This is a story of Ned Fletcher, and the Seventh Regular Cavalry,
United States Army, when upon the Western plains they followed the
yellow-haired General Custer. Yet it is not all a story of fighting;
for to be a good soldier does not mean that one must serve only to
fight. Indeed, there are worthy battles other than those with lead and
steel, horse and foot. Every earnest citizen is a good soldier. General
Custer was as great in peace as in war; in his home as in the field,
and he loved his home duties as much as he loved his other duties,
which is token of a true man.
General Custer is real to-day. Men and women live who marched with
him. As to Ned Fletcher, who may say? A little girl named Fletcher
was captured by Cheyennes and Sioux, as Ned’s sister was captured;
and Chief Cut Nose called her “Little Silver Hair.” General Custer
would have rescued her, as official records show. Two little children
were found in the Cheyenne village on the Washita. In the battle here
a bugler boy was wounded just as Ned was wounded. Aye, and at Fort
Wallace a little bugler boy was slain. So that boys served in the old
Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer. As a brave boy, Ned might have
been there, even though by a different name.
General Custer has left his own story of his plains days in Kansas and
Nebraska. It lies before me. Mrs. Custer, his comrade of garrison and
camp and march, has written several books about him. They lie before
me. There is a biography by one Captain Whittaker, written at the
close of the last battle, near forty years ago. With General Sheridan
and General Custer upon their campaign against the Cheyennes and the
Kiowas was a newspaper reporter, Randolph Keim, who also wrote a
book. Chapters have there been, in other books and in magazines, and
pamphlets of time agone; and, as I say, men and women are now alive who
knew the general. From all these more information should be sought. No
one pen can describe so fine a thing as a Man.
So this book must tell of the Custer whom Ned the boy and youth saw;
and of affairs in which he took part during that final struggle when
the white race would supplant the red race, on the plains of north and
south. In the narrative of these years I have tried to show how the
white race felt and how the red race felt; for each had their rights
and their wrongs, and each did right and did wrong. Out of the result
came general good, that the church and the school-house might rise and
people might work and play in peace, where formerly stood only the
unproductive hide lodges, and the main thought was war and Plunder.