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Glorious by Aram Schefrin
Historical Fiction
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On June 25th, 1876, General George Custer died at the Little Big Horn.
Why did Custer rush into battle against the largest agglomeration of Indians ever seen in the West, without waiting for support from other cavalry contingents which were on their way to the scene?
To answer that, you need to know what happened on June 27th.
"Glorious," a podcast novel by Aram Schefrin, tells Custer's story from after the Civil War through the date of his massacre, in the voice of Captain Frederick Benteen, the soldier who hated him.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works- 3.0 United States License.
Audio Quality: 
Out of 4 ratings
Narration Quality:
Out of 4 ratings
Writing Quality: 
Out of 4 ratings
Overall Rating:
Out of 4 ratings
By: __Jim_
Sorry, but I found this book too rambling and too disconnected as well as implausible, (narrated by a Custer confidant, etc..) to finish... I mean no offense, but were you emulating Harry Turtledove's style...? I also don't care for Harry's work... Perhaps I simply don't care for alternative history fiction, however, I don't have a problem with anything else... It's peculiar however, Military Fiction is in fact my favorite kind of literature. Take Care, Jim FlemingBy: Chris
Great as always, an interesting story from an interesting perspective. It's amazing the amount of detail from the era.
Chapters
| Title | Description | Date Created |
| Chapter 1 (17.17 MB) | At Fort Duchesne in Utah in 1887, Captain Frederick Benteen, an old man now, is finishing out his soldiering career fighting Mormons who are disobeying Federal Law. The Indian Wars are over, ended with the surrender of Geronimo in 1886. Benteen, now a drunk, picks fights with men he imagines are Mormons, and disrespects important women at Fort Duchesne. At his courtmartial, he tells the judges about his distinguished career in the Civil War. The prosecutor brings up the old charge that Benteen caused Custer's death at the Little Big Horn. Benteen retorts that it's Custer who has caused the death of Benteen. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 2 (9.06 MB) | Benteen blames Custer's wife Libbie for spreading the story that Benteen had set Custer up to die. Thus begins the tale: After the end of the Civil War, General Custer is assigned to Fort Riley in Kansas. Libbie insists that her friend Anna come along to keep her company. On the way, in St. Louis, Custer, Libbie and Anna see a performance by Lawrence Barrett which reduces Custer to tears (something that happens to him often.) That night,after sex with Libbie (they have an extravagant physical relationship), Custer is not satisfied, and appears at Anna's door. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 3 (13.44 MB) | Arriving the next day at Fort Riley, they are met by Major Alfred Gibbs, who commands the post. And waiting for Custer in Gibbs' dining room is General William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman asks Custer if he misses the War. As Benteen tells it, Custer had hated to see it end. Beginning at Bull Run and ending with Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Custer had built a reputation for leading glorious charges and had been appointed the army's youngest volunteer brigadier general. But when the war ended, he had returned to his regular army rank of captain, and Libbie had insisted he find another career. He had gone to New York, where he'd met a general he had known in the war. The general cautioned him against leaving the army now. The transcontinental railroads were in the process of being built; they would run through Indian country, the army expected a fight, and there would be plenty for a cavalry soldier to do. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 4 (13.57 MB) | Custer is feted at the New York Broker's Board and in the salon of the financier Levi Morton. He meets the actress Maggie Mitchell, and sees the great singer Clara Kellogg. In his hotel lobby, he is accosted by Porfirio Diaz, who invites him to put together a cavalry unit and come to Mexico to fight the French-installed Emperor Maximilian and his Confederate supporters. But the President forbids it, afraid it might offend the French. With no other prospects, Custer goes to Kansas as a lieutenant colonel commanding the new Seventh Cavalry. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 5 (14.68 MB) | General Sherman tells Custer how Indians fight. Custer's brother, Tom, joins the 7th. Custer throws a dinner for his officers, which ends in a poker game in which Benteen wipes Custer out. Benteen describes the hard life of the soldier on the plains. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 6 (17.59 MB) | Colonel Smith, who commands at Fort Riley, explains what's happened out here up to now. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 7 (11.36 MB) | While Custer and Benteen languish at Fort Riley, Captain William Fetterman leads a contingent out of Fort Phil Kearny, a post built to protect the main road to the Montana gold fields, to respond to an Indian attack on a wood train out of the fort. Disobeying orders to confine himself to rescuing the wood train, Fetterman charges up Lodge Trail Ridge following taunting Indians. As he comes down the other side of the ridge, Sioux and Cheyenne spring a trap. Fetterman and all his men are wiped out and horribly mutilated. In response, General Sherman sends General Hancock after the southern Cheyenne (who were not involved in the attack on Fetterman.) Hancock meets Custer and lays out his plans. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 8 (18.33 MB) | General Hancock orders the Cheyenne to parley at Fort Larned. But the Cheyenne don't appear, so Hancock moves out towards their village on the Pawnee Fork. Sioux and Cheyenne chiefs try to dissuade him from approaching the village; after Sand Creek, they were afraid for their women and children. The Indians burn the prairie grass to deny forage to the cavalry horses, send their women and children fleeing, and four hundred Indians form a line, ready to charge. But one of them puts up a white flag, and Hancock and Custer meet Chief Roman Nose between the armies. Hancock orders Roman Nose to bring back the women and children and to meet with the soldiers again closer to the Cheyenne camp. Soon Hancock's scouts report that all the Cheyenne have abandoned the camp. Hancock determines to burn it, but Wynkoop insists that if he does, he will be responsible for starting a war. Hancock backs off, and sends Custer out to find the Cheyenne and bring them back. | Feb 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 9 (12.45 MB) | Custer's men follow the fleeing Cheyenne, but lose their trail. Reaching the Smoky Hill River, they find the crew of the Lookout stage station murdered. Custer concludes the Indians he has been tracking had committed the killings. Later he realizes timing made that impossible, but by then General Hancock, on the initial word from Custer, has burned the Cheyenne village on Pawnee Fork. Out of food, Custer's column has to give up the chase and turn in to Fort Hays for supplies. They don't find the expected food and fodder at the fort, and desertions begin. Hancock appears at Fort Hays and castigates Custer for sitting there. Custer's depressed thoughts turn to Libbie and sex. When a sympathetic Colonel Smith agrees to bring Libbie to Fort Hays, Custer imposes strict punishment on the troops for minor infractions, intending to get them (and himself) in shape before Libbie appears. When Libbie appears, she and Custer "go among the willows" until Colonel Smith insists Custer resume the search for the Cheyenne, because Indians have been raiding parties working on the nearby Union Pacific tracks to the north. | Feb 11, 2007 |
| Chapter 10 (15.89 MB) | Custer rides out toward the Platte River to rescue the Union Pacific's workers. Meanwhile, huge rains flood the country around Fort Hays, and to escape the floods Libbie and Anna flee east to Fort Riley. Out on the Platte, Custer meets Pawnee Killer and orders him to turn in to Fort McPherson. When General Sherman comes out to Custer's camp on the Platte, he berates Custer for letting Pawnee Killer go and orders him on forced march to find the indian and bring him in. But, consumed with desire to see Libbie, Custer disobeys Sherman's order and heads south toward Fort Hays, thinking Libbie is still there. | Feb 11, 2007 |
| Chapter 11 (15.67 MB) | Desperate to be with Libbie, Custer disobeys General Sherman's orders. Instead of heading north after Pawnee Killer, Custer turns south toward Fort Wallace, where he has asked Libbie to meet him. Pawnee Killer finds Custer, and attacks him. After driving off the attack, Custer decides to follow the chief to his village, and arrest his whole clan. But when Pawnee Killer goes north, Custer doesn't follow. He resumes his march toward Fort Wallace at a horse-killing pace. Thirteen men desert on the way. Custer orders them shot, against military regulations. Six of them are caught, three wounded. Custer refuses them medical attention and presses on to the south. In the meantime, Indians have begun raiding again in the south. General Sherman now orders Custer to go to Fort Wallace - exactly where he wanted to go. The orders are sent to Custer with a party led by Lieutenant Kidder. Continuing toward Fort Wallace, Custer finds the Kidder party - dead and horribly mutilated, most likely by Pawnee Killer. | Feb 18, 2007 |
| Chapter 12 (13.36 MB) | At Fort Wallace Custer finds a letter written by a soldier at the request of Custer's illiterate cook, telling him that Libbie and Captain Weir looked to be a little too intimate when she was at Hays. Enraged, Custer takes a small party and rushes to Fort Harker, ignoring the deaths of two troopers in an Indian attack en route. At Harker, Custer wakes up Colonel Smith and asks for permission to go on by rail to Fort Riley, where Libbie is. Smith agrees, and sends his adjutant, Captain Weir, to escort Custer to the train. At the station, Custer confronts Weir, who denies any improprieties. At Fort Riley, Custer braces his cook, who says she has never actually seen Libbie and Weir in flagrante. When Custer asks Libbie directly whether Weir has ever touched her, Libbie acts insulted, and backs Custer down with an implied promise of pleasure as she turns down her coverlet. Custer surrenders. Libbie never answers his question. | Feb 18, 2007 |
| Chapter 13 (13.14 MB) | Custer is arrested and courtmartialed for abandoning his mission and rushing to see Libbie. The Hancock mission has been a failure, and Hancock intends to make Custer the goat. While Custer awaits trial, President Andrew Johnson, in response to public furor over the Hancock war, sends a peace commission to negotiate with the Cheyenne. The trial begins at Fort Leavenworth. | Feb 24, 2007 |
| Chapter 14 (14.18 MB) | Custer is convicted and suspended from rank and pay. The Peace Commission signs a treaty with the Cheyenne; the Indians give up Kansas and agree to move to the Red River near Texas. But they go back to the Smoky Hill to hunt buffalo, and while there spring an attack on the Pawnee. The attack fails, and the frustrated Cheyenne raid a settler family, raping the women. Knowing they would be punished, the Cheyenne decide to be hanged for sheep instead of lambs, and commit a series of depredations in Kansas. Phil Sheridan comes out to stop them, and calls Custer back. | Feb 24, 2007 |
| Chapter 15 (23.13 MB) | The Battle of the Washita | Mar 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 16 (11.08 MB) | Custer consummates his "marriage" to the captured daughter of a chief | Mar 4, 2007 |
| Chapter 17 (12.06 MB) | Sheridan sends the captured squaws to Fort Hays, but keeps Mahwissa and Meotzi on hand in case their help is needed with the other Cheyenne. He insists Custer show him the Washita battlefield. There they find Elliott and his men, massacred. Grant is to be sworn in as President, and Sherman promoted to General of the Army. Sheridan hopes to get Sherman's old post, but the Washita slaughter of Cheyenne has stirred up trouble back east. Sheridan must be in Washington to defend himself; before he goes, he warns the rest of the Cheyenne to come in and surrender. Little Robe's band does surrender, on New Year's Eve, telling Sheridan the rest of the Cheyenne are on their way in. Sheridan believes he can safely leave for Washington. | Mar 11, 2007 |
| Chapter 18 (13.43 MB) | The Cheyenne do not come in. Custer goes out to look for them, taking Meyotzi. But the Cheyenne have slipped into Texas; Custer does not have enough supplies to follow them. He releases Little Robe who promises to bring them in. After Sheridan goes to Washington, Custer goes after the Cheyenne once more. He finds their head chief, Medicine Arrow, and Meyotzi tells him there are two captive white women in the Cheyenne camp. Custer takes four chiefs prisoner, including Big Head, Dull Knife and Fat Bear, and sends a chief back to the Cheyenne camp with his demand that the white women be released and the Cheyenne turn in to their reservation. | Mar 11, 2007 |
| Chapter 19 (12.97 MB) | The Cheyenne return the two captured white women. | Mar 18, 2007 |
| Chapter 20 (14.27 MB) | Custer returns the squaws to the Cheyenne, says goodbye to Meyotzi and learns that she is pregnant with his child. | Mar 18, 2007 |
| Chapter 21 (12.09 MB) | The Cheyenne are finished, and Libbie sends Custer to New York again to find another career. There, Wall Street begins to seduce him. | Mar 24, 2007 |
| Chapter 22 (13.77 MB) | A beautiful soprano seduces him, too. Libbie asks him with whom he has slept since their marriage. He tells her. She banishes him. | Mar 24, 2007 |
| Chapter 23 (11.38 MB) | Custer dines with the New York press, and finds out whom Jay Cooke has bought. | Apr 22, 2007 |
| Chapter 24 (8.78 MB) | The Northern Pacific buys Custer - but for what? | Apr 22, 2007 |
| Chapter 25 (14.92 MB) | Custer goes to Kentucky and is bored to tears. But Sheridan calls him to Chicago to deal with the great fire, and sends him out with a Russian grand duke on a hunting expedition. When the duke's party continues to New Orleans, an angry Libbie joins Custer in Louisville, Kentucky. | Apr 29, 2007 |
| Chapter 26 (14.22 MB) | After Custer's sister's wedding, Custer and Libbie reunite. The 7th Cavalry is sent to guard Northern Pacific surveyors in Sioux country, what is now the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana, and Libbie goes along. | Apr 29, 2007 |
| Chapter 27 (15.35 MB) | Custer has his first skirmishes with Sitting Bull. Although Custer holds the Sioux off and the railroad survey is completed, the Panic of '73 shuts the Northern Pacific down. Custer is assigned to Fort Lincoln in Dakota Territory. Custer thinks it's pointless, since the Northern Pacific is dead for the moment. But Sheridan explains: there are rumors of gold in the Black Hills. The Hills are on the Sioux Reservation, and the army is supposed to keep whites out of them. Sheridan sends Custer to build a post within the Hills - ostensibly to keep miners out, but in fact to bring them in, along with the press, to tout the gold in the Hills and revive the fortunes of the Northern Pacific. | May 6, 2007 |
| Chapter 28 (13.34 MB) | The Black Hills expedition finds gold. Custer and the press send the word back to the world. Custer's Galaxy Magazine articles are published as a book. And August Belmont starts him thinking about running for president. | May 6, 2007 |
| Chapter 29 (14.06 MB) | The government tries to buy the Black Hills, but they won't meet the Indians' price. So they order all Sioux to confine themselves to their reservation, promising to attack any who stay out. Sitting Bull refuses to come in. Broke in New York, Custer agrees to go on the lecture circuit. With Custer's help, James Gordon Bennett and the Democrats reveal that Grant's brother Orville and Secretary of War Belknap have been selling Army traderships for private graft. At Bennett's suggestion, to make some money Custer buys railroad stock on margin. There is a margin call, and Custer is ruined. | May 13, 2007 |
| Chapter 30 (14.81 MB) | James Gordon Bennett convinces Custer to testify at the hearing on Belknap's corruption, by promising to support Custer for President if Tilden's nomination is stalled. Belknap orders Custer to report to General Terry in St. Paul, Minnesota, to get him out of the way. There Custer learns of Terry and Sheridan's planned move against Sitting Bull. Belknap resigns, so Custer's testimony won't be required, and that is the end of Custer's presidential prospects. But Custer can't give up the hope; he and Libbie notify the press of the coming expedition. Success will get Custer in the headlines again, and from there, who knows? | May 13, 2007 |
| Chapter 31 (12.95 MB) | But the Democrats decide to impeach Secretary Belknap, even though he has resigned, and Custer is summoned to Washington. Though warned against it by Sheridan's aide, Custer testifies against Belknap before the House. Terry's column will march against the Sioux in seven days, but Custer is held in Washington by subpoena to testify at Belknap's Senate trial. Custer asks General Sherman to help him get out of Washington, but President Grant refuses to let Custer leave. Custer tries to see Grant, but the President refuses. Pulling a fast one, Custer convinces someone at the War Department to give him orders to go. When he reaches Chicago, a furious Sheridan puts him under arrest. Two days later, relenting, Sheridan lets Custer send a telegram to Sherman. Sherman finally permits him to go to Fort Lincoln, but he is not to be allowed to go on the Sioux expedition. | May 20, 2007 |
| Chapter 32 (14.43 MB) | At Terry's St. Paul headquarters, Custer learns that Terry, not Belknap had ordered him to receive the suspicious Indian corn. Custer writes to Clymer, explaining that he was wrong and that there was no longer any reason for him to return to testify. Terry, who needs Custer on the expedition against the Sioux, dictates a letter for Custer to write to General Sherman. Grant relents and allows Custer to go on the expedition, although only in command of the 7th Cavalry. Mark Kellogg, a reporter from the Bismarck Tribune and a stringer for James Gordon Bennett, accompanies the expedition against Sheridan's orders, and the expedition goes out in an atmosphere of impending doom. | May 20, 2007 |
| Chapter 33 (13.6 MB) | On the Yellowstone River, three cavalry columns converge on the Sioux - Colonel John Gibbon from the west, General George Crook from the south, and Terry and Custer from the east. Terry expected to find the Sioux on the Little Missouri River - but they weren't there, so he moved his column west to the Powder River. There he learns that Gibbon has seen an indian camp on the Rosebud, farther west. Concerned to catch all the indians, Terry sends Major Marcus Reno up the Powder on a scout. Reno's orders, if he doesn't find indians on the Powder, are to march further west to the Tongue River and then up that river to the Yellowstone. He is under no circumstances to go near the camp Gibbon has seen on the Rosebud. Terry has sent Reno on the scout instead of Custer because he believes if Custer finds indians, he will attack them alone. Reno disobeys Terry's orders and marches to the Rosebud. He reports to Gibbon on June 18th that the indian camp there is empty, but it's big. There has been no word from Crook, so Terry decides to hold Gibbon on the Yellowstone as a northern blocking force and send Custer and the 7th Cavalry to move on the Sioux. Custer tells Mark Kellogg of his presidential plans. Mark Kellogg tells Custer that the Democratic Convention would meet in St. Louis on June 28th. Custer now knows how little time he has. He enlists Lonesome Charley to make the run to the Bozeman telegraph as soon as he has defeated the Sioux. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 34 (13.95 MB) | Custer sets out after the Sioux. | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 35 (9.03 MB) | In the Crow's Nest | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 36 (17.84 MB) | The Battle of the Little Big Horn - Part I | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 37 (12.23 MB) | The Battle of the Little Big Horn - Part II | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 38 (12.93 MB) | Reno's Court of Inquiry | Jun 3, 2007 |
| Chapter 39 (16.27 MB) | The Battle of the Little Big Horn - Part III. And The End. | Jun 3, 2007 |