The Mintage | Page 5

would write across the sky in letters of light this undisputed truth,
proven by every annal of history, that the only way to help yourself is
through loyalty to those who trust and employ you.
BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN
It was in the Spring of Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six that the Sioux on
the Dakota Reservation became restless, and after various fruitless
efforts to restrain them, moved Westward in a body.
This periodic migration was a habit and a tradition of the tribe. For
hundreds of years they had visited the buffalo country on an annual
hunt.
Now the buffaloes were gone, save for a few scattered herds in the
mountains. The Indians did not fully realize this, although they realized
that as the Whites came in, the game went out. The Sioux were hunters
and horsemen by nature. They traveled and moved about with great
freedom. If restrained or interfered with they grew irritable and then
hostile.
Now they were full of fight. The Whites had ruined the
hunting-grounds; besides that, white soldiers had fought them if they
moved to their old haunts, sacred for their use and bequeathed to them
by their ancestors. In dead of Winter, when the snows lay deep and they
were in their teepees, crouching around the scanty fire, soldiers had
charged on horseback through the villages, shooting into the teepees,
killing women and children.
At the head of these soldiers was a white chief, whom they called
Yellow Hair. He was a smashing, dashing, fearless soldier who
understood the Indian ways and haunts, and then used this knowledge
for the undoing of the Red Men.
Yellow Hair wanted to keep them in one little place all the time, and

desired that they should raise corn like cowardly Crows, when what
they wanted was to be free and hunt!
They feared Yellow Hair--and hated him.
Custer was a man of intelligence--nervous, energetic, proud. His
honesty and sincerity were beyond dispute. He was a natural Indian
fighter. He could pull his belt one hole tighter and go three whole days
without food. He could ride like the wind, or crawl in the grass, and
knew how to strike, quickly and unexpectedly, as the first streak of
dawn came into the East. Like Napoleon, he knew the value of time,
and, in fact, he had somewhat of the dash and daring, not to mention
the vanity, of the Corsican. His men believed in him and loved him, for
he marched them to victory, and with odds of five to one had won
again and again.
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But Custer had the defect of his qualities; and to use the Lincoln phrase,
sometimes took counsel of his ambition.
He had fought in the Civil War in places where no prisoners were taken,
and where there was no commissary. And this wild, free life had bred
in him a habit of unrest--a chafing at discipline and all rules of modern
warfare.
Results were the only things he cared for, and power was his Deity.
When the Indians grew restless in the Spring of Seventy-six, Custer
was called to Washington for consultation. President Grant was not
satisfied with our Indian policy--he thought that in some ways the
Whites were the real savages. The Indians he considered as children,
not as criminals.
Custer tried to tell him differently. Custer knew the bloodthirsty
character of the Sioux, their treachery and cunning--he showed scars by
way of proof!

The authorities at Washington needed Custer. However, his view of the
case did not mean theirs. Custer believed in the mailed hand, and if
given the power he declared he would settle the Indian Question in
America once and forever. His confidence and assumption and what
Senator Dawes called swagger were not to their liking. Anyway, Custer
was attracting altogether too much attention--the people followed him
on Pennsylvania Avenue whenever he appeared.
General Terry was chosen to head the expedition against the hostile
Sioux, and Custer was to go as second in command.
Terry was older than Custer, but Custer had seen more service on the
plains. Custer demurred--threatened to resign--and wrote a note to the
President asking for a personal interview and requesting a review of the
situation.
President Grant refused to see Custer, and reminded him that the first
duty of a soldier was obedience.
Custer left Washington, glum and sullen--grieved. But he was a soldier,
and so he reported at Fort Lincoln, as ordered, to serve under a man
who knew less about Indian fighting than did he.
The force of a thousand men embarked on six boats at Bismarck. There
a banquet was given in honor of Terry and Custer. "You will hear from
us by courier before July Fourth," said Custer.
He was still moody and depressed, but declared his willingness