6. In 1876, many political leaders actually did voice that the defeat was brought upon by Custer himself.
President US Grant believed that the loss of Custer’s command was entirely the commander’s own fault. Grant knew Custer quite well, including his military and leadership abilities, as well as his impetuous and often insufferably self-centered temperament. “I regard Custer’s massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary – wholly unnecessary”, Grant later said. But in the immediate aftermath, he was forced by the political realities to take action. Congress meanwhile passed the Indian Appropriations Act of 1876 in which a rider was attached that mandated cutting off all food to the Sioux until they ceded the Black Hills to the United States and returned to the reservations.
Despite the reports in the press and the general public support for Custer, there were many voices in addition to Grant’s which blamed the disaster on the fallen hero. Among these were Reno and Benteen, who gathered the support of brother officers to defend their actions on June 25. Custer had been a popular officer with the public and enlisted men, but was far less so with some brother officers, who considered him overly ambitious and too willing to take risks for the betterment of his reputation at the cost of his men. Custer also had many enemies among the former members of the Confederacy, who joined the United States Army in the west, often under assumed names. There were few cries to “Remember Custer”, or “Remember the Little Big Horn”, as the United States prepared to punish the Sioux.