4. At first, the public celebrated Custer as a hero… but it soured starting in the 1960s.
Although controversial beginning in the 1960s, George Armstrong Custer was a national hero in the United States, a general at the age of 23, renowned for leading aggressive, nearly reckless cavalry charges from the front, long blonde hair streaming in the wind. He adopted flamboyant uniforms, posed for the camera whenever one presented itself, and named his Michigan Volunteers the Wolverines. Having survived so many battles with little more than a scratch it was unthinkable that he could be killed by mere natives, unless there were other, sinister elements involved. One of these was betrayal by his own men, and both Benteen and Reno found their actions and character called into question.
Reno in particular found himself the subject of media reports and public opinion that the Major had been drunk during the attack on the Little Big Horn, and that his actions and inactions were accountable to intoxication. Though Reno had many reported incidents of drunken behavior later in his career, officially the Army exonerated him for his actions on June 25, 1876. That did not stop the whispered accusations of his cowardice, and many veterans of the action reported that they had been coerced into giving favorable reports of Reno’s courage and his actions that day. Walter Mason Camp, an editor and scholar who interviewed dozens of veterans from the Little Big Horn on both sides, claimed that several officers conspired to protect Reno and his reputation.