Marcus Reno Marcus Albert Reno ( November 15 , 1834 – March 30 , 1889 ) was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Great Sioux War against the Lakota ( Sioux ) and Northern Cheyenne , where he served under George Armstrong Custer . Reno is most noted for his prominent role in the Battle of the Little Big Horn , which created over a century of controversy regarding his command decisions in the course of the one of the most infamous defeats in the history of the United States military . 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 was awarded a land grant by the U . S . ( worth about $ 400 million by Reno ' s time ) . At the age of 15 , he wrote to the Secretary of War to learn about the qualifications necessary to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point , New York . He was admitted and attended West Point from 1851 until 1857 , requiring two extra years due to excessive demerits . Reno graduated 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 . Reno served in the Union Army in the Civil War , leading as a captain in the U . S . 1st Cavalry Regiment at the Antietam . Reno was injured at Kelly ' s Ford in Virginia on March 17 , 1863 , when his horse was shot and fell on him , causing a hernia . He was given the brevet rank of major for gallant and meritorious conduct . Four months later , he served during the Gettysburg Campaign . 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 . He rode all night to Fort Benton to request leave to attend her funeral , but his request was denied . Reno participated in 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 . While there , he became a member of the Freemasons at Washington Lodge # 4 . He was initiated on July 6 , 1867 , made a Fellowcraft mason on August 3 and raised to sublime degree of Master Mason on August 21 , 1867 at Vancouver . Reno was promoted to major and in December 1868 , joined the 7th Cavalry at Fort Hays , Kansas . Later , he was transferred to Fort Abraham Lincoln , in the Dakota Territory , where he accompanied Lt . Col . George A . Custer on his Sioux campaign in 1876 . The Battle of the Little Bighorn . Reno was the highest - ranking officer serving under Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876 . Reno with three troops , or companies , was to attack the Indian village from the south , while Custer with five companies intended to cross the Little Bighorn River farther north and come into the village from the opposite side ; Custer ordered Captain Frederick Benteen with three companies to move below the Sioux camp to block the Indians from escaping to the south . Captain Thomas McDougall ' s troop was to bring the packtrain with ammunition and supplies . Historians believe they did not understand how large the village was , the closest estimate we have is in thousands of lodges , containing approximately 7 , 000 warriors and 10 , 000 woman , children , and ethos to old to fight . The plan quickly fell apart when Northern Cheyenne and Lakota warriors , rather than fleeing as the cavalrymen expected , poured out of the village to meet Reno ' s attack . Reno ordered his troops to dismount and form a skirmish line , but that was quickly outflanked by hundreds of Indians , and Reno fell back into the timber along the river . After abandoning his defenses and ordering his troops to mount their horses , and thus allowing Indians to infiltrate the timber , Reno assumed that position could not be held and he led a disorganized , every - man - for - himself scramble across the river and up the bluffs on the other side . There the cavalrymen set up a defensive position on what is now called Reno Hill . By this time 40 of Reno ' s 140 men already had been killed , 7 were wounded and an undetermined number had been left behind in the timber ( although some of these abandoned men would manage to rejoin Reno ) Bloody Knife , perhaps the foremost of the Arikara scouts attached to the 7th Cavalry , was shot through the head as he stood next to Reno . Most of the other scouts slipped away and escaped . Benteen soon arrived at Reno ' s position with his three companies , and McDougall ' s company came along with the supply train shortly afterward . Sporadic fire continued to be directed at the hill , but heavier gunfire off to the northeast made it clear Custer was engaged in a raging battle . It is still hotly debated why Reno and Benteen did not press forward and attempt to join forces with Custer . Captain Thomas Weir , commander of D Troop under Benteen , disobeyed orders to remain at the defensive position at Reno Hill and led his men to the high bluffs now called Weir Point , where observation of the battlefield showed a cloud of dust with Indian warriors present in large numbers . Captain Benteen and other troops also headed towards Weir ' s position but then when the warriors , having destroyed Custer ' s command , returned to confront them , all the cavalry retreated back to Reno ' s original position on the bluffs , still not knowing what happened to Custer . The warriors took up the high ground above Reno Hill and poured down constant fire on the exposed soldiers until dark . The firing resumed at dawn and continued until late in the afternoon , when the soldiers saw the distant village being broken up and the tribes moving south . The next morning , the 27th , the surviving troops moved closer to the river , where General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon and their forces found them . Thirteen of Reno ' s soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their bravery in the battle . Postbellum career . After the Battle of the Little Big Horn , Reno was assigned the command of Fort Abercrombie where , in December 1876 , he was charged with making unwanted advances toward the wife of another officer of the 7th Cavalry , Captain James Bell , while Bell was away from the fort . An Episcopal priest , the Rev . Richard Wainwright , was staying with the Bells , and became concerned enough about Reno ' s behavior to persuade Capt . Bell to file charges against Reno for immoral conduct . What really happened is unknown but , Reno certainly displayed public drunkenness on several occasions and denied Rev . Wainwright permission to preach at the fort . Captain Bell had been on detached service during the debacle of Battle of the Little Big Horn . Many blamed the debacle 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 fault of Reno ' s ( Most of the incidents had occurred at parties or on holidays when other officers also had 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 Big Horn , Reno later demanded and was granted a Court of Inquiry . This inquiry is typically referred to by the acronym RCOI . 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 later contacted General Nelson Miles , then head of the Army ( starting in 1895 ) , 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 , pages were missing and the text was found to have been written in the hands of two different people instead of one recording secretary . See the following footnote for a complete scanned transcript of the investigation . In 1880 , Reno was court - martialed a second time for conduct unbecoming an officer because of his drinking . He was supported by his commanders at Ft . Meade , SD , but nevertheless was convicted and dismissed from the service . This time the accusation concerned peeking through the window at the daughter of Samuel Sturgis , his commanding officer . 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 was 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 was later published posthumously ) . Death , subsequent events and 1960s reburial . Marcus Reno died in Washington at the age of 54 on March 29 , 1889 , following surgery for cancer of the tongue . Fifty years after what was then known as Custer ' s Last Stand , Custer ' s widow Elizabeth Bacon Custer spoke out against a memorial to Reno at the site . She had long campaigned in her husband ' s memory . Writing in 1926 when she was in her 80s , she stated " I long for a memorial to our heroes on the battlefield of the Little Big Horn but not to single out for honor , the one coward of the regiment . " In 1967 at the request of Charles Reno , the Major ' s great - nephew , a US military review board reviewed the original documents and testimony of Reno ' s 1880 court martial . It reversed the decision , ruling Reno ' s dismissal from the service improper . His " general discharge " status to was changed to " honorable " . Major Reno was originally buried in an unmarked grave in Washington , D . C . ' s Glenwood Cemetery . On September 9 , 1967 , his remains were reinterred with honors ( including a church ceremony in Billings , Montana and an eleven - gun salute at his gravesite ) in the Custer National Cemetery , on the Little Bighorn battlefield . Reno was the only participant of the Little Bighorn battle to be buried with such honors at the cemetery named for his former commander . Portrayals in films and television . Reno was portrayed by actor Ty Hardin in the 1967 film " Custer of the West " , and by Michael Medeirios in the 1991 television mini - series " Son of the Morning Star " .