Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Custer's Last Penis



The topic of General George Armstrong Custer’s penis has been on my mind for several months now. Please don’t take that literally and get that awful image out of your head this instant.

I’ll not change my profile picture to accommodate your lurid imagination.

It’s been there since about March when I finished Nathaniel Philbrick’s “The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull & The Battle of Little Big Horn.”

I’ve been reluctant to address it -- the topic, not the penis -- for several reasons. First, it’s just so unseemly, as patient readers are about to learn.

Second, I know the instant I type “general custer’s penis” into a subject line it may awaken a sleeping automatonic army of Custer devotees who stir when the computer pings over that very subject.

They’re probably all very pleasant and informed people. Certainly, they’re history buffs like myself and we’d no doubt find much agreeable ground to discuss.

But the mutilated penis of a historically inept general is an unsound basis for lasting friendship. I’d much rather engage someone over, say, a shared fondness of Mark Knopfler music.

I tackle the topic now because a part of me that is very dear made what very well could be its last stand three weeks ago.

I am, of course, talking about my hair.

I’ve had long, luscious hair several times in my adult days and it’s always controversial. My many redneck friends, several of them former servicemen, stereotypically tease I’m some sort of sissy.

One joked it looked like I’d enlisted. Really, I asked? What century?

Because the second most enduring memory of the Custer era has to do with military hair. It was everywhere.

It cascaded down their shoulders. It spilled over their lips, cheeks and chins.

It was mostly that way with the mustachioed Custer, too, in 1876, the year he met his doom. Yes, one of America’s most famous and beloved generals could have time traveled a century hence and fit right in on stage with the Village People.

So when did short hair become so synonymous with our servicemen?

The most obvious answer is when the military became more mechanized. Perhaps some long-locked solider got his curls twisted in a Gatling gun. Or maybe it was for sanitary purposes, short hair giving crafty head lice fewer places to hide.

Either way, it’s a pity. Some of the greatest fighting men in literature and history -- Zeus, Samson, Robert the Bruce -- had long hair.

In fact, all the braves who slew Custer at Little Big Horn had what could be called Cher hair.

Yet, these long hairs were often virile and lady-loving men. Take Custer nemesis, Capt. Frederick Benteen, not to be confused with Capt. Benteen from the outstanding 1963 “Twilight Zone” episode, “On Thursday We Leave for Home.”

This Capt. Benteen was a warrior with an artistic bent. From Philbrick’s book: “He loved his wife, Frabbie, intensely and passionately (he sometimes decorated his letters to her with anatomically precise drawings of his erect penis).”

So primitive sexting pre-dated the smart phone by nearly 130 years.

Philbrick is even more emphatic when detailing Custer’s lusts. It turns out the man whose name is most synonymous with American military catastrophe was a serial rapist who repeatedly violated Indian women as the spoils of war.

One of the last quotes attributed to him in the book deals not with military strategy, but of sexual violence: “When we get to the village I’m going to find the Sioux girl with the most elk teeth on her dress and take her along with me!”

The reference goes unexplained, but I’ll bet elk teeth dresses aren’t synonymous with a squaw’s ability prepare a tasty meal.

His reputation for wanton massacre, treaty violation and rape was so renown that two Cheyenne women pierced the ear drums of his lifeless body with long sewing awls in the hopes he’d hear better in the afterlife. How thoughtful.

What I’d never heard before -- and can now never forget -- is those same women jammed an arrow up the general’s penis. The afterlife lesson they were trying to impart there eludes me.

So what are we to make of this man once so beloved by his contemporaries and today reviled by those of us who abhor war crimes and injustice? What would we say to his spirit?

I do not know. All I know is we’ll have plenty of time to decide.

We’re bound to see Custer coming from a mile away.


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12 comments:

  1. The title got me -- in case you are doing some market research. Interesting post.

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  2. Yes! My "research" indicates if I put some variation of "nude" in the headline, I'd be one of the most well-read writers. Thanks, Bruce, for checking in. I'm flattered you took the time to read and comment and hope you're doing well.

    Chris

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  3. Ha! Love it. Wish I'd have thought of that. By the way, that was Capt. Benteen, not Custer, which doesn't diminish the humor one bit.

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  4. I'd love to know what your source is for the Benteen letters. I can just imagine the look on the face of the historical researcher who found the letter in question...

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  5. Oh, that's a great question, CapnCrystal. I gleaned it from the Philbrick book I cite, but it would be great to learn the story of the original scholar who found it. Hilarious. Thanks for reading!

    Chris

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  6. Interesting post...I read Philbrick's book a couple years ago...one caveat: I think he was criticized for near-plagiarizing of other historians' work....still it's a good read and summation of much of recent work ....
    by the way, Custer and a couple others cut their hair in Bismarck's Fort Lincoln before leaving for the Little Big Horn campaign....so he didn't have long locks when he died...

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  7. Thanks, Tim, for the education and the thoughtful comment. I didn't know that of Philbrick and will be disappointed if it turns out he did.

    I crossed Doris Kearns Goodwin off my list when she was busted doing the same thing. Can't stand that.

    And I'm disappointed to learn Custer died with short hair. Ruins my story!

    Thanks again for reading and giving me so digging to do. Hope you'll stop by again.

    Best,

    Chris

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  8. He was hardly an inept general. Your military knowledge and background must be non existent. A little less infatuation with penises and a little more studying hero

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  9. The farther down I read the worst if gets
    🤣🤣🤣 you don’t know shit🤣🤣🤣🤣
    Don’t talk about the military ever again you will curse us and we will loose every fight from here on out

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  10. Get a grip! It's an interesting side note for speculation. *Also, it's "lose" - not "loose" in terms of our military being victorious or not.

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