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relished the fact that Custer and Libbie had been put on notice that there were “wheels within wheels,” and that he, the reviled white-haired underling, was the ultimate insider when it came to the workings of the press. He had used the papers once before to set Custer straight, and as was now clearer than ever, he could do it again.

    O n May 16, 1876, with the regiment due to leave Fort Lincoln the next day, Custer requested that General Terry meet him at the two-story house he shared with Libbie and their servants. Of all the rooms in this newly built Victorian home, Custer’s favorite was his study. During the winters he often spent almost the entire day holed up in the little room, poring over Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy or a biography of Napoleon. To make sure he remained undisturbed, he placed a printed card on the door that read, “THIS IS MY BUSY DAY.”
    During the Yellowstone campaign, Custer had learned the art of taxidermy, and the walls of his study contained the heads of a buffalo, an antelope, a black-tailed deer, and the grizzly bear he’d bagged in the Black Hills. At dusk Custer and Libbie, who had long since resigned themselves to their childlessness, liked to lounge within this crowded self-made world, with only the glowing embers of the fire to illuminate the unblinking glass eyes of the animals Custer had killed and stuffed. Libbie later admitted that the study was a somewhat bizarre place for a husband and wife to linger lovingly in each other’s presence. “I used to think that a man on the brink of mania, thrust suddenly into such a place in the dim flickering light, would be hurried to his doom by fright,” she wrote. “We loved the place dearly.”
    On the opposite side of the hall was the much larger living room, with a piano and harp. On Tuesday, May 16, Custer called out for Libbie, and asked her to come into the living room, where she found her husband and General Terry.
    Once Libbie had taken her seat, Custer shut the door and turned to his commanding officer. “General Terry,” he said, “a man usually means what he says when he brings his wife to listen to his statements. I want to say that reports are circulating that I do not want to go out to the campaign under you. But I want you to know that I do want to go and serve under you, not only that I value you as a soldier, but as a friend and a man.”
    What Custer declined to mention was that eight days earlier, while still in St. Paul, he had bragged to another army officer that once the regiment headed west from Fort Lincoln, he planned “to swing clear of Terry,” just as he’d done with Stanley back in 1873. It was a foolish and appallingly ungrateful thing to say, especially since Terry had drafted the telegram that enabled Custer to rejoin his regiment. Even worse, the officer to whom Custer was speaking was one of Terry’s close friends.
    Custer did not drink; he didn’t have to. His emotional effusions unhinged his judgment in ways that went far beyond alcohol’s ability to interfere with clear thinking. Soon after making his claims about breaking free of Terry, Custer must have realized how stupid he’d been. It turned out that Terry did not hear about Custer’s boast until later that fall, but Custer didn’t know that. Before they departed from Fort Lincoln, he knew he must assure General Terry that his loyalty was unwavering.
    Terry was known for his congenial manner, but he was no fool. Ever since the Seventh Cavalry had come under his jurisdiction back in 1873, Custer had refused to go through proper channels. While testifying before Congress that spring he’d claimed that his regiment had received a shipment of grain from the War Department that had undoubtedly been stolen from the Indian agencies. Custer, of course, had neglected to check with Terry before making the claim, and as Terry knew from the start, there was nothing improper about the grain. Custer had subsequently recanted in writing