Marcus Albert Reno (November 15, 1834 – March 30, 1889) was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Black Hills War against the Lakota (Sioux) and Northern Cheyenne. He is most noted for his role in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
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Early life and career
Reno was born November 15, 1834, in Carrollton, Illinois, the fourth child of James and Charlotte Reno. According to one biographer, he was a descendant of Phillippe Francois Renault, who in 1777 accompanied Lafayette to America and had been awarded a land grant by the U. S. worth about $400 million by Reno's time. At the age of 15, he sent a letter to the Secretary of War inquiring about the qualifications necessary to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He attended West Point from 1851 until 1857, graduating 20th in a class of 38. He was brevetted second lieutenant, 1st Dragoons, on July 1, 1857, and assigned to duty in the Pacific Northwest in Oregon. He was in the Union Army in the Civil War, serving as a captain at Antietam in the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment and during the Gettysburg Campaign. Reno was wounded at Kelly's Ford in Virginia on March 17, 1863, and was given the brevet rank of major for gallant and meritorious conduct. That same year, he married Mary Hannah Ross of Harrisburg, who would bear him one son, Robert Ross Reno. They owned a farm near New Cumberland, Pennsylvania in Cumberland County. When she died in 1874, Reno was in the field in Montana and rode all night to Fort Benton to request leave to attend her funeral. The request was denied. Reno was present at the 1864 battles of Cold Harbor, Trevilian Station and Cedar Creek. After serving in a variety of staff positions, he was brevetted lieutenant colonel in October. In December, Reno became brevet colonel of the 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry, later commanding a brigade against John Mosby's guerrillas. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier general for “meritorious services during the war.” In 1866 Reno was ordered to Fort Vancouver, in the Pacific Northwest. He served as acting assistant inspector general of the Department of the Columbia. Reno was promoted to major and in December, 1868, joined the 7th Cavalry at Fort Hayes, Kansas. Later, he was transferred to Fort Abraham Lincoln, in the Dakota Territory, and would accompany George A. Custer on his Sioux campaign in 1876.
The Battle of Little Bighorn
Reno was a major U.S figure in the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876 serving under George Armstrong Custer. It was Custer's decision to split his force into three parts as he had at the Washita successfully, Reno attacking from the south while Custer crossed the river further north. However, the plan failed as Reno stopped the advance, dismounted, was then outflanked and in holding position was unnerved when Rain in the Face was killed beside him. He then fled leaving part of his command without notice in a disorganized retreat before a combined Cheyenne and Lakota Native American war party. Reno's battalion suffered great loss, crossing the river at a buffalo ford where additional casualties occurred. They finally reached a bluff overlooking the river. Historians using Indian testimony from Gaul and others concluded Reno was saved, because the Indians saw General Custer's command coming from the northeast and the warriors all went to fight Custer's 2 battalions. Reno was then joined by the troops being hindered by Captain Frederick Benteen incredibly slow march and later by the pack train and its escort, the survivors spent the rest of the day without leadership as Reno "hid in a hole" according to reports while Custer and his troops fought against the warrior force on their own. Capt. Weir argued with Reno, with Reno screaming at him as he left and Weir's command followed, with the intent he was going to find General Custer as had been ordered. Upon reaching now what is Weir point, the Custer battle was witnessed in it's closing moments a full 3 hours since it began. Capt. Benteen who had come up after Weir with the command, then ordered a retreat leaving Custer and his command to die. When Custer's battalion had been destroyed, the warriors returned to surrounded Reno and Benteen on their hilltop position. The soldiers fought throughout the day to keep from being overcome and massacred too. While Capt. Benteen at this time fought bravely, but exposing his troops to horrific fire and losses, Maj. Reno hid in his trench and at night opened his keg of brandy to start drinking. The command watched the Indian village pack and leave late in the afternoon of the 26th, and on the 27th the survivors moved closer to the river, where Terry and Gibbon found them. Reno was heavily criticized for his actions, during his lifetime and after. Some even declared him to have been drunk at a crucial time in the battle, and several of his officers and troopers accused him of cowardice and incompetence. The only legal action ever taken, however, the 1879 Reno Court of Inquiry found him not culpable of any wrong-doing during the battle, though this Court proceeding has been criticized as a "government whitewash" and cover up by a number of noted historians revealing Reno lied on the stand and used altered maps in his defense.
Postbellum career
After the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Reno was assigned the command of Fort Abercrombie. There he ran made unwanted advances toward the wife of another officer of the 7th Cavalry, Captain James Bell and the Rev. Richard Wainwright. What really happened is unknown, but Reno certainly displayed public drunkenness on several occasions and denied Rev. Wainwright permission to preach at the fort. On the other hand, Bell had been on detached service during the Battle of the Little Big Horn, when his company had been wiped out in a debacle which many were blaming on Reno. Complaints of public indecency were filed with the commander of the Seventh, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, who forwarded the complaints, but dismissed any particular fault of Reno's. (Most of the incidents had occurred at parties or on holidays when other officers had also been drinking.) Reno was ordered to surrender command and report to a board of inquiry at St Paul. The Army board recommended dismissal, but President Rutherford B. Hayes commuted this to suspension from rank and pay for 2 years. Responding to charges of cowardice and drunkenness at the Little Bighorn, Reno later demanded and was granted a Court of Inquiry. The court convened in Chicago in January 1879, and called as witnesses most of the surviving officers who had been in the fight. Enlisted men later stated they had been coerced into giving a positive report to both Reno and Benteen. The court reporter in contacting General Nelson Miles , head of the Army, wrote that the entire inquiry was a whitewash. While the court did not sustain any of the charges against Reno, neither did it single him out for praise. Later in public requests for the trial transcripts it was found pages were found missing and the writing was in the hands of two different people and not the one secretary. In 1880, however, he was court-martialed a second time for conduct unbecoming an officer because of his drinking. He was supported by his commanders, but nevertheless was convicted and dismissed from the service. Reno moved to Washington D.C., where he was hired by the Bureau of Pensions as an examiner. He married a government clerk named Isabella Ray in January 1884, but she left him after a few months. When his son married in Nashville to a whisky heiress, Reno wrote that he was too busy to attend the wedding. In reality, he could not afford the train fare. Reno offered to write his memoirs, but the New York Weekly Press rejected the offer. When he submitted the portion of his diary concerning the Battle of the Little Big Horn, it was returned unpublished. (It later was published posthumously.) Marcus Reno died in Washington at the age of 54 on March 29, 1889, following surgery for cancer of the tongue. In 1967, a US military review board reviewed the original documents and testimony of Reno's 1880 court martial and reversed the decision. His "general discharge" status to was changed to "honorable". Major Reno was originally buried in an unmarked grave in Washington's Oak Hill Cemetery. His remains were re-interred in 1967 in the Custer National Cemetery, on the Little Bighorn Battlefield.
Trivia
- Reno's best friend in his West Point class was the painter James Whistler. In one exam, Whistler said silicon was a gas. Years later, Whistler said to Reno that if silicon had been a gas, he would have stayed in the Army, and probably have been made a general. Reno responded, that then no one would have heard of Whistler's Mother. People who knew him said it was the only joke they ever heard Reno make.
References
Barnett, Louise (1996). Touched By Fire. Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-3720-9.
