Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/540



conduct on the first day of the fighting on the Little Big Horn, has been severely criticised by several of Gen. Custer's personal friends; and one of them, Gen T. L. Rosser, in a letter addressed to Reno and published in the Army and Navy Journal, blames him for taking to the timber when his "loss was little or nothing." "You had," he says, "an open field for cavalry operations, and I believe that if you had remained in the saddle and charged boldly into the village, the shock upon the Indians would have been so great that they would have been compelled to withdraw their attacking force from Custer, who, when relieved, could have pushed his command through to open ground, where he could have manoeuvred his command, and thus greatly have increased his chances of success." It would seem as if this and similar criticisms were sufficiently answered by Reno's report; and by his reply to Rosser, which is given in part below:—

"After reading all your letter I could no longer look upon it as a tribute of a generous enemy, since through me you had attacked as brave officers as ever served a government, and with the same recklessness and ignorance of circumstances as Custer is charged with in his attacks upon the hostile Indians. Both charges—the one made against him and the one made by you against us—are equally untrue, You say:—'I feel Custer would have succeeded had Reno, with all the reserve of seven companies, passed through and joined Custer after the first repulse;' and