My favorite catty man moment when a cavalryman, Benteen is a no-show for a visit:

“I guess he did not care to trouble himself- He is a true Cavalryman & would rather superintend the work of his stallion than attend to the courtesies of life– Nothing lost to anybody–but one feels degraded to think that he is socially on par, with those who voluntarily make of themselves third class livery stable keepers–However if the Nobles & high gentry of England find their highest pleasure in doing the work of a stable boy, I suppose I ought not to growl at our Cavalry. There seems to be something demoralizing in the love of horseflesh. I don’t believe a thoroughly horsey man can be a gentleman or a thorough gentleman a horsey man.”

While  Colonel Richard Irving Dodge wasn’t the looker Grenville Dodge (the transcontinental railroad guy) was his journals are a fun read.  I enjoyed even the slow parts about needing a nap or having bowel troubles because of the bad water sometimes found in the Black Hills on the scientific expedition of 1875. The best parts are when the gentlemanly colonel is trying to keep his temper around all sorts of catty intrigue. Here is a man who quotes Shakespeare and Homer, feels sorry for a captured beaver and has the men set it free and worries about his nerdy son (along on the trip) who’s spent far too much time around women.

He wants to like the grasping and at times incompetent young head of the scientific survey Professor Walter P. Jenney but has a tough time of it. He tells of cowardly journalists along for news of gold (Custer’s earlier findings were being questioned in the East) being duped into believing a hooting owl meant an Indian attack in the morning and useless, lazy miners who weren’t supposed to be on Indian land. His writing style is so modern proving people weren’t all too different back then.