A futile impeachment and Custer - a connection?

Richard A. Dollinger, BridgeTower Media Newswires

Impeach a former federal official after he left office?

In Washington last month, the House of Representatives just started the process against a president who was about to leave office.

But, in 1876, America encountered another impeachment of a retired federal office holder and, in an unusual sequence, the entire process played a role in the death of one of America’s most famous generals — George Armstrong Custer.

It is a long and complicated tale of Beltway politics (before there was a Beltway), a friend of the president, a scandal involving his wife, the ambitious Custer and a critical delay in the 1876 campaign in the Plains wars against Native Americans.

Custer in 1876 was an experienced cavalry man and Plains fighter, having had a stop-and-go, even somewhat checkered career in fights with the Plains Indian tribes as settlers wagoned west. In the late fall of 1875 and the winter of 1876, the Army, seeking to protect gold seekers in the Black Hills and the northern Plains, authorized a series of military actions to provoke the Northen Plains tribes. Custer was selected to lead a portion of the effort from Fort Lincoln in the Dakotas in early April 1876.

Politics — and Custer’s ambition — intervened.

In 1874, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War. In the prior years, the Credit Mobilier scandal, stemming from the construction of the Transcontinental railroad, had damaged the reputation of then-President Grant. The newly enthroned Democrats, eager to control Washington, saw advantage in scandal.

William Belknap, Grant’s Secretary of War, provided the grist — or, at least his social-climbing wife did. House members learned that Belknap’s wife received kickbacks from sutlers — entrepreneurs who provisioned the commissaries at forts in the west. House committees began an inquest and former Gen. Custer, a Civil War hero with movie-idol looks (before there were movies) and an incumbent lieutenant colonel in the Army who knew the west, became a prime witness.

Custer was one of the few esteemed Democrats in the post-Civil War Army. He had toured with former President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, and was a known Democratic sympathizer. As the House began its inquiry, it needed a star witness and requested Custer’s attendance at the impeachment investigation in Washington.

When summoned in March 1876, Custer was en route to execute the war plan against the northern tribes. The plan sought to confront the native tribes in the late winter or early spring, before the tribes could collect, the native men from winter reservations returned and before the spring hunting season. An early campaign — Custer was slated to lead the 7th Cavalry west on April 6 — would find the natives at a disadvantage and one that the Army sought to capitalize on.

But Custer, sensing that a Democratic takeover of Washington — including victory in upcoming 1876 presidential election — would enhance his prospects in the Army and potential in a Democratic administration, was enticed to detour from the Dakatoas and return to Washington to testify in the Belknap impeachment inquiry.

The trip took Custer back to Washington in late March. He testified about the practices of sutlers but, despite his characteristically strong impression on the audience and enchanted newspapermen, he added little to the impeachment inquiry. He had no first-hand information on any part of the scandal, which Congress learned even involved, tangentially, President Grant’s brother.

Meanwhile, Belknap, a former Union general who served under Grant, resigned rather than face the impeachment. Nonetheless, the House still voted to impeach him, even though he was not holding federal office.

Belknap’s resignation raised the same question that Congress faces today: What are the legal issues present for an impeached federal official after he no longer holds office?

While the Senate in 1876 wrestled with that legal issue, Democratic Senators and House members importuned Custer to stay in Washington or nearby to testify in the upcoming Senate trial. Custer obliged, venturing to New York City where his publisher was located, during the Senate debate over the impeachment.


By late April, the Senate had concluded the impeachment trial. The Senate held that it had jurisdiction to hold the trial despite Belknap’s resignation and voted 35-25 to convict Belknap but failed to muster the necessary two-thirds vote to convict him. Belknap, no longer an office holder, was acquitted. Custer never testified at the Senate trial.

Custer’s testimony as a commissioned Army officer against Belknap, even though inconsequential, riled President Grant. Grant suspected that Custer had a hand in published articles implicating the president’s brother in the scandal and Custer had once arrested the president’s son. Grant then stripped Custer of command. Gen. William T. Sherman, the Army commander, advised Custer to meet with Grant to rescind that decision. Custer tried, but Grant declined to see him.

Custer, no friend of Grant’s, elected to leave Washington anyway, intent on leading the 7th Cavalry into Native American country.

Grant, furious by Custer’s seeming insubordination, ordered Custer’s arrest and when Custer arrived in Chicago he was detained. But Gen. Philip Sheridan, the head of the western Army, intervened and convinced Grant that Custer, with his experience, was the best choice to lead the 7th Cavalry into the northern Plains.

The impeachment appearance, the month-long sojourn to New York and elsewhere, the delay while waiting to testify at a futile impeachment trial and the further delays in patching up his dispute with President Grant caused Custer to delay the start of his northern Plains efforts against the Sioux Indians and other tribes by almost two months.

By the time Custer arrived at the Little Bighorn valley, the Solstice has passed, early summer had arrived, the tribes had combined, armed young braves released from reservations during the winter — inspired by Chief Sitting Bull’s prophetic “Sun Dance,” forecasting a victory against the white man — had arrived and their horses were fed. The hoped-for military advantage for the cavalry of a winter-spring assault was squandered.

On June 25, 1876, Custer arrived at the shores of the Little Big Horn River, only to find that he was hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned. He and 257 members of the 7th Cavalry died that day.

So, while the last impeachment of a retired federal official and the array of legal issues surrounding it are seldom remembered, the life lost as an consequence of that impeachment, the politics of the day and Custer’s miscalculations — more than 1,500 miles from Washington — remain a part of American history.

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Richard A. Dollinger is a member of the New York Court of Claims, an acting Supreme Court Justice in the 7th Judicial District and a member of the Little Big Horn Associates, an organization that celebrates the history of western culture and the settlement of the American West.