General Miles, in his letter of November 20, 1903, dismisses the matter very curtly. He says “Custer did not disobey orders,” and he states as military dictum that, in sending General Custer seventy-five or one hundred miles away, Terry could not indicate what Custer should do, and that, practically, Custer was not under any obligations to execute Terry’s orders, even when he found conditions as Terry had expected and indicated.[131] The order states explicitly “Should it—the trail up the Rosebud—be found (as it appears almost certain it will be found) to turn toward the Little Big Horn, then you should still proceed southward.” Now, when he found that it turned toward the Little Big Horn, instead of going south or stopping where he was and scouting south or southwest and west and try to locate the village, or examining Tullock Creek, or sending scouts to Gibbon, he made that fatal night march with the deliberate intention of trying to locate and strike the village before Gibbon could possibly get up. Gibbon says (page 473, Vol. I., Report of the Secretary of War for 1876), “The Department Commander (Terry) strongly impressed upon him (Custer) the propriety of not pressing his march too rapidly.” Whether Custer’s written instructions were based upon a “guess” of the actual condition, as Colonel Godfrey suggests, or had no “military merit,” as General Miles states, the facts remain: First: That they were based upon a “foresight” as good as the present “hindsight,” which is often not the case. Second: That Custer accepted them without demur. Third: No further information was gained to suggest a modification, or, to use the words of the letter: “unless you see sufficient reason for departing from them.” On the contrary, the supposed turn of the trail was found to be an actual fact. Therefore, Custer did not obey his written instructions, in letter or spirit, and had no proper military justification for not doing so, unless General Terry afterwards told him, “Use your own judgment and do what you think best,” which, in my opinion, would have made the instructions advisory rather than positive orders. If these facts (I ignore the unproduced affidavit) do not constitute disobedience of orders, I do not see how it is possible for the charge of disobedience of orders to hold against any man, under any circumstances, when away from his superior. Here is a trifling sidelight on the matter. On the night of June 23d, General Gibbon, in reply to an optimistic remark of mine, told me in effect, “I am satisfied that if Custer can prevent it we will not get into the fight.” The meaning I gathered was that Gibbon thought that Custer was so eager to retrieve the good opinion that he might have lost owing to his controversy over post traderships, that he would strike when and where he could.