“If not in letter, then in spirit, and I think and have ever thought, in letter as well as spirit. Terry intended, if he intended anything, that we should be in the battle with you. I was on the boat, steamer Far West, Captain Grant Marsh, the night of the 21st, when the conference took place between Gibbon, Custer and Terry, to which you refer, and I heard what passed. Terry had a map and Custer’s line of march up the Rosebud was blocked out on it by pins stuck in the table through the paper. Terry showed Custer his line of march and, being somewhat near-sighted as you know, Terry asked me to mark the line, and I did so with a blue pencil. Custer turned off that line of march from the Rosebud, just twenty miles _short_ of the end of the pins and blue line.” Just how much dependence can be placed on Brisbin’s statements I don’t know. He may have been present at this conference, but Hughes makes no mention of him; in fact, entirely ignores him and may have forgotten him. I will make another quotation from Brisbin: “I read the order you print as being the one given by Terry to Custer for this march. If that is the order Custer got it is not the order copied in Terry’s books at Department Headquarters. You will remember that after Custer fell Terry appointed me chief of cavalry. I looked over all the papers affecting the march and battle of Little Big Horn and took a copy of the order sending you up the Rosebud. The order now lies before me and it says ‘you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads (Terry had already referred to the trail Reno followed). Should it be found, as it appears almost certain that it should be found, to turn toward the Little Big Horn, he thinks (that is, the Department Commander thinks) that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue River, and _then_ (‘then’ underscored in order) turn _toward Little_ Big Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank. It is desired that you conform as nearly as possible to those instructions and that you do not depart from them unless you shall see absolute necessity for doing so.’” That part of the quotation from “It is desired” to “necessity for doing so,” is omitted in the order as printed in the report of General Terry. Not having seen the original order I cannot vouch for either being the true copy, but the omission looks peculiar to say the least, if omission there was.[129]