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Post by Tricia on Sept 19, 2005 22:38:14 GMT -6
Did this relationship actually occur or was the entire liason manufactured by Custer's "enemies?"
Did both Benteen and Ben Clark have an ulterior motive? Do Meotzi's relatives offer a truth, even if it was/is based in oral tradition? Was this relationship nothing more than anti-Custer spin?
There are no correct answers to this question, just opinions ... or are they pro-Custer interpretations?
Just a start-- Leyton McLean
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Post by elisabeth on Sept 19, 2005 23:32:11 GMT -6
Personally, I have no doubt whatsoever that the relationship occurred. Not as a Wicked Oppressor/Helpless Captive thing, though; Benteen's description of it rings true to me, with Monaseetah perfectly happy about it because of the privileges and freedom it conferred. (From all we hear of her, she was not a lady on whom any man could have forced himself and kept his kneecaps intact!)
The clincher, for me, is what Libbie says about it. The pointed way in which she describes Monaseetah's baby (dark hair, dark eyes, typically Indian, i.e. definitely no GAC blood) makes it pretty clear that the rumours were so widespread that she felt it necessary to quash them in print. Otherwise, she'd never have raised the subject at all, surely.
That's my view, anyway!
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Post by michigander on Sept 20, 2005 3:47:13 GMT -6
Monasetah had her child few months after she met Custer, so that cannot be his son, unless there is a faster and express way to get children born that I'm not aware about. Ben Clark, had his points: he was not preferred as a scout by Custer that gave the task to another. Benteen, we knows. I think this is just gossip, and a bad kind. Libbie told about Monasetah as she tell and describes other indian women in her books. And she tell and write about just for one reason: she have nothing to hide.
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Post by Tricia on Sept 20, 2005 16:09:24 GMT -6
Monasetah had her child few months after she met Custer, so that cannot be his son, unless there is a faster and express way to get children born that I'm not aware about. Ben Clark, had his points: he was not preferred as a scout by Custer that gave the task to another. Benteen, we knows. I think this is just gossip, and a bad kind. Libbie told about Monasetah as she tell and describes other indian women in her books. And she tell and write about just for one reason: she have nothing to hide. Then where did the Cheyenne oral tradition originate? Certainly they weren't in cahoots with Benteen and Clark. Wasn't Kate Bighead a cousin? I'm apt to agree with Elisabeth, especially in regards to Libbie's writings. She was a very careful, calculating writer and defender of her dead husband ... I should have marked this on the poll, though. I think if there was a Custer child, it belonged to Tom. From what I have learned from former CBHMA president Rod Thomas, Monaseetah's descendants will only go so far as to say more than just the two Custers shared in her "gifts." Supposedly, they offer no comment on any Anglo-fathered child and its parentage. Regards, Leyton McLean
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Post by crzhrs on Sept 20, 2005 16:37:02 GMT -6
<I think if there was a Custer child, it belonged to Tom>
And maybe that's why TC got the "extra" treatment at the LBH . . . coming to kill his child's mother, relatives, and friends!
Hmm . . . this sounds possible, forget about Rain-in-the-face . . . look what happened to Dorman who married a Sioux woman and had spent time with the them.
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Post by elisabeth on Sept 21, 2005 1:08:56 GMT -6
Leyton, I'm sure you're right about Tom, rather than GAC, fathering any child of Monaseetah's.
As I'm sure you know, there seem to be two pretty strong traditions floating around (can't remember the sources for either of them at present) to suggest that. One is that GAC was sterile as a result of contracting gonorrhea in his West Point days -- borne out by his having no children with Libbie. And the other is that after her first, full-blooded Cheyenne child, Monahseetah had another, half-Anglo child. A boy, named Yellow Bird, according to the rumours.
This is one area where we could wish Benteen had been MORE gossipy, eh!
Libbie tries to persuade us that Monaseetah's living in the stockade with the other captives by the time she (Libbie) gets to Fort Hays, but I'd be surprised if Monaseetah would put up with such an indignity in reality; much more likely that GAC hastily "passed her on" to Tom once Libbie arrived! There's a clue to the true set-up of officer-captive relations in a letter Keogh wrote to his brother at about that time: "Some of them [the Cheyenne squaws] are very pretty ... It is usual for officers to have two or three lounging around." So Libbie's definitely not telling us everything!
Crzhs, you could well be onto something. All of that, AND Monaseetah's revenge for Tom's infuriating insistence on calling her 'Sally Ann'??!
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Post by d o harris on Sept 21, 2005 2:12:48 GMT -6
If a Cheyenne woman, seven months pregnant, lost her husband, and moved into the lodge or under the protection of another man, when the child was born, who would the Cheyenne consider the father to be? If either GAC or TC fathered a child there had to be a second child, and there is no record of this. There has been an allegation of a second child, but the source for this seems to be Mari Sandoz, a virulent Custerphobe, who, as usual when spewing her venom, provided no documentation, only the assurance she had such documentation she never shared. Benteen and Clark for different reasons can be disputed. The best evidence that something happened during that period is found in the personal lives and correspondence of the ideal couple. They spent extensive time separated, and the letters clearly indicate that when the great man was allowed into Milady's bedchamber he was greeted with something less than the ardor to which he had become accustomed.
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Post by Scout on Sept 21, 2005 4:44:06 GMT -6
The only problem with the 'Custer' child is that he vanishes into history. Where did he go? The famous offspring disappears completely....most likely never was a child, but did Custer and Monaseetah have a laision? Maybe, although I have never understood the obsession with this story. So what? I believe Sandoz is a fiction writer, three tons of dialogue, and it reads like novel. Kinda like Wyatt Earp writer Glenn Bouyer, who always had 'secret sources' for his books. Come to find out he was making the stuff up. He was exposed and it finished his career.
Benteen fueled the stories and also allude to a Libbie- Weir relationship, and then there was the Libbie-Tom story. Whether you like him or you hate him, Benteen was a first rate gossip.
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Post by crzhrs on Sept 21, 2005 6:18:25 GMT -6
In several of Custer's letters to Libbie he used words like distrust and indiscretion. He was never clear on what brought on the distrust or indiscretion. Apparently there was some outside of marriage thing going on for Custer to use those words. See CAVALIER IN BUCKSKIN for more.
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Post by ma dawg got et on Sept 21, 2005 8:12:43 GMT -6
it was also Benteen who first wrote that the baby was 100% pure Cheyenne. It was also Benteen to claimed he was *told* that Custer was seen copulating with the Indian woman. Yeah sure, he let people see him doing it. Uh huh. He was bonking a woman who was obviously pregnant. Uh huh. One thing is sure, Monaseeta sure seemed to enjoy her "position" as the Main Guy's Main Squeeze. And what better way for her to assure a comfy life for her and her coming child and to step in and speak for the other women. Power trip, anyone?
One theory that has been given me in private is that as she appeared to be the only pregnant female in the lot, perhaps Custer gave her some special measure of protection.
GAC's letters regarding indescretion etc. seem to allude more to Libbie's "cutting words" in reference to either something to do with Weir on her part or GAC being cut to bits by small words regading his gambling. The gambling was a very sore point beween then because GAC lost hundreds of $$ in a game.
alfuso
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Post by elisabeth on Sept 21, 2005 10:17:51 GMT -6
Alfuso, there are also -- aren't there? -- some references in the letters to never giving her cause to be jealous again? (Can't remember the exact wording off hand.) Which is kind of comical, given the way he behaves on his New York trip ... writing her letters designed to do precisely that! It's the sort of needling that went on during their courtship, so presumably by then they've more or less reconciled; though the tone of Libbie's replies is one of extreme irritation.
I don't know if anyone else would agree with this or not, but I get the impression that after the Washita 'victory', Custer gets such a boost to his until-now shaken confidence that he goes into 'babe magnet' mode. A bit like a rock star getting a Number 1 in the charts. There's Monaseetah, then there's (we're told) Mrs. Reed at Leavenworth, and then in New York there's not only Clara Kellogg but a host of groupies as well ... He's uncontrollable. (Significant that Eliza Brown decides to leave their service now? Is it that she can't bear to watch?) And then, in Kentucky, he leaves Libbie pretty much to her own devices, while he disports himself among the demi-monde in Louisville. It's really only when they get to Fort Lincoln that they seem to get back on an even keel together -- or that's my impression, anyway ...
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Post by Tricia on Sept 21, 2005 12:57:37 GMT -6
Elisabeth--
This is where I really like "Cavalier in Buckskin." Covers a lot of personal information in regards to the GAC and LBC relationship without getting too gossipy ... Utley says that the marital problems began in 1866 and culminated when they essentially separated over Christmas in 1869--with Libbie back at Leavenworth and GAC back in Monroe. And his letters during this period point to something ... but it's really shadowy, to use a Wert term. And I'm certain his gambling didn't help matters at all.
I believe it was also Wert who came up with the "real" reason GAC and LBC didn't have children. You're absolutely correct as to a West Point, ill gotten-infection.
But I think when Eliza left, she said something to the effect that "You've got the ginril, Miss Libbie," or something to that nature, "and I got nobody." Or continuing your thoughts on that, Elisabeth, maybe she meant, "and you're stuck with him!" But I also think that Libbie had gotten a bit tired of Eliza thinking she was the mistress of the house, rather than the opposite!
Regards, Leyton McLean
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Post by crzhrs on Sept 21, 2005 13:27:38 GMT -6
I believe GAC contracted syphillus at West Point and was treated. What the treatment was and how effective it was is unknown. At the time who knows what they used.
Not being a medical person, but does syphillus make one sterile?
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Post by elisabeth on Sept 21, 2005 23:49:17 GMT -6
Crzhrs, I'm not a medical person either, but I don't think it does; Reno had it, and he fathered a son. And it lurks in Victorian fiction as something that could be passed on to children. Ibsen's 'Ghosts' revolves around that. (Leads to mental instability, too, which could explain Reno's problems in later life.) I understood that GAC had gonorrhea, which does cause sterility. But who knows, he could have had both ...
Leyton -- shameful to confess, I still haven't read the Utley book! I must. Sounds great. (Though I'm all in favour of gossip, myself!) Interesting that he puts it as early as '66. Hmmm. Can't have been an easy time for either of them, of course. Minnie Dubbs Millbrook is great on that, in "The West Breaks In General Custer".
Maybe I'm too suspicious-minded, but we've only got Libbie's word for what Eliza said when she handed in her notice!
BTW, has anyone done any serious work on Eliza? She's such a great character, it'd be good to know more about her. We know she married a lawyer, and we know she met up with Libbie again years later in New York; is there any more that's known?
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Post by crzhrs on Sept 22, 2005 6:53:27 GMT -6
<(Leads to mental instability, too, which could explain Reno's problems in later life.)>
Interesting . . . if Reno could have been affected mentally, then Custer also would have been affected mentally. Custer seemed to be in sound mind during the CW and early Plains Career . . . but as time went on, his mental judgment was questioned. Could it be possible that a STD was the cause for Custer's sometimes rash decisions?
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