CHAPTER FIVE

The Last of Custer

I. Reno’s Failure at the Little Big Horn

It will be necessary, in order clearly to comprehend the complicated little battle, to treat each of the three operations separately, and then see how they were related to one another.

As Reno’s men trotted down the valley, they saw, some distance ahead of them and to the right across the river on a line of high bluffs, Custer attended by his staff. The general waved his hat at them encouragingly, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. That glimpse of Custer, standing on that hill with outstretched arm gallantly waving his troopers on to battle, was the last any one of his comrades in the valley had of him in life; and it is certain that Reno must have realized then that Custer was not following him, and that he was expected to attack in his front alone.

However, Reno, having drawn near to the village, deployed his skirmishers, and slowly advanced down the valley. In a few moments they were hotly engaged with a constantly growing force of Indians.

Now, one thing about the battle that followed is the utter unreliability of the Indian reports of their movements. It is alleged that fear of punishment made them and keeps them reticent and uncommunicative. Different Indians tell different stories. Most of these stories disagree in their essential details, and it is impossible to reconcile them. It may be that the faculties of the Indians are not sufficiently alert to enable them to recall the general plan of the battle, or at least to relate it, although they knew well enough how to fight it at the time. Their accounts are haphazard to the last degree. Some say that they knew nothing of the advent of the troops until Reno’s men deployed in the valley. At any rate, they had sufficient time, on account of his dilatory and hesitating advance, to assemble in heavy force. Reno had less than one hundred and fifty men with him. Even if Dr. Eastman’s estimate,[78] that the Indians numbered but twelve hundred warriors, be true, they still outnumbered Reno, although, owing to the fact that the villages were strung along the river for several miles, only a portion of them were at first engaged with the troops. Flushed with their previous victory over Crook a short time before, these Indians now fell upon Reno like a storm.

CAPT. MYLES MOYLAN MAJ. MARCUS A. RENO LIEUT. A. E. SMITH[79] CAPT. EDWARD S. GODFREY

SOME OF CUSTER’S OFFICERS

Reno’s line extended clear across the valley, which was quite narrow where the battle was joined, the right flank protected by the river, the left by the bluffs. Recovering from their alleged panic, possibly because of the feeble advance of the soldiers, the Indians rallied, and with wonderful generalship massed their attack on the left flank, which was most unfortunately held by the Arikara scouts. No Arikara that ever lived was a match for the Sioux or the Cheyennes. The Rees, as these Indian auxiliaries were called, broke and fled incontinently. They never stopped until they reached the supply camp on the Powder River, miles away. At the same time the horses of two troopers in the command ran away with them, and plunged straight into the Indian lines with their riders. Their fate was plain.

As the Ree scouts broke, the Indians turned Reno’s left flank. The troopers gave way at once. There was no reserve which could be thrown upon the Indians until the line was restored. The whole force was slammed back, like a door, into the timber on the bank of the river.

Here Reno made a serious mistake. After rallying his men, he ordered them to dismount. Cavalry may be dismounted for defense, but sound judgment and military usage demand that for an attack, especially upon an Indian village of that kind, they should charge upon horseback. As one veteran cavalryman has written me, “I never could understand why Reno did not charge desperately on the Indians in front of him. His dismounting his men was against all sound military judgment. ‘Audacity, always audacity,’ is the motto for a cavalryman.”[80] Had Reno been governed by this principle and charged, as he should have done, the result would have been different.[81]

The position was instantly surrounded by yelling Indians galloping madly to and fro, firing upon the troops. So far, Reno had lost but one wounded and the two who had galloped into the Indian line. His second position was admirable for defense. Sheltered by the trees, with his flanks and rear protected by the river, he could have held the place indefinitely. However, he had not been detailed to defend or hold any position, but to make a swift, dashing attack. Yet, after a few moments of the feeblest kind of advance, he found himself thrown on the defensive. Such a result would break up the most promising plan. It certainly broke up Custer’s. In spite of the defection of the Rees, a vigorous countercharge down the valley would have extricated Reno and might have saved Custer.

It is a painful thing to accuse an army officer of misconduct; yet I have taken the opinion of a number of army officers on the subject, and every one of them considers Reno culpable in a high degree. One at least has not hesitated to make known his opinion in the most public way. I am loath to believe that Major Reno was a coward, but he certainly lost his head; and when he lost his head, he lost Custer. His indecision was pitiful. Although he had suffered practically no loss and had no reason to be unduly alarmed, he was in a state of painful uncertainty as to what he should do next. The soldier, like the woman, who hesitates in an emergency which demands instant decision, is lost.

How long the troops stayed under the trees by the river bank cannot be determined accurately. Some have testified that it was a few moments, others an hour. Personally I think it was a few moments, which fear and apprehension lengthened to an impossible period. There had as yet been no panic, and under a different officer there would have been none; but it is on record that Reno at last gave an order for the men to mount and retreat to the bluffs. Before he could be obeyed, he countermanded this order. Then the order was repeated, but in such a way that nobody save those immediately around him heard it, because of the din of the battle then raging in a sort of aimless way all along the line, and no attempt was made to obey it. It was then repeated for the third time. Finally, as those farther away saw those nearest the flurried commander mounting and evidently preparing to leave, the orders were gradually communicated throughout the battalion, and nearly the whole mass got ready to leave. Eventually they broke out of the timber in a disorderly column of fours, striving to return to the ford which they had crossed when they had entered the valley.

Reno calls this a charge, and he led it. He was so excited that, after firing his pistols at the Indians who came valiantly after the fleeing soldiers, he threw them away.[82] The pressure of the Indians upon the right of the men inclined them to the left, away from the ford. In fact, they were swept into a confused mass and driven toward the river. All semblance of organization was lost in the mad rush for safety. The troops had degenerated into a mob.

The Indians pressed closely upon them, firing into the huddle almost without resistance. Evidently in their excitement the Indians fired high, or the troops would have been annihilated. The Indians supposed, of course, that they now had the troops corralled between them and the river, and that all they needed to do was to drive them into it. Chief Gall, who with Crazy Horse and Crow King was principally responsible for the Indian manœuvers, seeing the retreat of Reno to the river, summoned a large body of warriors, left the field and crossed the river farther down, intending to sweep down upon the other side and attack Reno’s men as they struggled up the steep bank in case any of them succeeded in crossing. This was, as it turned out, a fortunate move for the Indians.

Meanwhile, Reno’s men providentially found a pony trail which indicated a ford of the river. On the other side the trail led into a funnel-shaped amphitheater, surrounded by high, slippery bluffs. Into this _cul-de-sac_ the whole fleeing body plunged, the Indians pressing the rear hard. The men jumped their horses from the bank into the water, and finding that the trail stopped at the bluff on the other side, actually urged them up the steep slopes of the hill.

There is no denying that they were panic-stricken. Although some of the veterans opened fire upon the savages, the bulk of the troopers did nothing but run. Dr. DeWolf was one of the coolest among those present. He stopped his horse deliberately, and fired at the Indians until he was shot dead. Lieutenant MacIntosh, striving to rally his men, was shot just as they left the timber. Lieutenant Hodgson, reaching the river bank, had his horse shot. In his agony the animal stumbled into the river and fell dead. The same bullet which killed the horse broke Hodgson’s leg. He cried for help, and Sergeant Criswell rode over to where he lay. Hodgson took hold of the sergeant’s stirrup, and under a heavy fire was dragged out on the bank, which he had scarcely reached before a second bullet struck him in the head, killing him instantly. Criswell was swept on by his men, but so soon as he could he rode back under a furious fire and brought off the body, as well as all the ammunition in the saddle-bags on several dead horses. He received a medal of honor for his courage.

If Gall had completed his projected movements, Reno’s men would have been annihilated then and there. As it was, they reached the top of the bluffs without further molestation. They had lost three officers and twenty-nine men and scouts killed; seven men were badly wounded, and one officer, Lieutenant DeRudio, and fifteen men were missing.[83] These had been left behind in the confusion of Reno’s “charge.”

It was now somewhere between half after one and two o’clock in the afternoon, and during the fighting Reno was joined by Benteen’s battalion. The Indians kept up a desultory fire on the position, but they seemed to have diminished in numbers. Reno occupied the next hour in reorganizing his force, getting the men into their accustomed troops, and taking account of casualties.

II. With Benteen’s Battalion

In accordance with his orders, Benteen had moved off to the westward. He speedily became involved in almost impassable country, full of deep ravines, in which progress was slow and difficult. Water was very scarce in the country over which the regiment had marched until it reached the valley of the Big Horn. What water they had found that morning was so alkaline that the horses and mules, although they had been nearly a day without water, would not drink it. The horses were naturally tired, having marched over fifty miles since the morning of the day before, and the terrible up-and-down hill work exhausted them still more, although they were by no means played out. No Indians were seen by Benteen, and the condition of the country was such that it was evident there were none before him.

He turned to the right, therefore, and struck into the valley of the Big Horn, just ahead of McDougall and the pack train, intending to cross the river and attack the village or join Reno, as the case might be. He had just watered his horses at a little brook following out a morass, when a sergeant from Custer’s battalion passed by on a gallop, with a message for the supply train to come at once. As the trooper raced along the line he shouted exultantly, “We’ve got ’em, boys!” Benteen’s men took this to mean that Custer had captured the village. A few moments after, Trumpeter Martini galloped up with a message from Custer to Benteen, signed by Cook, the adjutant, which read as follows:

“Benteen. Come on. Big village. Be quick. Bring packs.

“P. S. Bring packs.”

The need for the spare ammunition with the pack-train was apparently so urgent that in his hurry Cook repeated the last two words. At the same time the sound of distant firing was heard in the valley. Making ready for instant action, Benteen led his troopers forward at a gallop down the valley. Tired though the animals were, they responded nobly to the demands of their riders, and the whole party swept across the hills in the direction whence the trumpeter had come until they overlooked the valley. Every one supposed that Custer had entered the valley and was driving the Indians before him. That he expected to have a big fight on his hands was indicated by the reiteration of his request that the pack-train should be rushed forward, evidently to bring the reserve ammunition.

The valley was filled with dust and smoke; the day was frightfully hot and dry. Bodies of men could be distinguished galloping up and down. Benteen would, perhaps, have crossed the river and charged down the valley had his attention not been called to a body of men in blue on the bluff on the same side of the river to the right. They were, assuredly, hotly engaged, but there were also evidences of fierce fighting far down the valley. What was happening? What should he do? At this junction one of the Crow scouts—these Indians had not fled with the cowardly Rees, but remained with the command, fighting bravely—came up driving a small bunch of captured ponies, and he indicated that the principal battle was on the bluff. Benteen accordingly galloped around the bend of the river, and joined the demoralized Reno without opposition.

It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if Benteen had crossed the river and had charged down the valley. In that case, if Reno had recrossed the river and again attacked, the day might still have been won, but in all probability Reno would not have recrossed and Benteen would have been annihilated. At any rate, Benteen did the only thing possible when Reno’s whereabouts and need were made known to him by the scout.

Reno had lost his hat in his famous “charge,” and had his head tied up in a handkerchief. He was much excited, and apparently had no idea as to what he should do next. The officers of his battalion made no bones about admitting to the newcomers that they had been badly beaten and were in a critical condition. None of them could tell anything about Custer.

III. The Battle on the Bluffs

Benteen’s men were ordered to divide their ammunition with Reno’s. A line of skirmishers was thrown out around the bluffs, and an effort to get water from the river was made, the supply in the canteens having been long ago exhausted. The Indian fire prevented this. There was, of course, not a drop of water on the bluffs, and the wounded suffered greatly, to say nothing of the thirsty men. The officers collected in groups on the edge of the bluffs overlooking the field, and discussed the question. They were not molested by the Indians at this time.

The general impression was that Custer had made the mistake of his life in not taking the whole regiment in together. Possibly Reno’s men took that view because they had been so badly mauled themselves. The valley had been filled with Indians, but, about three o’clock or a little after, most of them galloped down the river and were soon out of sight. The river banks were still lined with Indians under cover, who kept up a smart fire on Reno’s men if they attempted to descend the bluffs and approach the water; but the main force had evidently withdrawn.

Firing was heard far away to the northward. It was heavy and continuous. There could be but one explanation of it. Custer’s detachment had at last met the Indians and was engaged. This should surely have been a stimulus to Reno. Custer was fighting; Reno was not menaced—what should he do? Later in the afternoon two heavy volleys in rapid succession were remarked. This was so unusual under the circumstances that it was finally felt to be a signal from Custer. He must surely be in grave peril, then, and calling for help. How, in the name of all that was soldierly, could such an appeal be neglected? Many and anxious were the questions the officers and men put among themselves as to why Reno did not do something. It was felt by everybody that Custer was in grave jeopardy, and that Reno should move at once. He had about three hundred men under his command, one-half of whom had not been engaged.

Captain Weir, of D Troop, on the right of Reno’s command, having cleared away the Indians in front of him, at last boldly took matters in his own hands. After pleading again and again for permission,[84] he started alone without it toward the sound of the firing to see what he could. Lieutenant Edgerly, his second, supposed that he had received orders to advance, and he accordingly put the troop in motion. Weir was on the bluff, Edgerly lower down in a small ravine. The Indians moved to attack Edgerly, when Weir signaled him to lead his men up the bluff, which he did without loss. The troop, unsupported and in defiance of Reno’s orders, advanced to the point where Custer had been last seen to wave his hat, and there stopped. The men could overlook the ridges and valleys beyond them for a great distance.

A mile and a half or two miles away they could see, through the defiles in the ridges, great clouds of mounted Indians. Reports of rifles indicated that the battle, whatever it was, was still being waged. It was impossible for Weir and Edgerly to do anything with their single troop. Although they were not seriously attacked in their bold advance, Reno at first made no movement to support them.

CAPT. THOS. W. CUSTER LIEUT. JAMES CALHOUN CAPT. GEORGE W. YATES CAPT. MILES W. KEOGH

SOME OF CUSTER’S TROOP COMMANDERS

All killed with him at the Little Big Horn

At half after four Captain McDougall and the pack train joined Reno. They had not been molested in any way. At last, about five o’clock, Reno yielded to the urgent and repeated representations of the angry officers, and marched along the ridge to the position Weir and Edgerly had reached. He came up to this point at half after five. The firing on the bluffs far ahead was practically over. The Indians could still be seen and some shooting was going on, but there did not appear to be a battle raging. They learned afterward that it was the Indians shooting into the bodies of the dead.

It was evident to every one that whatever might have been done earlier in the afternoon, there was no use in advancing now. Indeed, the Indians came sweeping back in great force in front of Reno, and at once attacked him. There was nothing for him to do but retreat to the most defensible position he could find, and endeavor to hold his ground. Custer and his men, if they still survived, must be left to face as best they could whatever fate had in store for them. Reno accordingly retreated to the place on the bluff whence he had just come. Lieutenant Godfrey, of K Troop, the rear guard, without orders deployed and dismounted his men, and, ably seconded by his junior, Lieutenant Luther R. Hare, by hard fighting kept off the Indians till the retreat was safely made by the rest, whom he and his troopers succeeded in joining. It was well that he did this, for his coolness and courage saved the command.

There was a little depression back of a ridge, which afforded some cover for the horses and pack train. During the retreat an incident occurred worthy of mention. One of the pack mules, loaded with precious ammunition, broke away and galloped toward the Indian line. Sergeant Hanley, of C Troop, sprang to his horse and raced after it. Officers and men called to him to come back, but knowing how priceless was the ammunition, he persisted in his course. He succeeded in heading off the animal, which turned and ran parallel to the Indian line, along which he galloped under a perfect shower of bullets, none of which, fortunately, touched him. He captured the mule, and brought it back with the ammunition intact. For this exploit he received a medal of honor.

The men took position around the ridge, across the depression and on a hill to the right, so as to protect the packs and the field hospital from all sides except on the river side, where the height of the bluffs and the distance prevented any Indian attack from that direction. Benteen’s Troop H was placed on the right. They were on top of the break of the ridge and were without cover, the ridges being entirely bare of trees. Farther off, to the right, Benteen’s position was commanded by higher ridges. At first the brunt of the fighting fell on the left, but the Indians soon surrounded the position and the engagement became general. The men threw themselves on the ground, and dug rifle-pits with their knives, tin pans—anything they could get. The fighting soon became severe, but gradually slackened as darkness approached, and stopped at about nine o’clock at night. The village in the valley was the scene of triumphant revel that night, and the shouting of the Indians could plainly be heard on the bluffs.

The early part of the night was full of wild confusion, but before long the soldiers recovered their equanimity and set to work strengthening their position. They were now completely surrounded; but most of them were under cover except Benteen’s men, whose position, as has been stated, was overlooked by higher ridges within easy range. At two A.M., contrary to their usual habit, the Indians opened fire, but no attack was made. The next morning the battle began again in grim earnest.

The Indians pressed the party closer and closer. Benteen’s exposed line suffered more than any other position. That experienced fighter saw that the Indians were massing in front of him, evidently intending to deliver a charge. If it fell upon his single troop it would not be possible to withstand it, and the whole force on the hill would be taken in reverse and annihilated. His men had nearly exhausted their ammunition, several had been killed, and there were a number of wounded to be attended to.

Ordering Lieutenant Gibson to hold the line at all hazards, Benteen ran to Reno, explained the situation, and begged for a reinforcement. After much urging he succeeded in getting Troop M, Captain French, sent over to the hill. Then he entreated Reno to allow the two troops to charge. Reno hesitated. Benteen urged him again and again, pointing out that if something were not done immediately, the position would be rushed and the command wiped out. At last he wrung a reluctant permission from Reno. He ran back to his position on the hill, and not a moment too soon formed his men up for the charge, putting himself at their head.

“All ready now, men!” he cried gallantly. “Now’s your time! Give ’em hell! Hip! Hip! Here we go!”

The Indians had also given the word to charge, but Benteen was too quick for them. Leading his men with splendid bravery, revolver in hand, he rushed at the Indians. There was a brief hand-to-hand mêlée and the Indians broke and fled. Reno, seeing the effect of Benteen’s gallant dash, actually led out a portion of his command on the other side of the hill and drove back the Indians in that direction. Benteen’s magnificent courage had saved the day for the present.

The fire having slackened somewhat about eleven o’clock in the morning, volunteers were called to get water for the command, especially for the wounded. The Indians swept the banks of the river with their fire, and the attempt was hazardous to a degree. Nineteen men offered their services. Four of the best marksmen—Geiger, Windolph, Voit, and Mechling, of Troop H—were detailed to cover the others by taking an exposed position on the brink of the bluffs overlooking the river, as near as they could get to it. The other fifteen, one of whom has told me about the attempt, carrying canteens and camp-kettles, but without arms, crawled down through the bushes and ravines to the open space on the bank of the river, and then, covered by the rapid fire of the four men stationed above them, dashed for the stream. The Indians, who were execrable shots, opened a heavy fire upon them, but the men succeeded in filling the vessels they had brought, and though many of these vessels were hit and some of the men wounded, none of them was killed. A scanty supply of water it was, but it was a godsend. These nineteen also received medals of honor.

At three o’clock in the afternoon the firing, which had been maintained intermittently since noon, finally stopped, and later the men on the hill saw the Indians withdrawing from the valley. They set fire to the grass to screen their movements, but about seven o’clock in the evening they were distinctly seen moving out with all their possessions toward the mountains of the Big Horn. Eighteen troopers had been killed on the hill, and fifty-two wounded.

IV. The Last of Custer

Now let us turn to Custer.

Nobody knows exactly what he did. The testimony of the field is not clear, and the statements of the Indians are contradictory. Dr. Eastman, an educated Sioux, has investigated the subject among many of his people, and arrives at one conclusion; Colonel Godfrey, one of the troop commanders who was with Benteen, and who has subsequently examined the field in company with Benteen and other officers, taking the testimony of Chief Gall, holds another. According to Eastman, whose account agrees with the popular understanding, Custer attempted to ford the river at a place now called Reno’s Creek,[85] and fall on what he supposed to be the rear of the village, but which was really the middle of the upper half, and was driven back to the hills, where the final tragedy took place.

Godfrey, on the contrary, says that Custer, from the point where he was last seen by Reno’s men, had a view of the village for several miles, although not for its whole length; that he must have been confident that he had it below him then, and that he made a wide detour in order to fall on the rear of the village. It was from this point that he sent the hurry-up message to Benteen. When at last, having gone far enough, as he thought, to take the village in the rear, or what he supposed was the rear, he turned toward the river, and was at once met by the Indians in great force.

It was probably about half after two in the afternoon. Reno had been forced back and driven across the river. Chief Gall, it will be recalled, had taken a large body of men across the river to intercept Reno on the other side. Before he could move down to the right for this purpose, Custer’s men suddenly appeared on the hills. Custer’s manœuvering had been fine, and his appearance was a complete surprise, which at first greatly alarmed the Indians. Gall, however, did not lose his head. Rightly judging that Reno was temporarily eliminated from the game, he at once determined to attack Custer. He sent word of the situation to Crazy Horse, who was pressing Reno. Leaving just enough warriors to make a demonstration before the demoralized Reno, Crazy Horse galloped headlong down the valley, followed by his men and joined by others from the far end of the village, who had as yet taken no part in the fighting. They too crossed the river at the point where a deep ravine concealed their movements and enabled them to obtain a position on Custer’s right flank. A similar ravine enabled Gall to menace the left flank. The Indians were in sufficient force completely to surround Custer. In the twinkling of an eye he found himself attacked in front and on both sides. Instead of advancing, he was forced to defend himself against an overwhelming attack. The troops were dismounted, horses moved to the rear, and Custer’s men occupied the ridges.

Calhoun’s troop was posted on the left, followed by those of Keogh, Smith, and Yates, with Tom Custer’s on the extreme right. The last three troops happened to have the best defensive position upon the highest hill. With them was Custer. The Indians attacked at once. Riding at full gallop along the front of the line on their ponies, they poured a heavy fire from their long-range rifles upon the soldiers, to which the latter made a brave, steady, but not very effective reply with their inferior carbines. Keogh’s and Calhoun’s horses were stampeded at the first fire.

The force menacing them was so great that Custer dared not leave his position on the hills. To retreat was hopeless, to advance impossible. They must stand on the defensive and pray that the advance of Reno’s command up the valley, which they probably hoped that Benteen would reinforce, would compel the withdrawal of the Indians from their front. They fought on, therefore, coolly and resolutely, husbanding their ammunition and endeavoring to make every shot tell on their galloping, yelling foemen. They were, I imagine, by no means without ultimate hope of victory. The Indians in their accounts speak of the cool, deliberate courage of numbers of the officers and men, whom they singled out for their bravery.

Yet the troopers suffered great loss as the afternoon wore on. Their ammunition began to run low, and the contracting, whirling circle of Indians drove them closer and closer together. The remaining horses of the other three troops were at last stampeded, and with them went all of the reserve ammunition. The situation had evidently become so serious that Custer, in the vain hope that Reno would understand his peril at last, fired the two volleys which have been referred to. It appears at this time that he must have endeavored to send a message to Reno, for the body of a solitary soldier, Sergeant Butler, was found after the battle at a point half way between Custer’s and Reno’s commands. A little heap of cartridges lay near his body, evidencing that he had sold his life dearly. The Indians were acute enough—so they say, and probably with truth—to pick out the officers with Custer, and the mortality among them was fearful. It was evident to all on the hill, as the afternoon drew toward its close, that they were doomed. It was hardly possible that a counterattack by Reno would save them now, and there were no evidences whatever that he was anywhere in the vicinity.

“Where, in God’s name,” they must have asked themselves in their despair, “can Reno be?”

One of the Crow scouts has said—although his account is generally disbelieved—that he went at last to Custer, as yet unharmed, and told him that he thought he could get him away, and that Custer, of course, refused to leave the field. The Crow altered his appearance by draping a blanket about him so as to look as much like a Sioux as possible, and in the confusion of the fight got away safely.[86] He was the only human survivor of the field.[87] What occurred after is a matter of conjecture, based upon the contradictory and inadequate testimony of the Indians themselves.

Gall and Crazy Horse now determined to end the affair. Massing their warriors in the ravine, they fell on both flanks at the same time that Crow King and Rain-in-the-Face led a direct charge against the front of the thinned and weakened line. They swept over the little band of men, probably now out of ammunition, in a red wave of destruction. There was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle with clubbed guns, war-clubs, and tomahawks, and all was over. Some twenty or thirty men, without their officers, who had probably all been killed where they stood, for their bodies were found grouped around that of Custer on the highest hill, endeavored to break through on the right. They were slaughtered to a man before they reached the river. A few scattered bodies, here and there in different parts of the field, indicated that separate men had made futile dashes for freedom. But the bulk of the command was found just where it had fought, with _the troopers in line, their officers in position_! They had been beaten and killed. Not an officer or man lived to tell the story, but they had not been disgraced.

There, the second day afterward, Terry, with Gibbon, having relieved Reno’s men, found them on the hills which they had immortalized by their desperate valor. They had been stripped and most of them mutilated. Custer’s body was shot in two places, in the side and in the temple. It was not scalped or mutilated. Colonel Dodge, an authority on Indian customs, declares that if Custer’s body was neither scalped nor mutilated, he is convinced that the general committed suicide. None of the officers with whom I have communicated who inspected the body is willing to indorse this statement; on the contrary. Therefore, I am sure Colonel Dodge must be in error. The Indians give no particular information as to Custer’s death. All that is known is that his body was there with those of his brave men.

With Custer in that fight perished many gallant souls. His brother, Captain Tom Custer, was the only man in the United States Army who held two medals for capturing two flags with his own hands in the Civil War. Rain-in-the-Face had accomplished his terrible revenge, for after the battle he had cut open the breast of the brave young soldier and had eaten his heart. Calhoun, of L Troop, was Custer’s brother-in-law. With him was young Crittenden, a lieutenant of infantry, who had sought an assignment with Custer for this campaign. Smith was the captain of E, the Gray Horse Troop. At the storming of Fort Fisher, after two color-bearers had been killed, he had led his regiment to the attack, colors in hand. His shoulder had been smashed by a musket ball in that attack. He could never afterward put on his coat without assistance. With him was young Sturgis. Yates, a veteran of the Civil War, was captain of F, the Bandbox Troop; and with him was Riley, the youngest lieutenant there. Keogh, of I Troop, the oldest soldier of them all, and not the least brave, had been an officer of the Papal Zouaves in early life. He had a gallant record in the Civil War, too. With him was Porter, and with the others who had done their parts were Cook, the adjutant, and Lord, the doctor.

Others worthy of note fell on that fatal field: Mark Kellogg, a newspaper correspondent; Charlie Reynolds, the famous scout; Boston Custer, the General’s brother, who was civilian forage-master of the regiment, and Autie Reed, the General’s nephew—a mere boy, who wanted to see something of life in the West and who had welcomed with joy his opportunity to make the campaign. Well, he saw it, poor fellow! Indeed, the Custer family was almost wiped out on that fatal Sunday.

Premonitions of disaster, such as loving women may feel, were in the air that afternoon. Back at Fort Abraham Lincoln, the devoted wife tells how the women of the garrison assembled in her quarters in an agony of apprehension. There were words of prayer. Some one at the piano started “Nearer My God to Thee,” and the women tried to sing it, but they could not finish it. It was not until the 5th of July that they received the news that at that very hour their loved ones were dying on the hill.

LIEUT. H. M. ADJ. W. W. COOK[88] LIEUT. J. J. HARRINGTON[88] CRITTENDEN[89]

LIEUT. J. E. PORTER[88] LIEUT. J. STURGIS[88] LIEUT. DONALD McINTOSH[90]

LIEUT. W. VAN W. LIEUT. BENJ. HODGSON[90] RILEY[88]

OFFICERS OF THE SEVENTH CAVALRY

All killed at the Little Big Horn

V. After the Battle

On the morning of the 27th of June Terry and Gibbon rescued Reno. The next day the surviving troops of the regiment, with some individuals from the other command, marched to the scene of Custer’s defeat to identify and bury the dead. The bodies upon the dry grass had all been stripped and left, white and ghastly save for the red stains of wounds. The bodies of Doctor Lord, Lieutenants Porter, Harrington, and Sturgis, with those of a number of men, were not recovered. What became of them is not known to this day. They may have been captured alive and taken by the Indians to the village, and there tortured to death and their bodies disposed of. This, however, is unlikely. The Indians positively deny that they took any prisoners, and it is probable that they did not. There are quicksands near the bed of the Little Big Horn, and possibly those bodies were engulfed in them. But all this is only surmise. No one can tell anything about it, except that they were undeniably killed. And we may be certain they died as brave men should.

They buried two hundred and twelve bodies on the hill, and the total losses of the regiment in the two days of fighting were two hundred and sixty-five killed and fifty-two wounded—over fifty per cent. The losses of the Indians were never ascertained. They did not, however, begin to equal those of the soldiers. It is grossly unfair to speak of the battle as the “Custer Massacre,” as is often done. Custer attacked the Indians, and they fought him until all the white men were killed. There was no massacre about it.

The cause of the disaster must, first of all, be laid to Custer’s disobedience of orders. In spite of that, however, I think it is probable that he might have won the battle, or at least made good his defense until relieved by Terry and Gibbon, although sustaining heavy loss, had it not been for three happenings. The first was the vastly greater number of Indians in the field than any one expected to encounter. The next, and to me this is absolutely decisive, was Reno’s failure to press his attack. If he had gone in with the dashing gallantry which was expected of him, while it is certain that he could not alone have whipped the Indians, yet he could have so disorganized them as to have maintained his position in the valley in the midst of the village without the greatest difficulty, until Custer could fall upon the rear of those attacking him, and Benteen, with the pack train, could reinforce them both. The Indians say that they were demoralized for the time being by Reno’s sudden appearance, and that the squaws were packing up getting ready for flight when the weakness of Reno’s advance encouraged them to try to overwhelm him. Custer had a right to expect that Reno would do his duty as a soldier and take a bold course—which was, as usual, the only safe course.

Colonel Godfrey, in his account, suggests still a third cause. The carbines of the troopers did not work well. When they became clogged and dirty from rapid firing, the ejectors would not throw out the shells, and the men frequently had to stop and pick out the shells with a knife. The chambers of the carbines at that time were cylindrical, and the easily accumulated dirt on the cartridges clogged them so that the ejectors would not work properly. The chambers were afterward made conical, with good results. The Indians had no such trouble. Their weapons were newer and better than those of the soldiers. If the indifferent weapons of the troopers failed them, their annihilation in any event would have been certain.[91]

I have censured Custer somewhat severely in this article, and it is a pleasure to me to close it with a quotation from Captain Whittaker’s life of his old commander. In this quotation Lawrence Barrett, the eminent actor, who was an old and intimate friend of Custer, has summarized the character of the brave captain in exquisitely apposite language; and, in his words, I say good-by to the gallant soldier whose errors were atoned for by an heroic death in the high places of the field:

“His career may be thus briefly given: He was born in obscurity; he rose to eminence; denied social advantages in his youth, his untiring industry supplied them; the obstacles to his advancement became the steppingstones to his fortunes; free to choose for good or evil, he chose rightly; truth was his striking characteristic ... his acts found his severest critic in his own breast; he was a good son, a good brother, a good and affectionate husband, a Christian soldier, a steadfast friend. Entering the army a cadet in early youth, he became a general while still on the threshold of manhood; with ability undenied, with valor proved on many a hard-fought field, he acquired the affection of the nation; and he died in action at the age of thirty-seven, died as he would have wished to die, no lingering disease preying upon that iron frame. At the head of his command, the messenger of death awaited him; from the field of battle where he had so often ‘directed the storm,’ his gallant spirit took its flight. Cut off from aid, abandoned in the midst of incredible odds ... the noble Custer fell, bequeathing to the nation his sword; to his comrades an example; to his friends a memory, and to his beloved a Hero’s name.”

* * * * *

NOTE.—The question concerning Custer’s conduct is so important a one that I have included in Appendix A the opinions, pro and con, of several officers with whom I have corresponded; and in which I have indicated some other sources of information by which the reader may settle the debatable question for himself.

Footnote 78:

Charles A. Eastman, M. D., a full-blooded Sioux, a graduate of Dartmouth and the Boston University School of Medicine, who has published an interesting account of the battle from his investigations among the Sioux. See _The Chautauquan_, Vol. XXXI., No. 4, July, 1900.

Footnote 79:

Killed with Custer at the Little Big Horn

Footnote 80:

General G. A. Forsyth.

Footnote 81:

The unanimous testimony of the Indians who have discussed the battle subsequently is that they were panic-stricken by Reno’s approach, and would have fled if his attack had been pressed home. This is about the only statement upon which the Indians all agree.

Footnote 82:

This statement is elsewhere denied.

Footnote 83:

DeRudio and one other man joined the command on the night of June 26th; the others succeeded in crossing the river to Reno’s position late in the afternoon.

Footnote 84:

“The splendid officers of the Seventh, who had followed Custer so faithfully, begged Major Reno to let them try to join the general. They cried like women, they swore, they showed their contempt of that coward, but the discipline of their lives as soldiers prevented them disobeying until it was too late. You know Colonel Weir and Lieutenant Edgerly tried.”—Private letter to me from the wife of an officer who was killed in the battle.

Footnote 85:

Not the Reno’s Creek referred to above, down which Reno marched to the Little Big Horn. This Reno’s Creek may be seen in the largest map between Reno’s final position and the Custer Hill, where the general’s battalion was overwhelmed.

Footnote 86:

It is believed that this man, who was named Curley, secreted himself in a ravine, before the fighting began, and stole away at nightfall.

Footnote 87:

Captain Keogh’s horse “Comanche,” badly wounded, was found on the field the second day after the battle. His life was saved, and for many years he was the particular pet of the regiment.

Footnote 88:

Killed with Custer.

Footnote 89:

20th Infantry, attached to Custer’s command. Killed.

Footnote 90:

Killed with Reno.

Footnote 91:

It is possible that if Custer had kept the regiment together, he would have won the battle; but this is by no means certain, and authorities differ. I think he would have been forced eventually on the defensive.