Somewhere in the Dakota Territory

Dispatch from the Black Hills, for the New-York Tribune.

Your correspondent attended the tea for the gentlemen of the press, where we spoke to Priv. Aaron Boone, lately arrived from the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, and newly appointed press secretary for the 7th Cavalry. Here is the transcript of that discussion.

Boone enters, still covered in dust and looking shaken. He nods to a reporter.

REPORTER: Private Boone, is that an arrow in your hat?

BOONE: What? Where?

Boone raises a visibly trembling hand to his cavalry hat, and takes it off. His hair is completely white. He pulls out the arrow that has pierced the entire crown of his hat, his face blanching.

B: Um, yeah, could be.

R: Private, was the 7th Cavalry humiliated at the Greasy Grass?

B: Humiliated?! No, of course not!

R: Was Col. Custer's entire battalion wiped out?

B: Well, yes.

R: Were most of his men scalped?

B: Umm, I think those are the preliminary reports we've had. No one wanted to get too close—

R: Were most of the bodies stripped of their clothing and mutilated?

B: Look, I can see where you're headed here, and if you want to call it a humiliation, call it a humiliation. But these things happen over the course of a long campaign.

R: What went wrong? Is it true that your carbines were faulty?

B: I don't want to cast blame here. You go to the Indian Wars with the carbines you have.

R: Is it true that Col. Custer divided his forces in three? Was that really a wise decision in attacking a force of Indians three-to-four times that of his own?

B: Hey, anybody can Monday-morning quarterback. But at the start of the battle the colonel had no idea the odds were that lopsided.

R: So are we to understand then that no reconnaissance was done?

B: As you know, it is the philosophy of this army and General Cashman back in Washington that we don't want to discourage any field commander from practicing our "Dare to Charge Right the Fuck In" strategy. Or, as it's called elsewhere, the "Dare to Take a Tomahawk in the Face" or "Dare to Take an Arrow in the Liver" strategy.

The algorithms back at the War Department have proven over and over again that this is the way to win battles. Every respectable army in the Western world swears by them.

R: Did Sitting Bull swear by them?

B: Well, Indians. You know what I mean? I know I'm going to get into a lot of trouble on the telegraph for saying this, but those guys just don't know how to fight wars like civilized people.

R: Does this mark the end of the campaign to subdue the Sioux and Cheyenne?

B: What year is it, everybody? 1876, right? So chill out. Imperialist expansion is not a short-term project. There's still a whole lot of slaughtering to be done. In the past, we've done some of the slaughtering. Yesterday, it was their turn. Tomorrow, we'll be doing the slaughtering again. I'm very pleased with the outfit we've put together, and I think soon we'll be right back in it.

We just have to do a better job of executing. And I do mean executing.

R: What is the reason for this optimism?

B: Oh, lots of things, lots of things. This past winter we recruited one of the most promising batches of waterfront toughs, cutthroats, and street brawlers I've ever seen, the numbers are looking very good on the number of buffalo we've killed, and we're actually ahead of schedule in turning the fragile grasslands of the High Plains into a lifeless Dust Bowl. So it's all good.

Big picture: I've been in this war game long enough to remember how upset people were about the slaughter at Fredericksburg. And the slaughter at First Bull Run. And at Chancellorsville. And Chickamauga. And Second Bull Run. And Spotsylvania, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and the Battle of the Crater. But who won the Civil War, huh?

R: Private Boone, have you heard any of the news from back East? Are you aware that a new professional baseball league has been formed?

Boon (looks baffled) Baseball? What the hell do I know about baseball?