GAC and Miss Spotted Tail, 1872

[Tricia]

I think Alfuso coined it correctly--the Great Buffalo Hunt was little more than a boys' weekend out and that boys will be boys. There is a rather uncomfortable newspaper description of GAC awarding a necklace to Miss Spotted Tail and their lingering kiss. Was he being hospitable or horny?

And the party met up with Libbie in Memphis ... lacking MST ... goodness, I wonder what that was like!

No rights, no wrongs. Discuss amongst yourselves.
--t.

[Tricia]

Uhh ... kind of sorry about the boredom of this thread, but Diane wanted to start something up that would be errr ... exciting. And if this allows us to explore the Grand Duke's visit, the relations with Keogh, and gets a little free publicity for this year's Grand Duke Rendezvous in North Platte, all the better.

I am still invited to next January's Grand Duke extravaganza up in Jefferson City, MO, thanks to Steve and Wayne and Janis! If anyone wants more details, email me and I'll see that every question can be answered. That is a possible meet-up spot for our first annual Not Another Custer Club's Conference!

[elisabeth]

OK, in the spirit of keeping the Tupperware flowing ...

Not sure how to vote on this. On the face of it, it would seem a bit unwise to debauch a key chief's daughter before his very eyes when the government needed his support; but it doesn't sound as if either he or his daughter had the slightest objection to the activities the newspaper described, so who knows!

Louise Barnett in Touched by Fire, p. 212, mentions Libbie's later notes on the hunt, with "MISS SPOTTED TAIL" as one of the subject headings. So it looks as if she knew of the jewellery/kiss story; quite possibly she'd read the newspaper accounts at the time. (Given the newspapers' habits of picking up each others' stories, even her local paper in dim, dull Elizabethtown had probably carried them.) While I'm sure Custer did it principally for fun -- and to show off to Alexis, of course -- I wonder if it mightn't have been something of a test, as well? Seems as if there's almost a "Taming of the Shrew" thing going on here. IF we're right about the events of 1870/71, Libbie had put herself in the wrong over Keogh. All the time Custer was unsure of getting her back, he affected to believe nothing had really happened; but once he had her to himself again, I suspect it was understood between them -- whether stated or not -- that she now had to serve out her penance before she'd be allowed to have fun again. Hence all the docile sewing, signifying "yes, I am a good submissive wife", and the almost spooky absence of complaints (as far as we know) when Custer was off enjoying himself in the fleshpots of sophisticated Louisville while poor Libbie mouldered in that one-horse dump of a town. The MST business could have been the ultimate test. (As in the last scene of "Taming" -- "now place your hand beneath your husband's foot ...".) If she reacted to it, the war would continue. But if she bore even this -- a major public humiliation, when all's said and done -- without complaint, she'd be allowed to share once more in the perks of Custer's celebrity. So she bites her tongue and says nothing, and at last is let off, paroled for good behaviour: meeting the Grand Duke, dazzling the world again at glittering balls and parties, and so on. Custer's satisfied he's in the ascendancy, and can relax.

As far as I can remember, we don't hear of any further flirtations or naughtiness on Custer's part after this (other than Benteen's story about the black cook on "the Dakota expedition") until the possible Nellie Wadsworth business that Cat mentioned in 1875 -- significantly, when Keogh's back on the scene. It's tempting to read it like this: Custer has now "won" the GAC-Libbie war at last, therefore no longer needs to do things to provoke her. He's also now got the writing, and has been seen by the nation cavorting with foreign potentates, so his ego is safe; from now on, putting Libbie Bacon in her place isn't as necessary to bolster it as it had been before.

Could all be wrong, of course, but it's one possible reading of what was going on ...

[Melani]

Elisabeth, I love your insights. I have more reading to do than I will be able to finish in my lifetime!

[clw]

I'm with you Melanie. Haven't read about this and I'm trying to get up to speed. Is there a link to this story? Sounds facinating!

[elisabeth]

There must be a link somewhere ... Till then, here's the newspaper version as given in Touched by Fire, p. 210-211:

"As the Daily State Journal delicately put it, Miss Spotted Tail 'was not averse to admiration'. Others entered the game, including Lieutenant Clark of the Second Cavalry, who hgave her a present of jewelry. the newspaper account continued:
'Gen. Custer, who had been profuse in his attention to her, stepped forward and, taking advantage of his knowledge of the Indian sign language and vernacular, entered into conversation with her and requested the privilege of putting rings in her ears, which she graciously accorded. He consumed much more time in this pleasant occupation than was necessarily needed, and having adjusted one of them in her ear, without changing his position put his arms around her neck in order to adjust the other. As she made no objection to this proceeding, he claimed the only reward he could request for his pleasing liberty, and the scene ended by him kissing her. It was done so graciously that old Spotted Tail had no reason to scalp him for his temerity.'"

Harmless boyish fun -- maybe -- but not something the average wife would welcome reading in the papers, I think ...

[clw]

How juicy. I Googled around a little. Didn't find much, but I did find Cody's reference in his autobiography. It seems like the Grand Duke, Custer and Cody were treating her like Scarlett at the Twelve Oaks barbeque. Wonder if there's a picture of her anywhere?

[clw]

There's a 1877 photograph of Dove Eye, Spotted Tail's daughter. Wonder if that's her?

[clw]

Thom Hatch in the Custer Reader refers to her as "Spotted Tail's comely, flirtatious sixteen year old niece whom the others called Miss Spotted Tail". In the source material it says Libbie mentioned her in her diary -- (Merington's, The Custer Story).

[elisabeth]

That's odd; can find no mention of her in Merington ... The only diary extract relating to the Grand Duke episode is from later on, after Libbie's joined the party and they're in Memphis, minus Indians. Not a word from Libbie about Miss ST. Merington of course censored everything like mad, so maybe there's something in the original manuscript of the diary ...

[alfuso]

Elisabeth

Merrington not only censored, but she **destroyed** the letters after she used them. Some which survive (and I have the collection on microfilm) are marked in CRAYON! One is a letter from Tom across which she scribbled, "Not usable!"

Frost wrote (somewhere in some book or another) of visiting her and watching her tear up a Libbie letter and then burn it in front of him, very casually, like, "Oh, ho hum, here's another one."

Her censorship is interesting in light of the fact that she printed excerpts from GAC that spoke to Libbie of how he liked to "kiss those other lips" or "I have something for you. I have it out right now..." or how he spoke of their "mutual friend, John" missing her.

alfuso

[clw]

Good grief! Merington sounds like a history assassin. There is an article Custer, Cody and the Grand Duke Alexis by EBC and John Manion in the Research Review, Jan. 1990 which he also lists as a source.

Here's the picture of Dove Eye, taken by Bourke in 1877...

[crzhrs]

Ah . . . not quite the "prize" I thought she would be. Maybe it was the lighting.

In a serious note, didn't she (or another of ST's daughter's) die of some illness?

[elisabeth]

There was another daughter who died some years earlier -- 1864? 1866? The one who's buried at Fort Laramie. Not sure how many he had altogether ... One went on to study at the Carlisle school; whether it was this one or not I don't know.

alfuso, I hadn't realised Merington had actually destroyed stuff! What an appalling woman. Her only saving grace is that, as you point out, she was too innocent to understand what was being said half the time, so that at least some of the dirty bits and the compromising revelations made it through into print ... You cannot begin to imagine how I envy you that microfilm! Did you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get a copy, or is it just a question of asking for one?

[alfuso]

elisabeth said:

There was another daughter who died some years earlier -- 1864? 1866? The one who's buried at Fort Laramie. Not sure how many he had altogether ... One went on to study at the Carlisle school; whether it was this one or not I don't know.

alfuso, I hadn't realised Merington had actually destroyed stuff! What an appalling woman. Her only saving grace is that, as you point out, she was too innocent to understand what was being said half the time, so that at least some of the dirty bits and the compromising revelations made it through into print ... You cannot begin to imagine how I envy you that microfilm! Did you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get a copy, or is it just a question of asking for one?

I got my copy from a researcher who got it from the NY Public Library. He asked me to find a place that would make copies of what was on the film for something less than the fortune he'd been quoted by several places in NYC. I found a place just around the corner from me that did it for about a third. He gave me the film as payment, plus I xeroxed everything before I sent it. Then his wife transcribed the letters (Libbie's flowery cursive is very hard to read) and sent me copies.

It's the same way I got the copy of "The Pottery Maker"

"Good trade."

Merrington destroyed the letters saying she had been *told* to by some distant Custer cousin, who had no right making decisions on anything about Custer.

alfuso