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March 11, 2004 Plains Folk: Custer
The writing of a memoir, one’s own story, is always a matter of delusion. Some writers contrive to delude their readers. Even the most honest of them delude themselves into thinking their recollections are reliable. I know this because I write memoirs. I know it the more so because I recently had the occasion to re-read “My Life on the Plains,” by George A. Custer. This is Custer’s account of his life, specifically his travels and fights on the Central Plains, in the years 1867 through 1869. Custer’s “Life” deals with his role in the Hancock Expedition up the Arkansas River in 1867 and his subsequent reconnaissance across western Kansas and Nebraska. It deals, too, with his attack on the Cheyenne at the Washita. After that it details his role in bringing the Arapaho and Cheyenne onto reservations in 1869, incidentally also recovering two white captives from the Cheyenne. The book goes lightly on his court-martial in 1867. A historian assessing Custer’s memoir, by using both external and internal evidence, easily concludes he was a liar and a knave. His account of key events in the Hancock expedition simply does not jibe with other, reliable sources. Edward W. Wynkoop, agent to the Cheyenne and Arapaho and a man of amazing courage, is disparaged unfairly and deceitfully. Custer’s own account of how he brought in his report of the fight on the Washita is daming. His conduct in that engagement was in several ways questionable, and he knew it, so afterward he made his officers report to him orally rather than in writing. That way, in his own written report, he could tell his superior, Phil Sheridan, what he wanted them to have said. Moreover, he sent the report ahead with a courier, so that before anyone else could talk to Sheridan, his story would be established. To focus exclusively on Custer’s credibility or lack thereof, however, is to miss much of what may be learned from his book. Custer wrote in a manner that was self-consciously literary. His book deserves to be studied as a work of literature. It has a well-developed plot with a climax on the Washita and an intriguing denouement, or aftermath, as he follows the Arapaho and Cheyenne across the Indian Territory. (This section, I believe, is the inspiration for the classic western film by John Ford, “The Searchers.”) The last section of the book is key. It shows growth in character. Throughout the early parts of the book Custer portrays himself as irresponsible and self-indulgent. In the end, though, there is redemption. He brings the Indians in peaceably and to everyone’s surprise, by negotiation and stratagem, recovers the two white captives held by the Cheyenne. Custer’s portrayal of his growth in character is artful. Deluding, but truly artful. It takes a full reading of the book to realize, too, how much a man of his times Custer was. I know that Robert Utley, in his fine biography, has termed Custer a “Cavalier in Buckskin.” This implies Custer was a man out of his place in history, that he belonged to an earlier age. I don’t think so. Custer was the epitome of the Victorian man. He wrote in the style of the Romantic, sketching landscapes and people in that fashion. He subscribed to Victorian ideas of white racial superiority, which was why he believed a thin blue line of troopers could defeat far greater numbers of undisciplined savages. And, in a peculiar way, he demonstrated Victorian family values. He got court-martialed mainly because he abandoned his command to visit his wife; Victorians believed in loving, companionate marriage. I wonder how much of his own memoir Custer believed. Most of it, I reckon. ### Source:
Tom Isern, (701) 799-2942, isern@plainsfolk.com
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