Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/543

Rh the peremptory order of Custer to 'Come on,' argues either a desire to sacrifice Custer, or an ignorance of which his past career renders him incapable. Custer told him to 'Come on,' and he reported to Reno." In order, as he says, to "vindicate the reputation of a noble man from unjust aspersions," this writer further declares, that "had Reno fought as Custer fought, and had Benteen obeyed Custer's orders, the battle of the Little Big Horn might have proved Custer's last and greatest Indian victory."

Of the writer last quoted, the Army and Navy Journal says:—"With reckless pen he thrusts right and left, careless of reputations, regardless of facts, darkening the lives of other men, in the vain hope that one name may shine more brightly on the page of history * * * Nothing but the most absolute demonstration, accompanied by the proof, would justify such statements as he has made, and this he has not given. The reports of anonymous newspaper correspondents, and an ex parte statement of the conclusions drawn from letters, of which we have not so much as the names of the writers, is not proof on which to base criticisms affecting character and reputation."

Capt. Benteen, Brevet Colonel U.S.A., who has been a captain in the 7th Cavalry since its organization in 1866, at which date Gen. Custer was appointed its Lieut. Colonel, in a letter to the Army and Navy Journal uses the following language:—

"Col. Reno and I thought during the siege of June 25th and 26th, at the Little Big Horn, that he, Reno, was the abandoned party, and spoke of it as another 'Major Elliot affair'; thinking that General Custer