Capt. George Yates, Killed At the Little Bighorn, Announces His 1866 Cavalry Commission & Discusses Custer's Entry Into the Newly-formed 7th Cavalry

Background

Whether or not the full strength of the Union Army measured, as some insist, as high as 2,200,200 troops, post-bellum downsizing had to be drastic. With no foreign enemies threatening, the Army had but two functions: providing troops in the Occupied South, and fighting hostile Native Americans for control of the West. Thus, under the 1866 "Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment" - known colloquially as the "Wilson Bill" - the triumphant behemoth that had won the Civil War was reduced to a mere 54,302 men. Landing a military appointment, then, took more than a little pull and that, from on high. Here Captain George Yates, George Armstrong Custer's old hometown friend and war-time comrade, describes his own appointment, mentioning too, that the 25 year-old Custer - who, having begun the war a lowly Second Lieutenant and risen, meteorically, to become its youngest Major General - was also calling on the "big guns" to ring his praises. Writing about Custer's chances, and that of eminent Union officers, in the re-organized army, Yates remarks:

 The Army bill is apparently below par. Many members say that it will not pass this session, this however is mere speculation. I understand that Genl Sheridan has made application to the Secretary of War to have Genl Custer, Merritt, Crook and yourself made field officers in the new cavalry regiments about to be organized, this information I got from Mr. Grogan who is of Genl Kelton’s bureau in the War Dept.

General Phillip Sheridan, who had long favored the dashing Custer in the Civil War, was instrumental in getting, and then keeping, Custer in the peacetime army. And, as Commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, he sent Custer and the 7th Cavalry after the Plains Indians in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. It was in that conflict that Custer, along with the writer of this missive, fought the Lakota and Cheyenne at the Battle of the Little Bighorn - losing there, so badly, that Custer, Yates, and the men and officers of five whole companies, died there to a man. Capt. Yates's body was found beside Custer's - friends and comrades to the end. This letter is, its way, the beginning of that epic tragedy.

Physical Description

Autograph Letter Signed (twice: in full and as "George"), 3 pages, quarto, Treasury Department, Third Auditor's Office, Washington, D.C., April 28, 1866. To "My Dear Rody." Scarce.