Give Me Eighty Men: Women and the Myth of the Fetterman Fight

Introduction

In 1866, near an isolated U.S. Army post in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, a well-organized coalition of Plains Indians executed an ambush that killed Capt. William J. Fetterman and his entire detachment of eighty men. The spectacular victory for the Lakota Sioux and their allies would have gone down in history as the greatest defeat ever handed to the frontier army if George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry had not ridden into immortality at Little Bighorn ten years later. Like “Custer’s Last Stand,” the so-called Fetterman Massacre has been mythologized in popular culture and has become one of the most famous events in the history and lore of the American West. Comparing Custer’s and Fetterman’s histories is unavoidable because of the proximity in time and location as well as the similarity in outcome. However, many presumed similarities are inaccuracies that have taken on a life of their own, despite the efforts of recent revisions. In spite of the incredible number of studies of the two events, historians have overlooked possibly the most significant correlation between them. Women played an active part in creating the historical record. They did so in order to present their male family members in a favorable light, and their versions of history continue to dominate popular and scholarly accounts. The Fetterman and Custer stories evolved in the same manner , gradually developing into tales of mythic proportions. Both episodes were initially portrayed as brutal massacres and Fetterman and Custer were immediately cast as fallen heroes. For the next generation, women substantially controlled the introduction Introduction xviii reputations of these “heroes” through effective public relations campaigns. Posterity eventually revised both men’s reputations , as they are now characterized as overconfident egomaniacs responsible for their own—and their men’s—demise. In Custer’s case, a woman protected his reputation from scrutiny for half a century. On the other hand, for fifty years women deliberately cast Fetterman as the boastful and disobedient character he remains today. Custer’s widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, ensured her husband was revered for decades. Living fifty-seven years after her husband ’s death, Elizabeth Custer published three books and lectured extensively to defend and embellish his reputation and promulgate an idealized and romanticized home life with her hero. “Her reputation as a ‘model wife’ and shining example of American womanhood, along with the deference accorded female moral influence, made her, during her lifetime at least, an unassailable character witness,” wrote historian Shirley A. Leckie.1 Her husband’s critics were kept at bay for half a century out of respect for the widow’s devotion. Historians did not undertake a thorough reassessment of George Armstrong Custer until after her death in 1933. When they did, the historical record changed. Today his name is synonymous with unflattering terms such as “arrogant,” “impetuous,” and “military blunder.” Women controlled and manipulated the history of the Fetterman fight using the same tactics as Elizabeth Custer—except that instead of shielding Fetterman’s reputation , they used him as a scapegoat. Unfortunately, Fetterman had no devoted woman to protect his honor; the bachelor officer was orphaned as a young child and had no siblings. In the aftermath of the Fort Phil Kearny catastrophe, as sensational news reports incited the American public to cry out for someone to blame, Fetterman’s commanding officer, Col. Henry B. Carrington, became the fall guy. To protect their beloved and beleaguered colonel, Carrington’s first and second wives published books that successfully shifted blame from their husband Introduction xix to the dead captain. That blame has stuck. Today, the well-worn story of the ambush is built almost entirely on the infamous declaration attributed to Fetterman: “With eighty men I could ride through the entire Sioux nation.” Citing Fetterman’s boast over and over, historians and authors have created an enduring image of an arrogant, contemptuous, self-important buffoon who was disdainful of the Plains Indians’ military skills to the point that he abandoned his own military acumen—and common sense—and was easily tricked into disobeying his commander ’s orders and leading his men to their deaths. History continues to portray Fetterman’s arrogance as the primary cause of the massacre of his troops, and his name is as infamous as “Custer.” This characterization of Fetterman was derived from a flawed history and eventually matured into a...