This site is devoted to the strange tale of Elizabeth (Libbie) Bacon Custer’s favorite dog, Cardigan. His story wove its way from the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition, through George Armstrong Custer’s death in 1876 at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn), to Cardigan’s posthumous stay in the University of Minnesota’s General Museum, before fading into obscurity in the modern Bell Museum collections.
Cardigan’s basic story is simple. Armstrong and Libbie Custer owned scores of dogs including a staghound they named Cardigan. After her husband’s death, Libbie placed Cardigan in the care of a St. Paul minister. When Cardigan died, the minister followed an odd Victorian custom of having Cardigan mounted and displayed in a public building in Minneapolis. Later, Cardigan’s mount disappeared, and ever since stories have spread concerning his posthumous fate. When I came to the University of Minnesota three decades ago, I was told Custer’s stuffed dog was rumored to have been in Pillsbury Hall’s old geology museum but was assured that the story was a myth. As it turned out, the myth was true.
Yet, Cardigan’s story did give rise to other false myths, so this is simply an attempt to pull together the University’s existing documentation about Cardigan to set his story straight. However, other materials may exist, and the fate of Cardigan’s skull remains unknown. Like many interesting stories, Cardigan’s last chapter remains to be written.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements often follow a story, but three sources are so important to this tale that they should be mentioned right away. Brian Patrick Duggan summarizes Cardigan’s story in his book ‘General Custer, Libbie Custer and Their Dogs,’ which covers most of what is known of Cardigan’s life, but also analyses many rumors about the Custers’ dogs and Cardigan in particular. Less well-known contributions to Cardigan’s story are primarily due to Rebecca Toov of the University of Minnesota’s Archives who graciously pulled together the archives’ documentation on Cardigan, along with the early history of the General Museum and its evolution into the current Bell Museum. Additional details on Cardigan’s life with the Terrys were taken from ‘A Painted Herbarium: The Life and Art of Emily Hitchcock Terry’ by Beatrice Scheer Smith. The author’s sole contribution was the rather inconsequential discovery of Cardigan’s last owner. Although any errors are solely my responsibility.
And an Apology
It is not often one has to apologize to a stranger for mistakes made fifty years ago, much less twice. Paul L Hedren is a historian of 19th century northern plains conflicts. In 1972, he contacted our department to see whether the university still had any geology samples collected by Newton Horace Winchell during the 1874 Black Hills Expedition. He was told none existed, even though half of Winchell’s samples were still in our collections. The next year, Hedren wrote to the Star Tribune inquiring about Custer’s dog Cardigan and was told another false tale. In both cases, our department could have provided the correct answers but did not take the time to look for them. In part, this site is also an effort to apologize for those failures and ensure they do not happen again.
If anyone has additional documentation concerning Cardigan, it would be welcomed.
Cardigan and Colonel Custer
The lingering interest in Cardigan’s story is intrinsically tied to the Battle of the Greasy Grass. If Lieutenant Colonel Custer had died there with the loss of only half of his immediate command, history buffs would likely be the only ones who recognized his name. However, the cachet of a battle with no survivors, occurring on the eve of the nation’s centennial, transformed Custer’s last fight into an American myth.
Almost before the slain were gathered, rumors began and grew increasingly improbable as a gullible public yearned for any new tale of the famous battle. Since Armstrong and Libbie were dog lovers who owned scores of dogs, many of which were hunting dogs who had accompanied previous Custer expeditions, it was not surprising that rumors of dogs at Custer’s last battle also arose.
In his carefully researched history of the Custers’ dogs, Brian Patrick Duggan analyses no less than 25 false tales of dogs at the battle. Many of those stories were widely circulated despite eyewitness reports that no dog accompanied Custer’s men on their final ride. Duggan considered the most preposterous to be one from the January 27, 1888, edition of The Sturgis Weekly Record:
“When that gallant troop made its disastrous charge, Rusty was in the van, cheering on the troop by his gallant barking and determined sallies; and many of the redskins felt his bite. He was wounded shortly after the conflict began and lay on the field till most of his troops were annihilated, when he arose and literally fought like a mad dog until one of Gaul’s men put a bullet into him and placed him hors de combat, when his capture was easily effected.”
Although the article’s protagonist was named ‘Rusty,’ Cardigan had every right to play its hero – both because the Custers did not name any of their dogs ‘Rusty’ and the story was completely made up. The only dogs who might have seen the battle were those of the Lakota and Cheyenne villages, who presumably would have been rooting for the battle’s victors. On the army’s side, the only witnesses to Custer’s death were Comanche and Ash, the only two horses not claimed by the victors nor shot by the cavalry. And as might be expected, throughout their remaining years neither horse spoke of a canine being at the battle.
Yet a half century later, fascination with Custer’s last battle would continue to shape Cardigan’s story with equally marvelous tales of his posthumous career.