Died with Custer: The Story of John Stuart Forbes

Died with Custer

The Story of John Stuart Forbes

For many OMs, there is great joy in thumbing through the pages of the Marlborough College Register. Francis Chamberlain (C2 1973-77) is one of those. Upon a chance seeing of the date of John Stuart Forbes’ (PR 1862-64) death, Francis investigated further and discovered that this OM died on the battlefield of Little Bighorn alongside the famous Colonel Custer.

For every Old Marlburian who became a general, a writer or a politician, there are hundreds who lie in obscurity. Opening at random the Marlborough College Register, one is suitably impressed that Henry William Pullen (1845-48), admitted to Marlborough in February of 1845, was chaplain to HMS Alert on its 1875 Arctic expedition and subsequently wrote a book called The Fight at Dame Europa’s School. But what became of James Greenwood Deacon (1843-48), of whom it is simply recorded that he was born in October of 1833, admitted in August of 1843 and left in December of 1848? One evening, however, I came across the following: ‘Forbes, John Stuart (Preshute) s of C.H. Forbes, Cheltenham. b 28 May 1849, l March 1864. Clifton Coll. US Cavalry. Killed in action, 25 June 1876.’

The date seemed vaguely familiar. Swift research disclosed that an Old Marlburian had been killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Further internet enquiries led to Peter G Russell, of the English Westerners’ Society, whose fascinating 2016 booklet on Forbes, English by Birth, Scottish by Blood, written with Leslie Hodgson, is the basis for this article.

John Forbes’ father was Charles Hay Forbes, the third son of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, 7th Baronet. John’s mother Jemima was the daughter of the 25th Chief of the Clan MacDonell, Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell, allegedly the model for Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley hero, Fergus MacIvor; her uncle, Lt Col James MacDonell of the Coldstream Guards, was the hero of Hougoumont at Waterloo. In 1846, the family and its various children moved to Rugby, where John was born in 1849. The family returned to Scotland, where John’s father died when he was aged 10. It is evident from his will that John’s father had had to bail out two of John’s brothers’ considerable gambling debts. Thereafter, John and his family moved to Cheltenham, where in 1860 he was enrolled in Cheltenham College, but he left after only a year and, in August of 1862, he entered Marlborough College and was placed in Preshute. He lasted only a short time at Marlborough, leaving – for reasons

again veiled in obscurity – at the age of 14 in March 1864. Grainne Lenehan (College Archivist) tells me: ‘He was at Marlborough for three terms only, the school year at that time being divided into just two terms, Midsummer and Christmas. He spent all three terms in the Upper Third form. He was placed 29th out of 30 at the end of the Christmas Term 1862, 27th out of 33 in the Midsummer Term of 1863 and 16th out of 34 in the Christmas Term of 1863.’

In April 1864, John was admitted to Clifton College in Bristol. In their book, Peter G Russell and Leslie Hodgson suggest that ‘the difficulties he ran into at Marlborough followed him, although it may be pure conjecture that heavy gambling debts forced him to leave Clifton after only one term. He was just 15 years of age.’ Whatever it was that dogged John throughout his schooldays may also have left him with a resilience of character.

How he spent his next three years is unknown, but having reached the age of 21 in 1871 John came into £2,000 from his father’s estate. In 1871, travelling from London via San Francisco, he visited his two brothers who had emigrated to New Zealand. There he registered the birth of the child of his brother William, now the 9th Baronet, John describing himself as John S Stuart Forbes, Broker, San Francisco, Cal. Later that year he was back in San Francisco.

Some four months later, in January 1872, calling himself John S Hiley (the surname of a clerical brother-in-law), John enlisted as a private in the US Cavalry for a term of five years. Peter and Leslie speculate that this could have been due to a gambling debt or a romantic entanglement and that it may have been John’s intention to desert once the particular trouble had blown over. Why he took such an extreme step remains a mystery. On enlistment, John was described as 6’ tall, with light brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion, his previous occupation being recorded as ‘Clerk’. Peter and Leslie point out that the average height of a cavalryman in the 1870s was some 5’7”, so John must have cut a striking figure. In February 1872, John was transferred to Company E, The Grey Horse Troop, of the 7th Cavalry, based in Unionville, South Carolina. In March 1873, Company E, including John S Hiley, travelled to Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, to join eight other companies of the 7th Cavalry under the command of Lt Col George Armstrong Custer. In August 1873, there was a skirmish with Sioux Indians near the mouth of the Bighorn River. Thereafter, Company E was almost constantly on the move.

‘All 210 men in Custer’s five-company column were killed. Most were stripped of their clothing and mutilated, and subsequent decomposition made identification impossible...’

Lt Col George Armstrong Custer

Memorial plaque for John Stuart Forbes

In early 1876, plans were afoot to mount a campaign against American Indians who had declined to report to designated reservations by 31st January of that year. In May 1876, all twelve companies of the 7th Cavalry, under the command of Custer, marched out of Fort Abraham Lincoln to the strains of The Girl I Left Behind Me. In June 1876, a number of scouting troops – including Company E – passed back intelligence suggesting that Indians were likely to be found west of the Powder River, in the valley of Little Bighorn. General Terry then ordered Custer’s 7th Cavalry to detach itself from the main column and to search Rosebud Creek; that order, later subject to much debate, at least implied that Custer should not himself engage any Indians he encountered.

However, on 25th June 1876, Companies E and F attacked an Indian village, and they and three other companies were subsequently overwhelmed and annihilated on the bluffs above the Little Bighorn River by a combined and well-armed force of predominantly Cheyenne and Sioux Indians. Custer had divided his force. The battle – known subsequently to Indians as The Battle of the Greasy Grass – ranged over a six-mile field. Many soldiers of E Company were killed in a deep ravine just a few yards south of where Custer himself died. The 7th Cavalry had been armed with single-shot Springfield rifles and Colt revolvers; it has been estimated that half the Indians carried bows and arrows, a quarter had muzzleloaders and single-shot rifles and a quarter had Winchester or Henry 15-shot repeaters. Modern research tends to attribute Custer’s defeat to poor tactics and dubious marksmanship; one officer is reported to have said of his time in the US Army in the 1870s, ‘Those were the good old days. Target practice was practically unknown.’ All 210 men in Custer’s five-company column were killed. Most were stripped of their clothing and mutilated, and subsequent decomposition made identification impossible. Some soldiers reportedly killed themselves to avoid capture and torture. John’s body was never formally identified. His term of enlistment had been due to expire just seven months later. In Private Hiley’s trunk was found a Farobank, described by Peter and Leslie as ‘an essential piece of equipment for an inveterate gambler’. The trunk also contained a letter from his mother received just before he left Fort Abraham Lincoln. According to Peter and Leslie, that letter told him that the trouble he had got into was soon to be settled and that he could then return home. John Forbes’ effects, including a carte-de-visite (a small photograph) and his mother’s letter, were handed over to the British Ambassador in Washington and later posted to his mother in England, but have since disappeared. When his back pay was calculated, he was found to owe the United States $1.18 for tobacco. His effects were sold for $8.80. But at the time of his death his estate amounted to nearly £3,000. John’s remains were presumably amongst those reburied in a mass grave at the foot of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument, where his name is engraved as J S Hiley. In 1877, John Forbes’ mother put up a brass plaque in memory of her son in the Church of St John the Evangelist in Edinburgh. It is still there.

Left and page 45: Battle of Little Bighorn, Montana, USA, June 1876 (c1900). Artist: Amos Bad Heart Buffalo