Forces were operating within General Custer that made his army's slaughter to the last man necessary. These forces included the actual humiliations in his life and his guilt. The guilt was related to his unnecessary abandonment during the Washita Campaign of his subordinate, Major Elliot, who, with nineteen troopers, was slaughtered. Custer as a poker player was accustomed to doubling the stakes and the author states that Custer might have hoped that the fatal Battle of the Little Big Horn would again put him at the pinnacle of success. Hofling describes Custer's childhood as essentially motherless, and he had marked ambivalence toward his father.