Mo-nah-see-tah

Mo-nah-se-tah, Mo-nah-see-tah, or Me-o-tzi (c. 1850-1922) was the daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock. Her father was killed on November 28, 1868, in the Battle of Washita River when the camp of Chief Black Kettle, of which Little Rock was a member, was attacked by the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry under the command of Lt. Colonel (brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer. Mo-nah-se-tah was among the 53 Cheyenne women and children taken captive by the 7th Cavalry after the battle.

According to Captain Frederick Benteen, chief of scouts Ben Clark, and Cheyenne oral history, Custer had a sexual relationship with the 18-year-old Mo-nah-se-tah in late 1868 or early 1869. Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to a child in January 1869, two months after the Washita battle; Cheyenne oral history alleges that she later bore a second child, fathered by Custer, in late 1869. Custer, however, had apparently become sterile after contracting venereal disease at West Point, leading some historians to believe that the father was really his brother Thomas.

Mo-nah-see-tah in Southern Victory
Mo-nah-see-tah was a woman who had an affair with future General George Armstrong Custer in the 1870s, during the years between the War of Secession and the Second Mexican War. Custer's wife Libbie was convinced that Mo-nah-see-tah must be the Cheyenne word for "stinking whore," and never let George forget it. She told this story to Abner Dowling in 1916, when she discovered George to be unnaturally happy in his Army headquarters. Dowling quickly explained that Custer was simply celebrating the death of his gadfly Richard Harding Davis, carefully concealing Custer's recent affair with Olivia.