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Post by elisabeth on Feb 26, 2008 9:15:49 GMT -6
Anyone know the genesis of the Custer-Merrill feud?
From The Bloody Shirt, it seems there was already no love lost between them in the early stages of the 7th's posting to the South. From Armes, it looks as if the animosity could go further back, as in 1870 Custer's siding with Armes in a court-martial that's presided over by Merrill as Judge-Advocate. And an April 1876 letter from Custer to Libbie in Merington (p. 281) shows him still busily working away to get Merrill convicted for accepting an allegedly illegal payment, even though he had Belknap and many other things to concern himself with at that particular time.
So ... what was it all about? Simple dislike? Professional jealousy? Or was there some definable incident that sparked it all off?
I gather Hammer wrote a pamphlet on this many years ago, but it seems to be unavailable except in one US university library. If anyone's read it, or knows of a good biography of Merrill, or (best of all) knows the story behind their ongoing war, I'd love to know!
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Post by rch on Feb 26, 2008 13:35:13 GMT -6
Elisabeth'
There is an article in the Oct, 2007 issue of "North and South" which deals mainly with Merrill's activities against the Ku Klux Klan. The article mentions Merrill's successful prosecution of Armes and also Merrill's testimony before the "Benzine" board in which he had been critical of Custer. Custer had somehow become aware that Merrill and another officer, Samuel Lauffer, were involved in a complicated exchange of fund or I.O.U.s while Merrill was prosecuting Lauffer. There was an alligation of bribery and Custer contacted Lauffer and asked for proof. Custer then wrote Merrill. Merrill replied, and Custer forwarded the information to Gen Terry who was then commander of the Department of the South. Terry forwarded the material to the War Department. The War Department investigated but could get no evidence from Lauffer and the matter was dropped. Merrill apparently thought that Custer was trying to get even with him for his "Benzine" board testimony.
Reno had also got involved in the case according to Nichols in "In Custer's Shadow. Nichols has better notes. The main source on this subject for the "North and South" article was Barry C Johnson, "Custer, Reno, Merrill, and the Lauffer Case, Some Warfare in 'The Fighting Seventh,' "The English Westerners' Society Brand Book for July 1970 and October 1970 (Vol 12 # 4and Vol. 13 #1).
rch
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 27, 2008 3:22:45 GMT -6
rch,
Thanks for this. I'd forgotten about the Merrill-Reno spat. So, here we have Merrill making a nuisance of himself even before the Lauffer affair ...
I must see if I can get hold of the Barry C. Johnson piece. This is interesting.
Again, many thanks.
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Post by markland on Feb 27, 2008 7:30:45 GMT -6
Elisabeth' There is an article in the Oct, 2007 issue of "North and South" which deals mainly with Merrill's activities against the Ku Klux Klan. The article mentions Merrill's successful prosecution of Armes and also Merrill's testimony before the "Benzine" board in which he had been critical of Custer. Custer had somehow become aware that Merrill and another officer, Samuel Lauffer, were involved in a complicated exchange of fund or I.O.U.s while Merrill was prosecuting Lauffer. There was an alligation of bribery and Custer contacted Lauffer and asked for proof. Custer then wrote Merrill. Merrill replied, and Custer forwarded the information to Gen Terry who was then commander of the Department of the South. Terry forwarded the material to the War Department. The War Department investigated but could get no evidence from Lauffer and the matter was dropped. Merrill apparently thought that Custer was trying to get even with him for his "Benzine" board testimony. Reno had also got involved in the case according to Nichols in "In Custer's Shadow. Nichols has better notes. The main source on this subject for the "North and South" article was Barry C Johnson, "Custer, Reno, Merrill, and the Lauffer Case, Some Warfare in 'The Fighting Seventh,' "The English Westerners' Society Brand Book for July 1970 and October 1970 (Vol 12 # 4and Vol. 13 #1). rch Ray & Elisabeth, not to spoil any surprises but I do believe Jim Donovan will at least touch upon this feud; to what depth I don't know but don't believe to the extent that Johnson did. Billy
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 27, 2008 8:08:21 GMT -6
Great. (Hey, less than a month to go now before the book's out!)
As it happens, Broken Arrow have the Johnson book/pamphlet/whatever at a good price, so I've ordered that. In the meantime, must resume reading The Bloody Shirt. Had to break off for a bit to speed-read a library copy of Harvest of Barren Regrets that was on a distressingly short loan, but can now return to that. The writer's very sympathetic towards Merrill, but seems to have no animus against Custer; you get the feeling he's simply telling it like it is -- so it's pretty illuminating.
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Post by fred on Feb 29, 2008 8:37:24 GMT -6
Elisabeth--
There were articles in the New York Times, on 4Apr and 18Apr76, regarding the Clymer Commission and the Custer-Merrill feud. The headlines read, "Custer Contradicted by Merrill," and, "Gen. Custer and Gen. Merrill. The Evidence Given by the Former Against Merrill Hearsay and Gossip-- Custer's prospects for Promotion Fading."
I will e-mail them to you. I got them some time ago from Billy.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by elisabeth on Feb 29, 2008 12:11:17 GMT -6
Thanks, Fred!
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 8, 2008 8:33:04 GMT -6
Have now got the Barry C. Johnson booklet. Gosh, this gets more interesting yet. Merrill says in January 1871 that Armes has been heavily involved in circulating the bribery rumours, and that he's received not only "abuse and calumny applied to me on all occasion", but has even received "puerile and anonymous threats of assassination".
Which, if you're a detective story fan as I am, instantly makes you wonder ... since Armes' other bĂȘte noire, Buel, had indeed been assassinated just months before. The man arrested for the murder, a deserter named Malone, initially denied all knowledge of the crime, then obligingly made a deathbed confession. (He'd been mortally wounded in the course of his arrest.) Others were thought to be implicated, especially a man named Ackley who was the owner of the murder weapon, but nothing seems to have been done to bring them to book; Malone's death appears to have ended the investigation. Armes was safely in Washington at the time, apparently, pursuing his new career as a real-estate broker, so any thoughts of him prowling around Fort Leavenworth in person with a loaded gun have to be dismissed ... but he was such a lunatic that it's almost possible to imagine him employing some dodgy character such as Ackley as a hit-man. He never gave up trying to "get" Merrill, after all; why leave Buel untouched ...
Leaving such wild speculation aside, it seems from all this and from the NYT cuttings Fred's kindly sent me that the real reputation-killer for Custer in 1876 was his pursuit of Merrill. The Belknap testimony just made it worse, but his name was already mud in the upper echelons of the army because of Merrill. The NYT goes so far as to state that even if a Democrat administration were to get in, Custer had kissed goodbye to any hope of being promoted. So his troubles weren't going to end once Grant was out of office. It sheds a bit more light on his degree of desperation going into the LBH campaign, perhaps.
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Post by rch on Mar 8, 2008 13:55:50 GMT -6
Elisabeth,
It's nice to know that the New York Times was as detestable in 1876 as it is today. I don't think Custer's name was mud. There were officers who were Democrats and officers who were Republicans. Custer was probably approved of by the Democrats. I think his relationship with Sherman was probably better at this time than his relationship with Sheridan. Merrill was Grant's creature.
It seems to me that Custer at times had unrealistic hopes for promotion, but Custer apparently knew that the Colonel of the 5th Cav was about to retire and that Merritt was due to be promoted to that position. This would have made Custer the senior Lt Col of Cavalry and I don't see how the next promotion to Col could be denied to him.
rch
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 9, 2008 2:16:57 GMT -6
Ah, so that forthcoming slot may have been the basis of the rumours that DeWolf heard ...? In his diary, he reports a load of gossip to the effect that Custer wasn't going to be on the LBH expedition because he was about to be promoted. And indeed, when Custer was recalled to Washington in March, nobody in DeWolf's circle seemed to have any notion about Belknap or Merrill; the buzz was that he'd been summoned back for promotion. DeWolf eventually concluded that the story was a deliberate hoax, but maybe it wasn't; maybe people were just putting two and two together on the basis of the retirement.
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Post by clw on Mar 26, 2008 15:54:07 GMT -6
Elizabeth ~ I'm late getting in here but wanted to comment. I've read somewhere that Custer's original objection to Merrill was that he took a standing reward (technically not a bribe) offered by the South Carolina government for his success in subduing the KKK. Custer felt that Merrill's success wouldn't have possible without his command and he had no business, as an officer of the United States Army, accepting a bonus for work that was within his line of duty.
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Post by BrokenSword on Mar 26, 2008 16:05:00 GMT -6
clw- "...accepting a bonus for work that was within his line of duty..."
It is possible that G.A. Custer was slightly more honorable about money than we suspect? If you find this a silly suggestion - please reference The 'Knipe -- Messenger or Deserter?" thread, reply #67.
M
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Mar 27, 2008 17:35:03 GMT -6
Have now got the Barry C. Johnson booklet. Gosh, this gets more interesting yet. Merrill says in January 1871 that Armes has been heavily involved in circulating the bribery rumours, and that he's received not only "abuse and calumny applied to me on all occasion", but has even received "puerile and anonymous threats of assassination". Leaving such wild speculation aside, it seems from all this and from the NYT cuttings Fred's kindly sent me that the real reputation-killer for Custer in 1876 was his pursuit of Merrill. The Belknap testimony just made it worse, but his name was already mud in the upper echelons of the army because of Merrill. The NYT goes so far as to state that even if a Democrat administration were to get in, Custer had kissed goodbye to any hope of being promoted. So his troubles weren't going to end once Grant was out of office. It sheds a bit more light on his degree of desperation going into the LBH campaign, perhaps.
Elisabeth, In Gray's "Centennial Campaign" page 63 he points out that the Belknap inquiry was part of a vicious political power struggle in an election year and Grant's administration needed to discredit an adverse witness of Custer's prominence. Gray states "They [the discredits] were not long in coming, but were mighty long on innuendo. The Merrill affair provided the first opening."The following pages 64 and 65 give details of 'the Merrill affair' including an extract from Custer's letter of March 31st 1876 to Libbie in which he says "Merrill seeks to gain sympathy by intimating that I am persecuting him. I have neither suggested nor instigated any steps against him." Apparently that letter also reveals that it is the [KKK] reward issue, not the Lauffer issue, that is Custer's concern. It looks as if in typical Custer style, he had given information to Armes over and above the KKK issue and Armes lost no time in using it, so that the reference to the 'derogation of fellow officers' accusation against GAC stemmed from what he told Armes rather than anything he said to the Clymer Committee. If only he had learned to engage his brain before operating his mouth! Hunk
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 27, 2008 19:24:07 GMT -6
Rather, it sounds like he's annoyed Merrill didn't share. Custer was always in financial difficulties.
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Mar 28, 2008 8:01:25 GMT -6
Rather, it sounds like he's annoyed Merrill didn't share. Custer was always in financial difficulties.
Whilst you are undoubtedly right about Custer's continual financial problems and there is a distinct possibility that he was miffed because Merrill kept the entire KKK reward to himself, my comment was not addressed to his motive. I was, rather, referring more to Custer's seemingly pathological inability to consider the repurcussions of imprudently revealing information to whoever buttered him up the right way. His irritation with Merrill for keeping all the reward may have triggered his indiscreet disclosures to Armes but the use of that information by Armes is what damaged Custer. It shows how naive Custer was politically and for those who believe he was after the Presidency one can only speculate that with his lack of political nous combined with his poor investment choices, his Administration may well have made Grant's look squeaky clean.
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