“The inquiry quickly developed into a broad investigation of the manner in which the battle was fought, and competent historians and students consider the record of its proceedings to be the chief and most important repository of authentic detailed information on the subject. The original official record, some 1,300 pages in length, was held in the confidential files of the Judge Advocate General’s Office until 1941, when it was turned over to the National Archives. In 1951 a verbatim edition of the official record, limited to 125 copies, was published by me. This volume is an abstract of that record.”
The search for a scapegoat began almost immediately after news of the disaster at the Little Big Horn reached the press and public in the early summer of 1876. Custer’s partisans accused Captain Frederick W. Benteen, the senior captain, and Marcus A. Reno, the regiment’s second in command, of cowardice in their failure to go to Custer’s aid. Benteen was largely cleared in the public mind, but Reno was not.
In