Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (21 page)

In 1873 and 1874 he had several small skirmishes with the Lakota Sioux in North Dakota. His take-no-prisoners attitude against the Indians hardened their hatred of the white men even more and sowed the seeds for his eventual destruction. His wife, Elizabeth, both before and after his death, saw herself more as his agent, constantly promoting him as a statesman, patron of the arts, or military genius.

With her prompting, he went to Washington in March 1876 and testified against the secretary of war over alleged corruption. This move seemed to backfire on him as a furious President Grant relieved Custer of his command on May 2. But once again the public came to his rescue, forcing the president to revoke his decision on May 8, sending him out West once more to meet his destiny at Little Bighorn. Custer had demanded to lead his beloved Seventh in what everyone believed would be the final confrontation with the Indians.

Leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln on the morning of May 17, Custer was part of a column commanded by Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry. Their mission was to coerce the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne nations back to their allotted reservations. Despite the Hollywood versions of large Indian battles, the Indians very rarely fought large engagements against the U.S. cavalry, and the sight of a large force normally guaranteed their compliance and retreat back to their reservations.

However, after years of mistreatment and broken promises the Indian nations had had enough. Under Chief Sitting Bull and his war chief, Crazy Horse, the tribes were assembling in never-before-seen numbers, determined to strike a blow against the “long hairs,” if only to regain some of their lost pride.

Terry’s column was supported by two others already in the field, under General Crook and Colonel Gibbon, and over the next 4 weeks they criss-crossed the territory looking for the elusive tribes. On June 21 they received word from their scouts that “some Indians” were in the vicinity of the Little Bighorn River. Custer was
instructed to proceed south along that stream in the hope that they could trap any Indians found between him and the other forces circling behind them. Impatient to get to any potential engagement first, Custer declined a Gatling gun battery, saying, “It will slow me down,” and four additional cavalry companies, saying his force could handle anything it met.

On Saturday, June 24, several old Indian campsites were discovered, and Custer’s Crow scouts reported to him that some Sioux were actually in the Little Bighorn valley. Believing the Indians would scatter when they saw him, Custer decided to strike immediately rather than wait for the other columns to arrive on June 26.

At noon on June 25, at the Rosebud and Little Bighorn River junction, Custer divided his troops. For a general who had been in charge of a balloon reconnaissance unit in the Civil War, Custer yet again paid little attention to scouting. Believing that the Indians had at most 1,300 warriors to oppose him, and that they would not make a stand against his cavalry, he rushed to action. The left column, under Major Reno, made its way down the riverbank, heading for a village the scouts had discovered some 2 miles away. Immediately Reno was confronted by a surprisingly large force of warriors, forcing him to dismount his troops and fight in a skirmish line on the edge of the surrounding timber forest. With ammunition dwindling and no sign of Custer, Reno and his command were forced to withdraw to the bluffs on the east of the river.

Custer meanwhile had found the battle he was desperate for. Believing the large dust cloud ahead of him was the retreating Indians he sought, he raced his column north, straight into more than 5,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, eager for blood. The fight was short. The Indians swarmed over the Seventh, cutting them down as they fought desperately to escape. Even if he had not split his command, it is doubtful that many would have survived that day. The worst defeat ever sustained by the U.S. Army against Indians saw Custer die with 268 of his command, with another 60 in other skirmishes severely wounded.

Although pictures show Custer fighting to the end with his long blond locks flowing around him, he was in fact the only white man not scalped that day because he had had a crew cut a couple of
days before, and wearing his trademark buckskins he was not even recognized by the Indians.

The tribes released all their pent-up anger in an extensive mutilation of the dead cavalry, stripping them and hacking them to pieces before finally retreating away from General Terry and his support columns and eventually making a permanent peace some 12 months later.

Had Custer held back from battle for one more day, it is doubtful there would have even been a fight, but yet again, his need for personal glory dictated his actions.

Interestingly, the Democratic nominations for the White House were to be held 3 days later, and he’d even brought his own reporter, Mark Kellogg, along with him. Had he defeated the Indian nations arraigned against him on June 26, there would still have been time to get a report of his victory back to Washington and help him realize the dream of the White House. Always surrounding himself with hangers-on and admirers, he took four other Custers, including his brother Tom, to their death that morning. The only survivor of the battle was a horse, ironically called Comanche, who was found in a thicket with seven arrows in his body.

Although Custer was more than happy to serve hardtack to his men (flour and water softened in coffee to make it edible), his personal cook, Eliza Davidson, traveled everywhere with him to prepare his favorite dishes, even when he was in hard pursuit of the enemy.

Custer hunted every day and on one expedition bagged forty-one antelope, four buffalo, four elk, seven deer, two white wolves, and one red fox, along with “geese, ducks, prairie-chickens and sage-hens without number.”

Roasted Buffalo Steaks

Beans and Molasses, Roasted Wild Corn

Prairie Hen

½ cup apple jelly

½ cup ketchup

1 tbsp vinegar

½ tsp chili powder

½ tsp salt

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp chili powder

4 (1–1¼ lb) Cornish hens, split

• Combine the first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan and stir well. Cook over medium heat until the jelly melts, stirring constantly. Remove the sauce from the heat and keep warm.
  
• Combine salt, garlic powder, and chili powder, stirring well; sprinkle over the hens. Grill over medium coals for 45 minutes; turn occasionally. Baste with sauce. Grill an additional 15 minutes. Turn and baste frequently with remaining sauce. Let stand 10 to 15 minutes before slicing.
  

• Strip the outer leaves back from the corn, leaving them still connected to the cob; remove the cornsilk and fold the leaves back over the corn.
  
• Place on a hot grill, or fire, for about 30 minutes.
  
• Peel off the leaves; smother with butter.
  

If they are cut from young animals, they will need no marinating. The meat should hang for about 2 or 3 weeks and then be properly cut by your butcher.

• To cook the young steaks or chops, heat a heavy skillet until it’s quite hot and then add butter and oil. Sauté the meat, turning it frequently to brown on all sides without charring. If you like, you can flame the meat with cognac just before serving. Steak and chops from young animals may be cooked in the same manner as beefsteaks or lamb chops, broiled, grilled, or sautéed. When broiling or cooking on an outdoor grill, cook quickly and do not overcook. Game will become tough or dry with long broiling or frying. Add salt and pepper at the end to taste.
  

A staple of the cavalry, when they had fresh meat and time to prepare it.

• Cut the steak into thin strips; always cut with the grain of the meat.
  
• Dip the meat into the soy sauce. Lay the strips of meat out on a rack and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.
  
• Cook in 150°F oven for 10 hours.
  

Bison meat is very low in fat and cholesterol; being very lean, it tends to cook much faster than beef, so watch the steaks carefully. Steaks can be ordered in any size, from 8 oz to 2 lb. When cooked on the grill they produce a delicious dish.

• Always use a low grill temperature.
  
• Flip the steaks with tongs; never use forks or puncture the meat because this lets the juices escape.
  
• Don’t use salt during cooking; it dries up the meat. Instead, salt to taste after cooking.
  
• Never overcook buffalo; it’s best served medium rare.
  

• Open regular tins of baked beans. Add to a skillet with chunks of ham or bacon and about 1 pint of black molasses to every 3 lb beans.
  
• Let stew slowly for about 1 hour; serve hot.
  

ADOLF HITLER

Adolf Hitler’s final master plan to “suck the Russians” into Berlin, thus relieving the pressure on his eastern armies, allowing them to regroup and attack the Russians from the rear, was greeted with silent groans from his general staff, who had already seen their
mighty forces whittled away to practically nothing in the hands of this failed painter from upper Austria.

The “eastern forces” did not really exist, long dispersed or shivering in Russian gulags. Their “forces” consisted of old men, the wounded, and young boys from the Hitler Youth with guns thrust into their hands. The Third Reich was coming to its last days and all knew it, but no one could admit it and stand up to Adolf Hitler, the Führer.

How a lowly corporal who served in, and saw, the horrors of World War I could take a defeated people in his hands and inspire them to yet another conflict that would claim more than 50 million lives has to be one of the most incredible stories of all time.

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Upper Austria, initially living a miserable existence as a third-rate artist. He enrolled in the Bavarian Infantry at the outbreak of World War I, earning two Iron Crosses. A background of rampant anti-Semitism after the war helped him to form an obscure German Workers’ Party at the end of the hostilities, which later became the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or the Nazis. In politics he found an outlet for his vitriol and a vehicle for his ambitions that no one could have dreamed of.

Suddenly discovering within himself a power of demographic oratory in open air tirades in Munich against the Jews and the Treaty of Versailles, he cunningly tapped into the German resentment of the settlement terms from the war. This stirred their inborn sense of superiority over others, twisting all the blame for their problems onto the Jews and their partners, the victorious Allies.

Even 13 months in jail did not quell his hatred, and he used the time to write his successful book,
Mein Kampf.
His party began to grow rapidly, becoming the second most powerful political force in Germany. The world depression and rising unemployment elevated his status even more in the eyes of a desperate German people. President Hindenburg tried to keep him under control by making him chancellor in 1933, but within months he had died and Hitler had declared himself head of state, the Führer.

As the Allies looked on, he rearmed the new Germany at a rapid rate, creating a Berlin—Rome Axis with Mussolini in 1937. He suddenly annexed Austria, then overran Czechoslovakia in 1939, all
the while keeping the Russians on the sidelines with the nonaggression pact on August 21. He then invaded Poland on September 1, which finally snapped the Allies out of their stupor and caused the declaration of World War II by the Allies on September 3, 1939.