Lieutenant Colonel Custer is “Suddenly & Most Unexpectedly” Called Home From New York to Take Part in the Great Sioux War

Background

Custer’s last war began, on February 8, 1876, with a flurry of messages. General Sheridan, commanding the United States Army in the West, telegraphed Generals George Crook and Alfred Terry; Terry immediately telegraphed Custer; and Custer, in a Manhattan hotel room, hastily wrote this letter:

I am called suddenly away most unexpectedly to Fort Lincoln Dak[ota] by telegraphic orders. Mrs. C. and I start Thursday morning at 10:30. The last 200 miles of our journey will be made in a sled…

That was a Tuesday, and within a day, Custer would set out for Fort Lincoln. His orders were to commence the winter campaign against the “hostiles” - for, with all those telegrams, the Great Sioux War had begun. It would end for him, along with his entire command, just four months later, in unimaginable disaster at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 

Physical Description