608            GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.

co operated, as men both familiar with Indian  warfare; and
cross-purposes would have been avoided.
   The action of a court of inquiry, which will be able to call
forth the testimony of officers whose names the author with-
holds from the public at present, will settle whether these
conclusions are correct or not. Many witnesses have been
deterred from speaking by fear of those superiors whom their
evidence will impeach; and these witnesses will be able to
swear in public to what they have hitherto only dared to say
and write in private. The nation demands such a court, to
vindicate the name of a dead hero from the pitiless malignity,
which first slew him and then pursued him beyond the grave.