In reply to your two letters, you will find in my book, “Personal Recollections, or from New England to the Golden Gate,” published by Werner & Co., Akron, Ohio, perhaps all the information you will require. I can not give the time now to going over the campaign in detail. I presume you will find the book in most libraries.[116] You will notice in it a chapter on the Custer campaign. General Custer did not disobey orders. When General Terry divided his command, taking one portion of it with him up the Yellowstone, and sending General Custer with the other portion far out in the Indian country, it necessarily put from seventy-five to one hundred miles between the two commands, and therefore placed upon General Custer the responsibility of acting on the offensive or defensive, for he could have been attacked by the whole body of the combined tribes, and, on the other hand, if he allowed them to escape without attacking them, he would have been severely censured. It would be silly to suppose that Indian chiefs like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse would permit two columns to march around over the country with infantry, cavalry, wagon trains, etc.,[117] and wait for them to come up on both sides simultaneously, and one must believe the American people very gullible if they thought such a proposition had military merit. Yours very truly, NELSON A. MILES. I immediately wrote General Miles a second letter asking him for the name of the affiant and any statement he might be willing to make about the affidavit. I pointed out to him what he very well knew—the prominence given to the story in his own book indicates that—the importance of the affidavit in establishing General Custer’s position and defending him against the charge of disobedience. I received no answer to this letter. Meanwhile the question of the affidavit was taken up by General Hughes in his several communications to me which appear below. In order not to break the thread of the discourse I will anticipate events and here insert a third letter which I wrote to General Miles, after carefully considering General Hughes’ remarks. The letter was sent to General Miles by registered mail. I hold the registry receipt showing that he received it. To this inquiry I have as yet received no reply. 455 East 17th Street, Flatbush, Brooklyn, N. Y., March 30th, 1904. Lieutenant-General NELSON A. MILES, U. S. A., 1736 N Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. My Dear General Miles: A few months since I addressed to you a letter asking you for the name of the person, alluded to in your book, who made the affidavit as to the last remark of General Terry to General Custer. This letter has probably never reached you since I have never received any answer to it.