own article, as I said, against my wish. In view of his heroic death in the high places of the field, I would fain hold General Custer, for whom I have long cherished an admiration which I still retain, entirely innocent. I have only come to this conclusion after a rigid investigation including the careful weighing of such evidence as I could secure upon every point in question. This evidence consists, first, of a great variety of printed matter; second, of personal conversations with soldiers and military critics, which, as any record of it would necessarily be hearsay and secondhand, I have not set down hereafter save in one instance; third, of let * All notes in this appendix are signed by the initials of their writers to identify them.--C. T. B. ters which have been written me by officers who, from their participation in the campaign, or from unusual opportunities to...