Reno’s dead were also buried where they lay. Some were interred atop the bluffs where he and Benteen had been besieged for most of two days and nights. Those left behind by Reno in his hasty retreat were buried below the bluffs or in the riverbottom where they had died.

Making the First Move

Private William O. Taylor later wrote of using blankets to carry wounded soldiers down off the bluffs late on June 27^th. The Indian village below had been abandoned. Reno had 52 wounded soldiers who could be better cared for down at that site.  

Among its other benefits, the site offered access to flowing water. This was much needed by all, especially the wounded. Taylor noted the challenge of moving the disabled across the waist-deep river. One wonders about sanitation at the site of such large gatherings, but the Indians had apparently not been encamped there long. It seemed to prove a more desirable place for the whole command.

Not all the soldiers’ wounds were debilitating. Scout and packer George Herendeen later wrote of at least two wounded soldiers who survived with him after Reno left them behind. They were able to cross the river and climb to the siege site on the bluffs. Still, even the less severe wounds must have been exceedingly painful.

Moving a Second Time

Burials consumed most of June 28th. Able-bodied troopers not involved in burials were tasked with gathering poles to be used for litters. Others destroyed anything left behind that might later prove useful to hostile Indians. Both army supplies and goods abandoned in the Sioux/Cheyenne village were destroyed.

At 6:30 p.m. June 28^th, the combined forces began moving downriver. The steamboat Far West waited somewhere on the Bighorn River. First, the command just hoped to reach the site where Terry had camped the night of June 25^th. It lay 8 ¾ miles downstream, according to 7^th Infantry engineer Edward McClernand. He estimated it at less than 7 miles as a crow flies.

The command fell short of its goal, however. Finding that carrying the near dead weight of non-walking wounded, four soldiers could move a litter only 50 to 60 feet without rest. Even with eight to a litter, alternating regularly, the litters proved exceedingly difficult to move. The command covered only 4 ½ miles in 5 ½ hours before stopping at midnight.

June 29^th proved to be when the wounded truly could be moved. The progress came due to the innovation of Lt. Gustavus Doane. He improvised litters on poles more than 20 feet long. The poles’ front and back ends were fastened to mule saddles, and soldiers led the mules carefully by hand.

Rather than blankets to support the immobilized wounded, baskets were improvised between the poles. This was done by cutting rawhide strips from the skins of dead horses, which were plentiful after the battle. However, the process consumed the entire day. Again, those not involved were busy destroying plunder.

The Final Push (To the Far West)

Finally, this time at 5:00 p.m., the command resumed its move downriver. They planned to move only a few miles, this time to the site of Terry’s June 25^th camp. However, Doane’s improvised and innovative litters worked better than anticipated. Another factor also intervened.

After moving three miles the command was met by couriers from the Far West. They informed General Terry that the steamboat awaited at the Little Bighorn’s mouth. It was decided to press on until the Far West was reached. Having marched up the Little Bighorn three days before, perhaps Terry felt more confident in marching down.

Following the river’s “left bank,” (the west bank — in this case “left” as one faces downriver) the column perhaps found better travelling by topping an elevated plateau. However, both men and horses were much aggravated by its abundant “large cactus” that they strode through in the dark.

[Note: As an engineer, McClernand reported precise mileages. His distances were calculated using two odometers, one on either wheel of a cart moved by his assistant. Using wheel circumference, the odometers worked by counting each successive full turn of the wheel. His distance reports appear precise.]

Finally after nearly 15 miles (14.9 by McClernand’s report), the command neared the Far West after midnight. However, they encountered another obstacle. Their descent off the plateau and down to where the Far West lay moored involved a steep route off a somewhat steep bluff or ridge.

McClernand and others note that fires were built at intervals to mark and perhaps light the best route downward. Still, it must have been a somewhat jolting experience for those suffering from wounds. The fires may have been ordered by Terry or Gibbon. However, they have also been attributed to the foresight of steamboat captain Grant Marsh. Marsh will be featured more in weeks to come.

Marsh had shown the foresight to prepare his steamboat’s deck as a field hospital. A great deal of long, lush grass had been brought aboard by crewmen. Canvas had then been laid over this cushioning. It provided the best bedding he could offer the wounded. It also allowed the surgeons to tend them in the most efficient manner possible.

No Rest For the Weary

The Far West would not embark downstream until noon on June 30^th. Whether it was taking on fuel (wood for the boiler fires) or sorting essential vs. nonessential supplies, its departure was not early. It would then stop at the supply base near Fort Pease between the Bighorn and Rosebud Creek’s mouths.

Meanwhile, the able-bodied infantry and cavalry marched overland to the same supply base. The steamboat was used to ferry men and horses to the Yellowstone River’s north bank on July 2nd. It still ran high in early July, and infantry could not have crossed it on foot.

Finally, with ferrying done and essential supplies on board, the Far West started downriver at last with the wounded on July 3^rd. A full week had passed since the main battle. Working with the strong, fast current, Marsh ran his boat relentlessly. His destination was Fort Abraham Lincoln, the nearest location where wounded soldiers could receive good hospital care. It lay 700 miles downriver.

Marsh made a record run, which, again, will be featured in coming weeks. In addition to the wounded it bore shocking news of Custer’s unthinkable defeat. Arriving nearly on the date of the nation’s centennial, the Far West figured prominently in the story of the debacle at the Little Bighorn.

The post Aftermath: Moving the Wounded appeared first on Bighorn, Big Hole and Beyond.

A Crucial Count

That “intel” was significant in two ways. First, of course, it confirmed the shocking report by Crow scouts that Custer’s command had been annihilated. Secondly, the bodies represented only about a third of the 7^th Cavalry’s strength. That also confirmed the Crow scouts’ report that some of the regiment remained alive – somewhere.

Some of the shock of finding so many soldiers dead had been eased by the Crows’ accounts. Those reports were largely discounted by many in Terry’s command. Such a defeat had never been imagined. It was not even thought possible.

However, the column had seen many hostiles ahead along the Little Bighorn near dusk on June 26^th. This sighting had already lent credibility to the reports. Terry’s advance guard and scouts had seen what appeared to be cavalry columns riding in formation that evening.

Muggins Taylor, a local guide, had ridden close and had been fired at. He was trying to relay a written message from Terry to Custer. However, upon being fired at, he gave up. He returned angrily to Terry’s column stating he would kill the “Indian scout” that had shot at him. The shooter had been a hostile warrior, however, and not a scout.

Realizing their risks as darkness fell, Terry ordered the troops to halt and camp for the night. He feared if Custer’s troops were ahead, the two commands would shoot at each other in the darkness. A good, healthy fear of hostile encounters existed also. The command stopped miles short of Custer’s last resting place.

The next morning some of Terry’s officers thought they saw buffalo ahead on the slopes east of the Little Bighorn. Soon Bradley rode in, confirming at least 197 dead soldiers. The dark masses mistaken for buffalo proved to be dead or badly wounded horses.

Sense of Duty: Rescuing the Remnant

Sadness and shock turned quickly to a sense of duty. Terry, Gibbon and the officers knew much of Custer’s 12-troop regiment must still be alive and probably in distress. They continued southward and soon saw objects that proved to be humans.

Due caution ruled, as one would expect, but scouts from each command guardedly approached each other. The people on the bluffs to the south proved in fact to belong to Reno’s regimental remnant.

Upon hearing of Custer’s disaster, Reno’s troops were as shocked as Terry and Gibbon’s had been. They already were dehydrated, demoralized and distressed. Hearty handshakes were exchanged along with expressions of relief and gratitude. The remainder of that day was spent in caring for the wounded men and horses, watering the mounts and regrouping the besieged, battered command on the bluffs.

Death’s Duty

It was not until June 28^th that troops went to identify, bury and mark the dead bodies. The dead within Reno and Benteen’s lines were buried atop the bluff. The dead (some of whom had been only wounded) left behind by Reno in his ragged, river-bottom retreat were buried where they lay. Details were sent three or four miles downriver to locate and inter Custer’s dead.

Gruesome Details

The task of identifying bodies was gruesome, as was burial detail. The men had died the afternoon of June 25^th, which had been unusually hot. Then rain had fallen. Stripped and often mutilated, the bodies had lain in the heat for two more days June 26^th and 27^th. Maybe the rain had delayed decomposition. It likely hastened it by adding muggy, humid conditions.

Needless to say, over three days, bodies had begun to bloat and reek. Lt. Godfrey, with Benteen’s troops, saw the stripped bodies from a distance through field glasses. They looked like white boulders. Even without scalping or mutilation the bodies would have been appalling by then. They must have crawled with flies too.

Once blood stops flowing, gravity takes effect. Blood still in the body naturally pools in the lowest spots (pooled lividity) causing bruise-like discoloration. Many of the bodies had been found face-down. Lividity must have made features even harder to recognize.

Many bodies, if not most, had been at least scalped if not mutilated. Mutilation was often practiced against dead enemies by many Indian tribes. Skulls were smashed for various reasons. Dead bodies were shot full of bullets and arrows. This will serve as its own topic later.

All this is not to make light of gruesome descriptions. Rather, it demonstrates what survivors of the battle had to deal with in the coming days. Many of them, especially officers, had served in America’s Civil War over a decade earlier. Most had already seen war’s carnage. Many recruits were new, however, and had just seen their first battle. Results could not have been pleasant.

A Shovel Shortage

A lack of shovels made the burial task more challenging. Lt. Edward McClernand, with Gibbon’s column, kept a journal and later wrote a more formal account. He noted, “As we had but a few spades, the burial of the dead was more of a pretense than reality. A number were simply covered with sage brush. Yet we did our best.”

Private William O. Taylor echoed the point, noting, “We had but little in the way of grave digging implements, one spade to a company and that was brought along by the company cook for the purpose of cutting a trench for his fire, so the decent and proper burial of over two hundred bodies was not possible in the limited time at our disposal.” Bear in mind, the threat of potential return by attacking hostiles still loomed.

Taylor went on, “The most that could be done was to cover the remains with some branches of sagebrush and scatter a little earth on top . . .” Both Godfrey and McClernand, an engineer, reported counts of 212 burials at Custer’s site.

That lack of shovels had also hampered Reno and Benteen’s men as they tried to entrench on the bluffs during their first night under siege. Taylor wrote, “Our tools were tin cups and plates, knives, sharpened paddles made out of pieces of hardtack boxes, and a few shovels.” If a few shovels was the best those besieged men could muster for entrenching under duress, they could do little better for the dead.

Taylor also added, “The sagebrush, broken and trampled by the horses and ponies of the contending forces, gave forth a strong odor which, mingled with that of the swollen and fast decomposing remains, . . . was sickening in the extreme, and yet so hardened or indifferent were some that I saw man sitting down close by a mangled body and calmly munching their bit of hardtack and bacon.

Aftershocks

While some, as might be expected, were hardly bothered by the bodies and their burial, other accounts describe it as expected. One speaks of limbs tearing away as bodies were dragged into shallow trenches. The effects, in some cases, took a lingering toll.

Godfrey later wrote that in coming weeks army doctors pronounced several soldiers unfit for duty. Their lack of fitness stemmed from mental or emotional strain, not physical causes. One soldier shot himself less than a month after the battle (the cause was attributed to lingering physical illness and strain resulting from time he had suffered in a Confederate prison camp).

Even Lieutenant Bradley the Montana Column’s Chief of Scouts, requested leave after the battle. Little is recorded, but it appears to have been due to effects of what he encountered at the Little Bighorn. Bradley had served through the entire Civil War and in conflicts along the Bozeman Trail. (See Bradley’s Little Bighorn Body
Count.) Many, recruits or otherwise, suffered lasting trauma in the aftermath of Custer’s disastrous demise at the Little Bighorn.

The post Little Bighorn Burial Details appeared first on Bighorn, Big Hole and Beyond.

Lieutenant James H. Bradley kept a detailed journal of the Montana Column’s expedition. He later began copying his notes into a manuscript intended for publication. Sadly, his last entry recorded in the published version was that of June 26^th – most likely due to his sudden, unanticipated death in battle the following year.

Bradley requested leave after the Little Bighorn battle, most likely due to the trauma of what he witnessed. He was the first to find the bodies of Custer’s annihilated troops; he also then oversaw much of the burial of those bodies. Bradley had also witnessed the dead from Reno’s engagement at the south end of the battle. He later wrote that their bodies had been “frightfully butchered.”

Bradley could not have been a stranger to wartime carnage. He had enlisted as a Union private at age 17 in April 1861. He had then re-enlisted, serving throughout the duration of America’s Civil War. His only hiatus was due to time in a Confederate prison camp from October 1863 until his release in March 1864. He immediately rejoined his regiment.

Bradley had also served in the 18^th U. S. Infantry starting in 1866. He had fought Sioux in Red Cloud’s War at Crazy Woman’s Fork in Wyoming Territory. It is uncertain as to whether he witnessed the aftermath of Fetterman’s annihilation in December 1866, but it appears he must have been no stranger to battle deaths, destruction and mutilation.

Whatever his need and motivation for stepping away, by July of 1876 Bradley felt compelled to write to the editor of the Helena Herald. This paper had been the first to publish the news of Custer’s destruction. In his letter Bradley detailed his need to counteract some of the sensational rumors springing out from the accounts of Custer’s demise. These included that of Rain-in-the Face supposedly having cut Custer’s heart out and danced around his body.

Bradley described his position on June 27 as being “in advance” of the column due to his duties as Commander of the Scouts. He noted that the body of a horse first drew his attention to the field of Custer’s final stand (Comanche, perhaps?), and he went on discuss the “appalling sight” of “his entire command in the embrace of death.” Bradley noted an initial hasty count revealed 197 bodies.

A later count of the bodies buried on that portion of the field yielded a total of 206 bodies buried. An army engineer took note of burial locations, presumably mapping them with some type of survey coordinates. Cavalry rolls noted around 212 officers and enlisted members of Custer’s five troops. The discrepancies might be explained.

At least two members had been sent off with dispatches to Benteen’s battalion, and two others fell back when their exhausted horses gave out, at least according to their later accounts. They later joined Reno’s command where it came under siege.

The bodies of Lt. James “Jack” Sturgis and Lt. James Porter were never found, but garments marked with their names indicate they had not survived. A pair of bloodied “drawers” marked ‘Sturgis, 7^th Cavalry,’ were later found down in the abandoned village site, and Porter’s buckskin jacket was also found, with two bullet holes in it.

The severed heads of at least two soldiers, and possibly as many as four, were found in the abandoned village.  Thus, the discrepancies seem justified.

(It might be noted that Sturgis was the son of Colonel Samuel Sturgis, who was Custer’s immediate 7^th Cavalry superior. The two had clashed previously, and General Sheridan had assigned Sturgis to desk duty while giving Custer field command. Sturgis long held Custer responsible for the death of his son and others. The popular Black Hills, SD city is named for him.)

By dusk on June 26^th, General Terry and Gibbon’s command had stopped several miles short of the battle site. They had encountered large numbers of hostile warriors and dared not proceed in the dark. The warriors, numbering in the hundreds and maybe thousands, were acting as a rear guard for their families as the huge gathering dispersed.

Gibbon’s men still hesitated to believe the Crow scouts’ account of Custer’s unthinkable defeat. (Four Crow scouts, along with mixed-blood guide/interpreter Mitch Bouyer, had gone with Custer after he had sent Reno’s battalion to attack the village’s south end. Bouyer released the Crows after Custer had circled northward to attack separately.) Due in part to language barriers and more to soldiers’ inability to believe defeat was possible, they still could not imagine finding Custer and his troops dead.

No extra motivation was needed, however, to get the command moving on the 27^th. Gibbon later mentioned a “hurried breakfast of hardtack, bacon and coffee. The scouts rode out readily, with Bradley’s detachment crossing the Little Bighorn and scouting the ridges on its east side.

In his 1877 article Colonel Gibbon wrote, “. . . the officer in charge of the mounted infantry (scouting detachment) rode up to where General Terry and I sat upon our horses, and his voice trembled as he said, “I have a very sad report to make. I have counted one hundred and ninety-seven dead bodies lying in the hills!”

Gibbon and Terry had been looking toward some unidentifiable objects far to the south and wondering what they might be. Even field glasses failed to yield an accurate identification. However, after hearing the shocking reality that Custer’s annihilation was true, Gibbon sought to confirm the hope that part of his command had survived elsewhere.

After the deception by hostiles dressed in the uniforms of dead cavalrymen, hope was tempered by hard lessons and near ambushes (Lt. DeRudio had also been deceived in that way after being left behind by Reno’s fleeing troops.) Gibbon and Terry remained skeptical of any forms that first appeared to be white soldiers. Reno’s troops were only cautiously optimistic too.

Finally, at length, members of both commands approached each other while practicing due caution. Upon each command’s confirming that the other was “friendly,” a joyful reunion was made. Many shed shocked tears of disbelief at the report that Custer’s men were all dead. They felt great relief, though, knowing they were now safe and the overwhelming hordes of hostiles had left.

Animals had suffered, along with the troops, especially those that had been wounded. Men, horses and mules could now access the clear-flowing river 600 yards below Reno’s siege position on the bluffs. However, aftershocks from Custer’s defeat continued.

As mentioned earlier. Lt. Bradley requested leave after his gruesome experience of first finding the bodies of Custer’s men. He had also guided Captain Benteen to the site and accompanied him in identifying as many bodies as they could. His need to step away was understandable, but he was not so disturbed that he could not write publicly to correct rampant rumors.

After their deaths on the hot afternoon of June 25^th, the bodies had bloated in the searing sun. They had then lain in a light rain, then decomposed further throughout June 26^th. By the time they were found on June 27^th, most bodies – even those not mangled or mutilated – were difficult to recognize. By the time of their hasty burial on June 28^th, most were putrefying horribly.

Such was the fate of those who died, and those who had the gruesome task of burying their remains on the hills that overlook the Little Bighorn.

The post Lt. Bradley’s Little Bighorn Body Count appeared first on Bighorn, Big Hole and Beyond.

After a full day’s march on June 24 (roughly 28 miles), Custer allowed his command to rest. They would then mount up for a night march at 11:30 p.m. Troop commanders, however, got very little rest; Custer called them to a meeting at 9:30. His plan was to rest out of sight June 25^th and attack at dawn June 26^th against the huge gathering of hostiles he had been trailing.

After General Sheridan’s impossible edict that all tribes must report to reservations by January 31^st, Sitting Bull had summoned all Sioux and Cheyenne tribes to gather in that area of the Powder, Tongue and Rosebud drainages. Non-treaty bands were more motivated to do so after General Crook’s failed March 17^th attack along the Powder River. Many had left reservations to join the huge gathering.

After the night march beginning just before midnight June 24^th and halting at 2 a.m. June 25^th, Custer’s troops remained concealed in a large ravine. Meanwhile his scouts trudged through the darkness to a promontory known as the Crow’s Nest. It gave them a view across much of the Rosebud drainage but also much of the Little Bighorn. At dawn they spotted the village Custer sought.

After briefing his officers around 8 a.m., Custer ascended to the Crow’s Nest to see what his scouts had found. The events were detailed in previous posts. However, in Custer’s absence more events transpired. They would set in motion a series of dire decisions and results.

During the night a mule had lost a pack containing hardtack rations. Custer had sent a detail to retrieve it. Upon reaching it they found two Indians investigating it or possibly enjoying its contents. The Indians fled, but the regiment’s presence had been revealed.

Another small group of “hostiles” was seen by the scouts near the head of the ravine. All hopes of secrecy seemed lost. Worse, when warned of the soldiers approach, the whole village might scatter. While some scouts had advised Custer not to attack, others told him he must do so right away. Custer changed his plans, choosing the latter.

Riding down Ash Creek toward the village, the command passed a lone tepee at a recent camp site. It held the body of a dead warrior, likely one wounded eight days prior against Crook. Custer soon detached Captain Benteen with three companies, directing him to sweep southward, preventing escape that way. He was to attack any hostiles he found.

When scout Fred Girard spotted a group of hostiles moving away from the command, he and Custer thought they were fleeing. Custer detached Major Reno with three more companies. Reno was to charge in and attack. Custer told him he would be supported by the whole regiment.

Custer moved northward, planning to hit the village from its other end. It appears terrain forced him farther north than intended. Still, he did not reach the camp’s north end. As Custer gained more information, however, he sent messengers to recall Benteen’s troops. Trumpeter John Martin, one of the messengers, related that Custer meant to send Benteen into the camp’s middle while Custer attacked from the north.

For some inexplicable reason, Reno stopped his advance when he saw warriors in his front. Several survivors mentioned dust clouds that obscured vision on that hot, chaotic afternoon. Maybe Reno was confused by them. Regardless, he dismounted his troopers, forming a skirmish line.

Every fourth trooper became a horse holder, holding the reins of four mounts while the quartet’s other three soldiers fought. Reno’s three companies numbered at most 150 men. By dismounting his troops, Reno reduced his already small fighting strength by 25%. Worse, he fell back into a stand of timber, then gave confusing commands. He finally conceded all initiative to the defenders when he led a headlong retreat away from the village he had been directed to charge.

Benteen had found nothing to justify continuing southward with his troops. He turned back toward where he had detached from the command. Soon he was met first by Daniel Kanipe and then by bugler John Martin. Both bore orders for Benteen to join Custer. However, he had no idea where Custer had gone.

En route back toward their parting place, Benteen saw soldiers fighting on the flood plain and more fleeing up nearby bluffs. A scout directed him toward where Reno was regrouping. Benteen had no idea which soldiers he was joining, but he found Reno disconcerted and flustered. Reno directed him to stay and help him reorganize. During this time both Benteen and the soldiers in the bottom heard heavy firing two miles or more downriver.

After leaving Reno, Custer had topped some tall hills and had finally gained a partial view of the village. It appears that either he, or a detachment, rode down to a ford near the village. Accounts, again, are many and varied. Archaeological evidence has indicated the position of troops as they moved over time, but it cannot definitively show that troops reached the river.

Some Indian accounts state that a group of soldiers entered the river. One in particular states their leader was shot midway across and soldiers around him either helped him stay mounted or placed him back on his horse. The soldiers then turned back.

It is uncertain in which order deployments were made then. Both archaeological and Indians’ anecdotal evidence indicate that some troops were deployed tactically. The timing is difficult to pin down precisely.

After Reno’s threat was neutralized as he was driven to the bluffs, warriors learned of the second attack by Custer. They swarmed away from “Reno Hill” and northward to meet this second threat. Some accounts say Hunkpapa chief Gall directed many of them up a ravine below and to the south of the troops. At the same time Crazy Horse is said to have led many warriors across the river and to the north and east of Custer’s troops.

In effect, Custer himself was attacked from all sides by hordes of warriors. Many of them were hidden by the roll of the ridges and the ravines. They were able to stay largely out of sight, making poor targets for Custer’s troopers.

At the same time the warriors were able to arc arrows into massed troops. At some point, various charges and counter-charges were made by both forces.  In the end many warriors apparently circled as they completed the surround.

Multiple accounts say some warriors could not even join the fight for fear of shooting their allies. In the confusion, as least one Sioux or Cheyenne was killed by an ally who thought he was one of Custer’s scouts.

Some say if Reno and/or Benteen had ridden immediately to Custer’s aid the outcome would have differed. However, Benteen lacked the benefit of history’s hindsight. Some efforts were made to proceed in Custer’s direction. By the time Benteen had bailed Reno out, any such attempt would have undoubtedly yielded the same results Custer suffered.

At the time of the battle, it was believed Custer’s five companies could take care of themselves. When a victory by him came into doubt, those besieged with Benteen and Reno were sure he had retreated northward to join Terry and Gibbon’s command. It was expected he would return reinforced and break their siege.

Custer had failed to support Reno as promised. At the same time Reno’s failure to complete a charge gave the offensive to his opponents. Having fought Crook to a standstill eight days earlier, the Sioux and Cheyenne likely had renewed confidence. With their families and way of life under attack, they fought tenaciously and effectively.

Again, prior successes might have made Custer too confident. Surprise dawn attacks had yielded predictable results. Even war parties had fled before concentrated carbine fire. They didn’t on June 25, 1876.

Sadly, for nomads wanting to preserve their free-roaming and unfettered life, that great victory would be short-lived. It marked their high-water mark as far as battles were concerned. They would be harried relentlessly. Worn out and starving, most would soon resign themselves to reservation life.

The Sioux and Cheyennes had won a victory, however, that will forever claim a prominent place in history. They had succeeded where Custer’s troops failed at the Little Bighorn.

The post How (and Why) Things Happened At The Little Bighorn June 25, 1876 appeared first on Bighorn, Big Hole and Beyond.

Among the many coincidences that surround the Little Bighorn battle are instances of premonition before the fight. Some can simply be attributed to the fact that 7^th Cavalry scouts understood the overwhelming numbers they would face. In other cases, as with Custer himself, something extraordinary appeared present.

While many, if not most of us, put little stock in coincidence and feelings, sometimes “gut feelings” coincide with reality in ways their possessors could not foresee. Those who have hunted or stalked wildlife with a camera have at times experienced what we refer to as a “sixth sense.” Whether based on reality or an unusual sixth sense, several premonitions preceded Custer’s last battle at the Little Bighorn.

Lt. Godfrey later gave two accounts involving Custer himself. Examples of his scouts also bear mention. Most of those occurred the morning of June 25^th when Custer joined them at the promontory called the Crow’s Nest. Smoke from the huge village of combined off-reservation tribes, along with its immense horse herd had been spotted. They bode ill for Custer’s attacking force.

Custer maintained he had been unable to see the village; he said more than once he did not believe it was really there. The scouts spotted signs of the village at first light, when the sun’s rays were low and direct on it. It has been postulated that by the time Custer reached their vantage point around 10 a.m., heat waves, increasing haze or other atmospheric conditions might have made it less visible from his location 15 to 20 miles off.

Custer would likely have proceeded the same way even if he’s seen the camp. Godfrey recorded that Custer estimated they would not meet more than 1,500 warriors. He had based his expectation on a count of lodge fires at an abandoned camp site on Rosebud Creek. He supplemented that figure with reports from agents regarding numbers of enrolled Indians who had left the reservations. Based on past experience, Custer was confident his regiment of roughly 700 troopers could readily handle twice its strength in “hostiles.”

Godfrey, though, described an ominous officers’ meeting at Custer’s ‘headquarters tent” the night of June 22. “This ‘talk’ of his, as we called it, was considered extraordinary for General Custer, for it was not his habit to unbosom himself to his officers. In it he showed concessions and a reliance on others; there was an indefiniable something that was not Custer. His manner and tone, usually brusque and aggressive, or somewhat curt, was on this occasion conciliating and subdued. There was something akin to an appeal, as if depressed, that made a deep impression on all present. . .”

Godfrey added, “Lieutenants McIntosh, Wallace . . . and myself walked to our bivouac, for some distance in silence, when Wallace remarked: ‘Godfrey, I believe General Custer is going to be killed.’ ‘Why? Wallace,’ I replied, ‘what makes you think so?’ ‘Because,’ said he, ‘I have never heard Custer talk in that way before.’”

Three more old village sites were passed by the command on June 23^rd, but on the 24^th the column halted at the Sun Dance site used less than two weeks prior. (A white man’s scalp, not yet dried, was found there.) Custer again called a meeting of his officers.

Godfrey described another occurrence that would seem ominous. He wrote, “. . . as we were about to separate, the General’s headquarters flag was blown down, falling toward our rear. Being near the flag I picked it up and stuck the staff in the ground, but it again fell to the rear. I then bored the staff into the ground where it would have the support of a sagebrush.”

“This circumstance mad no impression on me at the time,” Godfrey went on, “but after the battle an officer, Lieutenant Wallace, asked me if I remembered the incident. He had observed, and regarded the fact of the falling to the rear as a bad omen, and felt sure we would suffer a defeat.”

After a rest halt at sundown on the 24^th, Custer called another officers’ meeting before starting a night march as planned. He stated he intended to camp in a concealed place the 25^th and then make a surprise attack at dawn June 26^th. He halted the column at 2 a.m. the 25^th. His well-laid plans would soon go awry, however.

When Custer’s scouts spotted signs of the Sioux and Cheyenne village at daylight on June 25^th, they knew how formidable its overwhelming numbers would be. They warned Custer and tried to dissuade him from attacking with his regiment alone. Too confident, Custer would not be deterred.

When that was realized, the scouts had their own premonitions and prepared accordingly. Crow scouts began donning their finest garb. Custer asked, through interpreter Mitch Bouyer, why they were doing so. Their leader, Half Yellow Face, replied that when a warrior entered the afterlife he wanted to look his best.

The leader of Custer’s Arikara, or “Ree,” scouts had brought soil from their homeland in Dakota Territory. He began rubbing it on each of his fellow tribesmen, apparently to symbolize their return to the earth.

Bloody Knife, Custer’s favorite scout, had tried at least twice to get Custer to understand what he would go up against. He told Custer they would find enough hostiles to keep them fighting two or three days. He also said they would find more warriors than the soldiers had bullets. Back to his usual form, Custer overconfidently brushed the warnings off.

After his 2 a.m. halt, Custer was seen by Godfrey talking with his Crow and Ree scouts. He was jolted from what Godfrey described as his “reverie” in which he “wore a serious expression and was apparently abstracted” as the interpreter conveyed Bloody Knife’s “two or three days” warning. Godfrey also stated the other scouts appeared “nervous and disturbed.” Custer just chuckled and said, “I guess we’ll get through with them in one day.”

It is reported that when Custer insisted at the Crow’s Nest on moving forward with just his regiment, many of the scouts began singing their “death songs.” That is when Bloody Knife made his warning about warriors outnumbering the soldier’s cartridges. When Custer persisted, Bloody Knife looked toward the sun, bidding it a final farewell. He is said to have told Custer they would both be going home “by a road that is not familiar.”

The white scout Lonesome Charley Reynolds had experienced a painful infection in one hand. He was given the option to remain at the command’s base on the Yellowstone River but chose to go with the regiment anyway. The choice proved fateful. However, as with the various Indian scouts, he seemed to have a premonition at the Crow’s Nest. It is said that at that point he began giving away all his possessions. He died, apparently heroically, during or after Reno’s headlong retreat at the village’s south end.

Those of us who are not the least superstitious still find intriguing coincidence in much that surrounded the Little Bighorn fight. Some of the outcome looked pretty predictable to scouts who savvied overwhelming odds. Circumstances and premonitions, or “gut feelings,” like those described above seem extraordinary though. In hindsight, they did indeed prove ominous at the Little Bighorn.

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In such a scenario, a static battle, it is also easy to picture a Gatling Gun. We would imagine it firing not just dependably, but also rapidly and repeatedly, barrel after barrel. With attackers arranged in circular surrounding lines, we can easily imagine the gun swiveling, rotating, and mowing the attackers down – without hitting the fellow soldiers who also surround the knob in a tight circle.

In 1876, reality was far different. Yes, both the Montana Column and Dakota Columns brought Gatling Guns on what is called the Yellowstone-Little Bighorn Expedition. Custer declined to take them on his final campaign, however. He had good reason.

The commands had obviously seen value the guns up to that point. Decision makers somewhere in the ranks saw their potential. Even one of Custer’s troopers later stated that he felt they might have changed the battle’s outcome.

However, at the same time others found them to be a tremendous hindrance. Their journal entries bear that out. Among them are Lt. James Bradley of the Montana Column and Lt. Edward Godfrey of the 7^th Cavalry. But first, the proponent’s viewpoint.

Sergeant Daniel Kanipe, in his 1924 account, mentioned both Gatling Guns and Rodman Guns available to Custer. (Gibbon’s Montana Column had also brought two Gatlings and a “Napoleon” cannon. They must have been left as his supply base near Fort Pease.) Kanipe later mused that Custer should have brought the artillery. Both the Rodman and Napoleon were Civil War-era cannon.

Kanipe was quoted, “There’s where he made a mistake, as we see it now, because if he had had one of those Rodman guns and had fired it one time those Indians wouldn’t have stopped running yet . . . And if we’d had one of the Gatling guns there would have been a lot more survivors than me.

Bear in mind that Kanipe survived only because he had been sent with a message to Benteen’s detachment miles to the south. Upon meeting Benteen he was heard to yell something like, “We’ve got them, boys!” Kanipe did not see how Custer’s actual battle played out. However, some merit does exist in Kanipe’s notion that case shot from cannon at a distance might have changed things before warriors engaged Custer.

James Bradley’s journal reflects a different reality regarding the Gatling guns. His first reference is to a Lt. Low, who brought the two guns from the Tongue River to Gibbon’s camp near the mouth of the Rosebud. He remarks that Low arrived the night of June 22^nd “during the night.” The distance was 28 miles, and seems to have taken a great deal of time beyond what even infantry might have required if unencumbered.

Both Bradley and 2^nd Cavalry Engineer Edward McClernand wrote of the travails of getting Gatling guns up Tollock Creek and the Bighorn River to the Little Bighorn. Guns overturnd on hills and had to be uprighted, apparently. They also had to be unhitched and lowered with ropes downhill at at least one point, requiring a great deal of manpower.

Bradley referenced the Gatling battery getting separated from the column and lost during a night march. They did indeed hamper the column’s progress. At least one reference mentions the gun detail finally reaching the column’s camp around 2:00 a.m. during the march.

Gatling guns were not light or readily mobile, necessarily. They were pulled by teams of four condemned horses – in other words by mounts no longer fit for cavalry use. The required manpower as well. The Dakota Column’s battery comprised 32 men plus officers.

Gatlings were also not unfailingly dependable either. Although capable of firing up to 350 rounds per minute, they were plagued by two common nemeses: overheating and fouling. Their rapid fire would obviously heat barrels quickly. Also, they pushed solid lead bullets, which helped to foul barrels. Smokeless powder would not find common use for another 20 years; the black powder of the day also fouled barrels quickly, which led to firing issues.

It is said Custer was offered extra cavalry from Gibbon’s command but declined it. Some speculate, understandably, that Custer did not want to share the anticipated laurels with another regiment. Others concede that Custer also might have found it less efficient to include troops that were not familiar to him or his command. Godfrey later wrote, sensibly, that Terry realized dividing Gibbon’s command would have left him unduly weakened, with only a few hundred infantry men.

Historian Thom Hatch wrote that Custer initially did accept the offer of Gatling guns but changed his mind an hour later. Godfrey and others described Custer’s directives to troop commanders that they be ready to travel light and fast. He planned to pursue the “hostiles” indefinitely, even if their 15 days’ rations ran out and they had to eat their pack mules. He wanted no encumbrance, which the Gatlings obviously would have been.

Hatch credits other historians with the observation that, had Custer taken Gatling guns, they would likely have delayed his movements. In turn, other events would have played out differently. Therefore, Custer might not have died June 25, 1876, if he had been delayed by taking Gatling guns. An interesting thought.

While a long-range shelling before direct attack would likely have change Custer’s outcome, he opted not to take a Rodman or Napoleon gun. If Gatling guns had been present, no one can say what difference one or more might have made. It is feasible the cumbersome, manpower-intensive guns would have helped – assuming their crews might have escaped arrows arching their way from hidden attackers.

It is just as likely Gatling guns would not have helped Custer, even they had not delayed him and he had attacked that afternoon of June 25, 1876. No one will really know exactly how that battle transpired, or what its outcome might have been, if Custer had brought Gatling guns to the Little Bighorn.

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A few particularly peculiar parallels exist between 7^th Cavalry captain Myles Keogh and Fetterman’s bugler Adolph Metzger. One such parallel might relate to Indian accounts of one soldier who stood out. If all accounts describe only one of the many soldiers, then he alone stands out as the bravest man the Sioux and Cheyenne fought that day. Several candidates exist, however.

Metzger and Myles Keogh Similarities

One thread that connects Metzger and Keogh is their horses that survived. Metzger had ridden a horse named “Dapple Dave.” When more troops arrived, they found all of Fetterman’s command, including two civilians, dead. Only Dapple Dave survived, too badly wounded to be valued by the victors. Due to severe wound(s), though, Dapple Dave had to be shot.

Myles Keogh’s mount Comanche is well known as the only cavalry survivor found by General Terry’s troops after the Little Bighorn battle. Comanche had been wounded seven times, but he was kept alive and became a mascot for the surviving soldiers. He managed to make the 12-mile journey to the Little Bighorn’s mouth, where the steamboat Far West waited.

Comanche was then shipped downriver with the wounded. After the 700–mile trip to Fort Abraham Lincoln, Comanche was never used by soldiers again. When he died in 1891 his remains were preserved through taxidermy. They remain on display in a University of Kansas museum.

A more striking parallel between the two soldiers is that their remains were not mutilated. All soldiers were stripped of their uniforms. Accounts vary, but most were mutilated by the victors in some form. Metzger’s story remains sketchy because no soldiers survived, but by many accounts Indians later attested that he had fought bravely to the end.

Metzger is said to have fired a Spencer carbine until he ran out of ammunition. He then used his bugle, his only remaining weapon, as a bludgeon. He fought so bravely and tenaciously that warriors showed him respect. Not only was his body not mutilated, it was found covered with either a blanket or buffalo hide.

Keogh, likewise, was found stripped but unmutilated. Equally interesting is that he wore a Catholic Pro Petri Sede medal, which was not taken by the victors (most items of interest of value were taken when bodies were stripped). Awarded after his service in the Irish papal guard and conflicts, the medal is believed by some to have been seen by Indians as “strong medicine.”

Others believe Keogh remained un-desecrated because of his bravery – a possible parallel to Metzger. Coincidences might hint at a pattern of thought or behavior.

The Little Bighorn’s Bravest Soldier

A number of Indians, including Sitting Bull and Gall, later credited Custer’s soldiers for fighting bravely. Granted, some accounts may have been tailored to suit what the tellers thought white recorders wanted to hear – or to what would spare them possible retribution. However, the Sioux warrior Red Horse and the Cheyenne Wooden Leg both specifically spoke of one who stood out as the bravest soldier they had ever fought against. Keogh might have been that man.

Wooden Leg’s account says that the last soldier to die with Custer’s command was finished off as non-combatants swarmed the battlefield. He said one officer, wounded, raised up on one elbow and “glared wildly” at the Indians as he wielded his revolver. The Indians withdrew, thinking he had “returned from the spirit world.”

A warrior finally approached and turned the man’s own pistol on him. Some accounts say the man wore “white metal bars.” That would indicate he was a captain, maybe Keogh.

Red Horse and others spoke of a man wearing a buckskin shirt and either leading troops bravely or turning his horse to protect troops as they retreated. Two Moon’s and Wooden Legs’ accounts describe a man dressed in buckskin, with long, black hair and a moustache. The man “fought hard with a big knife.” (Custer’s troops had left their sabers back at the Powder River supply depot.) They describe witnessing this bravery on the ridges where Custer’s troops were surrounded. 

Two Moon describes the man’s horse as a sorrel with a white face and white forelegs. The description could fit Custer’s horse Vic, but it also could fit a dust-covered Comanche (especially if the mount’s forelegs had gotten wet in the Little Bighorn and then caked with the dust that was plentiful on the battlefield.) However, that description could also have fit other horses, including some ridden by those with Reno’s command.

In two accounts Red Horse described an “officer” wearing a buckskin coat and a wide-brimmed hat. He said he, and numerous other Indians, believed this was the bravest man they ever fought. He stated the man rode a horse with four white feet.

However, in both accounts Red Horse places the man at the camp’s south end, early in the battle when Reno attacked and retreated. Red Horse said of the man, “He alone saved his command a number of times in the retreat.” This matches the account of Captain Thomas French.

Captain French’s Account

French later wrote in a personal letter, “I don’t wonder that Red Horse thought me a spirit from the bad place. . .” He went on to state that in Reno’s retreat alone he had shot eight pursuers and had seen them fall from their ponies.

In his letter French had questioned Reno’s retreat. He stated, “And when all had gone for safety was when I sought death – and tried to fight the battle alone . . . If one man could hold back seven or eight hundred, what might not a hundred and twenty have done . . .” French also hinted, not-so-subtly, that it had crossed his mind he should have shot Reno.

Who Wore Buckskin?

French might have worn buckskin that day, but at least eight men in Custer’s command had done so also. Multiple witnesses, including trumpeter John Martin, stated Custer had not worn his buckskin coat that day but wore a blue-gray flannel shirt. Others in Reno’s command might have worn buckskin, including Lonesome Charley Reynolds, another possible candidate for “bravest” honors.

Eye witnesses seem not to have recorded the actual death of Reynolds, but it is known he remained behind Reno’s wild retreat. It appears Reynolds was abandoned. The scout’s horse is not described either. Regardless, accounts indicate Reynolds was “unhorsed” at some point. Spent cartridges around his body showed he had fought fiercely to the end.

Reynolds may have used his horse, or another dead mount, as a barricade. Accounts do indicate he was seen deliberately fighting a “rear-guard” action singlehandedly. Red Horse may have referred to Reynolds.

Long Black Hair and a Big Moustache

A photo of French shows thick dark hair and a very large moustache. However, that description seems to belong to the brave man described by Two Moon on Custer’s battlefield. French was with Reno. Wooden Leg described his possible last man to die as having long black hair and a stubbly beard, with a moustache bigger than the beard.

Bear in mind the 7^th Cavalry had been campaigned more than five weeks before the Little Bighorn battle. Some may have shaved, but not frequently. Many who appear trimmed and clean-cut in prior photos may have had longer hair and stubbly beards by then. Even Reynolds, who was described by Libby Custer as unusually clean-cut for a scout, might well have fit that description.

Mysteries surround the Little Bighorn fight. They always will. One that remains is who that bravest soldier might have been. Others include the question why Myles Keogh, like Adolph Metzger 10 years prior, was not mutilated at the Little Bighorn.

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Background and Early Army Career

Benteen was born in August 1834 at Petersburg, Virginia, virtually the place where America’s Civil War ended. That war was the making of Benteen’s military career. By its end he had progressed through each rank to that of full colonel, and he was breveted a brigadier general.

Benteen’s career path was anything but conventional, however, which may have led to his apparent bitterness in much of life. He did not attend West Point, as most career officers had. As a boy he moved with his family to Missouri, where he was apparently a commoner.

Benteen’s father, a true Virginian, not only remained an ardent slave holder but viewed Southern slavery as a divine institution. At the Civil War’s outbreak Frederick aligned with the Union and enlisted. His father not only disowned him but stated he would pray daily that Frederick would be killed – ideally by a bullet fired by one of his own kin.

Distinguished Civil War Service

By September 1961 Benteen was a First Lieutenant in the 10^th Missouri Volunteer cavalry, and within a month he had become a captain. By 1962’s end he earned the rank of major, and early 1864 he was made Colonel in charge of a regiment. His brevet to brigadier general was made after the war’s end.

Benteen distinguished himself in numerous actions and conflicts during the Civil War. As Missouri was heavily divided between slavery and abolition, a good deal of military effort and resources went toward fending off secessionist forces and driving them from the state. Benteen was in the thick of much of it.

In Colonel Graham’s summary of Benteen’s career, he describes a family secret later “let out” by Benteen’s 10-year-old son Freddie. Benteen’s embittered father served the Confederacy as a blockade runner on “the great inland rivers.” Those apparently included the Mississippi and Missouri. Regardless, knowing his vessel and mission, Frederick used his 10^th Missouri to capture and confiscate the vessel and contraband cargo. His father remained in federal prison until paroled in 1865. He learned only years later that his capture had come at his son’s hands.

Benteen would distinguish himself beyond Missouri during the Civil War as well. He was conspicuous in his regiment’s actions in Alabama and Georgia too as the war progressed, thus earning his recommendation for the brigadier-general brevet.

Post Civil War Career

Unlike many career officers, Benteen retained his rank as Colonel of the 138^th “colored” regiment in 1865. As Custer historian William A. Graham wrote, “Benteen found this service personally distasteful,” and noted he “surrendered” the rank in July 1866 when the new 7^th Cavalry Regiment was organized. Benteen joined the Seventh as a captain and held that rank for most of his remaining career.

It is uncertain why Benteen disliked leading the “colored” regiment. Some writers allege he exhibited racial prejudice. It is also alleged he disliked or mistreated black interpreter Isaiah Dorman while later stationed at Fort Rice in Dakota Territory. He has generally been described as generally disliking most people.

A Sports Perspective

Benteen does appear to have appreciated various sports and their benefits, both to him and to his enlisted subordinates. Historian Thom Hatch quotes Private Thomas Ewert, who wrote to the Yankton Press and Dakotaian:

“On the first day of March, 1873, ‘H’ company seventh cavalry, stationed at Nashville, Tennessee, resolved to organize a club with the view of having games, sports and exercises to be known as the ‘Benteen base ball and gymnasium club’ (in honor of our company commander, captain F.W. Benteen, Brevet Colonel U.S.A.).”

Numerous accounts exist of baseball contests played between teams from Forts Rice and Lincoln as well as against civilian teams or clubs from nearby cities. In 1877 during the Nez Perce campaign, a trooper noted contests between the 2^nd and 7^th Cavalries along the Yellowstone River drainage.

Benteen seems to have enjoyed the merits of fishing as well. Frontier military troops often loved to supplement their mundane rations with either wild game or trout and other fish teeming in the streams along which they camped and campaigned. Reno himself made several mentions of the fishing rod he took along and enjoyed using during his western campaigns.

The Custer Controversy

When it came to Custer, however, Benteen had plenty of dislike and criticism. As with Reno, this may have stemmed from professional envy, given Custer’s youth and rapid success without seniority. It relates to other sources as well, however.

Benteen was close to Major Joel Elliot, who was wiped out along with 20 troopers during the Washita attack. Officers must have leeway to make decisions independently based on circumstances at hand. Acting independently, Elliot broke off his attack and pursued fleeing warriors away from the point of attack. Only much later was his squadron found, all dead and mutilated. No one had known he had left, or where he had gone.

Weather conditions were extreme, men and horses were already at risk due to the previous day and night’s march, and overwhelming numbers of warriors were appearing from nearby villages. Custer felt compelled to leave after scouts failed to find Elliot’s squadron. Benteen always felt Custer had abandoned him.

Custer fumed after he was criticized publicly in an “anonymous” letter published by a newspaper following Washita. The letter had been written to a friend by Benteen without intent to publish it. (At least one anonymous letter would appear in the New York Herald exposing tradership scandals under Grant’s administration. Ironically, Custer was a suspected source.) For any other faults, Benteen owned what he said. Custer, in effect, backed down when Benteen claimed authorship.

Little Bighorn Legacy

Animosity simmered beneath decorum through subsequent assignments and campaigns. It would lead to questions after the Little Bighorn. Among the first might be why Benteen’s battalion sent southward, away from the Sioux/Cheyenne village. It likely reflects trust rather than spite. Someone did need to ensure no “hostiles” were fleeing southward.

When Benteen decided (independently) his assignment was futile, he returned toward the other two battalions. Custer sent a message to Benteen directing him to hurry northward and bring the ammunition packs. The mule train was detached separately, but it reached Reno’s demoralized and routed troops about when Benteen’s did. Unanswered (and unanswerable) questions arise from there.

Disconcerted, Reno directed Benteen to help his troops; Benteen’s superior, he effectively countermanded Custer’s order.  Benteen was widely commended for taking command and control of the combined troops entrenching on those bluffs. He directed at least one surprise offensive movement, undoubtedly saving troopers’ lives. None other than George Herendeen described him as exceedingly brave.

Could He Have Saved Custer?

Benteen also led a troop movement toward Custer’s location, which was unknown to him. By that time, hordes of warriors were streaming en masse toward Reno’s position. It was later realized they had finished annihilating Custer’s troops. Further advance would have been suicidal. Only coordinated rear-guard action saved them.

Benteen’s Biggest Battles

Benteen continued his career as the 7^th Cavalry rebuilt. In 1877 he distinguished himself against the Nez Perce at Canyon Creek and was breveted colonel. He was promoted to major in 1882. However, after performing honorably in numerous battles from 1861 on, he effectively lost his battle with alcohol. As with Reno, drunkenness led to debauchery and discharge.

As with virtually all aspects of the Little Bighorn, many continue to question Benteen’s actions that day. In retirement he found mutual empathy with former trooper Theodore Goldin, whose Little Bighorn accounts are highly suspect. Letters between the two show Benteen’s bent for sarcasm and critique.

President Cleveland amended Benteen’s army dismissal to a one-year suspension. He then retired on disability. He was event breveted brigadier general for his actions against the Nez Perce and for what he is known best: the Little Bighorn.

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Captain Ball’s Bighorn River Scout

Ball was part of Colonel John Gibbon’s Montana Column. Gibbon’s assignment was to patrol the north bank of the Yellowstone River in order to keep “hostile” or non-treaty Indians from crossing the river northward. Gibbon would also try to locate “hostiles” south of the Yellowstone.

Ball took two companies of 2^nd Cavalry on a foray up the Bighorn River from its mouth at the Yellowstone. They would reach the old site of the abandoned Fort C.F. Smith before circling north and eastward. Their looping reconnaissance covered nearly 180 miles. One development would take an ironic turnabout.

After marching out from Fort Shaw, Montana Territory with his Seventh Infantry, Colonel John Gibbon had picked up two more companies of infantry and four cavalry companies at Fort Ellis near present-day Bozeman, Montana. The Fort Ellis troops had been under command of Major James Brisbin. In time he would make some questionable demands – at least of his scouts.

Up the Bighorn to Fort Smith

Captain Ball’ s mission would be a far less arduous and largely futile foray, however. It would be marked by frequent stops to rest horses and mules. The animals were already weakening and wearing down under the expedition’s demands.

The scouting detachment initially moved 75 miles up the Bighorn River drainage. On reaching the Fort Smith site, they noted its adobe walls were undisturbed and intact. Only the structures’ roofs had collapsed since the fort was abandoned in 1868.

Apparently a group of miners bound for the Black Hills had camped there just a few days prior. (It is uncertain how Ball or his command determined the group’s identity or destination.) Smith’s detachment also soon located the year-old site of a Cheyenne encampment. They found no Indians, though.

Leaving via the Little Bighorn

Finding no sign of the “hostiles” believed to be somewhere in that area, Ball took his troops north and eastward onto the Little Bighorn. Lieutenant Edward McClernand, an engineer, described a portion of it in his diary. It would later prove to be the area where a huge combined village of nontreaty tribes would encamp. Custer would descend on them there.

In his 1968 book Diaries of the Little Bighorn, Captain Michael Koury summarized journals of many soldiers, scouts and traders. He notes McClernand’s April 29^th entry as, “. . . we reached a point where the Little Big Horn washes a long, irregular line of hills on the right, while a short distance ahead, a picturesque valley opens on the left.” Less than two months later, the largest known gathering of Sioux and Cheyenne would encamp at that location. Then Custer would come.

Before leaving the area that ominously would soon be the site of Custer’s demise, a Crow scout left a message for the Sioux. Although done with apparent humor, it would prove ominous – but not for its intended recipients.

The Greasy Grass Pictographs: Trash Talk and Taunt Along the Little Bighorn

The scout, named Jackrabbit Bull, took an empty bread or hardtack box and scratched pictographs on it. Using charcoal to make his depictions, he stated they would should show the Sioux what Crows and soldiers would to do to them. Then he placed blades of green grass into the cracks in the box. He stated this would show the Sioux the events would take place before summer was over.

It is little wonder a Crow scout would take humorous satisfaction in such a taunt. The Crow had diminished in number over time, and the Sioux were more numerous and powerful. The two were long-time blood enemies. Crow numbers had diminished in part due to attacks by the Sioux and their allies. In fact, Sioux continued their attacks and raids after the Crow had settled on their established treaty agencies.

Tables would turn, however, on Jackrabbit Bull’s taunt – at least at the Little Bighorn.

The Tables Turned

On June 26^th Gibbon’s column approached that site again. They learned of Custer’s annihilation. McClernand made an interesting notation in his diary. He wrote,

“The fight taking place here reminds me of a taunt left by one of the Crow scouts not more than 3 or 4 miles up the valley during our scout over this same ground on April 29^th. . . It is somewhat strange that, considering the hundreds of miles we have marched, this taunt should have been left so near the spot where the one desperate fight of the campaign took place.”

Many, if not most, enjoy seeing trash talk quashed and taunts proved wrong. Many examples from today’s athletics come to mind. From the Sioux and Cheyenne perspective, maybe the same sense was felt, assuming they found and understood Jackrabbit Bull’s prediction.

We can only assume that someone in the huge, unprecedented gathering of Sioux and Cheyenne found the crate. Given subsequent rains and snows, it is unlikely the charcoal pictographs remained intact. If so, would the recipient(s) have understood them for what they were? If so, they had the last laugh over the taunt that had been left along the Little Bighorn.

The post Captain Ball’s Scout: A Portentous Taunt — Pictographic Trash Talk on the Greasy Grass appeared first on Bighorn, Big Hole and Beyond.

Through 1866-67 Red Cloud’s War focused largely on the building of Fort Phil Kearney near what is now Banner, Wyoming. Some raids took place elsewhere along the Bozeman Trail, and warriors targeted other forts along the trail too.

The most persistent and notable confrontations surrounded Fort Phil Kearney, however. They culminated with what is known as the Fetterman Fight.

Surrounding Circumstances

The “Hayfield Fight,” near Fort C.F. Smith, was one of the more large-scale confrontations. “The Wagon Box Fight” in 1867 took place a few miles north of Fort Phil Kearney. Both would surprise the attackers with the relatively new speed of fire from the army’s breech-loading rifles now using metallic cartridges.

Fetterman’s Fight, however, is what demanded the U.S. Army’s full attention. It would force the U.S. to negotiate, resulting in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Forts on the Bozeman Trail were abandoned.

Throughout its own Civil War the United States had also dealt with Indian uprisings and conflicts. Besides attempted to rebellion and secessoin, President Lincoln had to deal with Indian hostilities.  In 1862 Santee Sioux under Little Crow had killed several hundred Minnesota residents; in the Southwest, Apache and Comanche conflicts raged. In between and to the west even more hostilities boiled.

After the Civil War ended, the U.S. Army diminished in size, but soldiers were still needed. They dealt not only with reconstruction issues and the Ku Klux Klan but also growing conflicts in the west. Various gold strikes, including those in Montana Territory, brought increased settlers and settlement. With that increase came growing conflicts, including those with Sioux and Cheyenne tribes.

Forts Fueled Conflict

Fort Laramie already sat along the Oregon Trail. Fort Ellis, in Montana Territory’s Gallatin Valley would protect the Bozeman Trail’s terminus. The army added three more forts along the Bozeman Trail: Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny and Fort C.F. Smith. Each was named for a Civil War general. Coincidentally, all three had died in 1862.

The Bozeman Trail cut through the heart of prime and cherished Sioux and Cheyenne hunting grounds. Worse, when Colonel Henry Carrington chose his site for Fort Phil Kearny, he ravaged  those treasured hunting grounds.

The fort needed huge amounts of timber. It needed water too, and good feed for beef to feed the troops and horses to draw wagons and carry cavalry. Colonel Carrington chose a site that met all of those needs. Knowing how Indians would respond, Jim Bridger recommended a different site. Carrington insisted on his.

For perspective, just the walls of the main stockade measured 800’ by 600’, totaling 2800 linear feet of perimeter. Ten-foot lengths were squared on the sides to fit tightly together, then set upright in the ground to form an eight-foot-high palisade. An added area of irregular shape had lower walls but made the total perimeter 3,900 feet or more.

The fort needed barracks, medical quarters, offices, tack rooms and numerous other roofed structures. The effect of the timber harvest on the area was heart-rending to the Sioux and Cheyenne. Their anger burned.

Red Cloud’s Persistent Raids

The closest timber stood a few miles away, though at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains. Wood cutting details went out each day, and wagon loads of timber were hauled to the fort’s location. Away from the protection of the fort, these details made easy, tempting targets for the irate tribes whose lands were being desecrated.

When wood-cutting detachments were attacked, larger forces would rush out to chase the attackers. As warriors harassed wood details, often killing some, the soldiers’ patterns grew predictable. Frustration grew, but soldiers failed to view the warriors as their equals. Captain William Fetterman, a Civil War veteran, was among them.

A Foreboding Boast?

Fetterman is often quoted as saying, “Give me 80 men and I’ll ride through the whole Sioux nation.” Maybe he did. The quote and its context were not recorded by an immediate witness. Whether he made that statement or maybe something similar, it has come to represent the attitude that soon led to Fetterman’s fall. It would foreshadow what befell Custer at the Little Bighorn.

As attacks persisted and soldiers tired of them, the Red Cloud’s Sioux strategized.  They decided to decoy the soldiers out of the fort and spring an ambush. It failed. Some of those who lay in ambush sprang the attack too soon. It seems the soldiers would have learned from it. They did not.

On December 21, 1866 the Sioux again attacked a wood-cutting detail. As soldiers emerged from the fort, ten warriors lagged acting again as decoys. A cavalry squadron of cavalry pursued them, followed by Fetterman and his infantry. Two civilian sutlers armed with Henry repeating rifles accompanied the force as well.
That brought Fetterman’s total force to 80 men.

How the Fight Unfolded

What happened next is somewhat subject to speculation. It resembles Custer’s Little Bighorn defeat in that regard. The soldiers disappeared beyond a long, open ridge more than a mile from the fort. Fetterman had been instructed not to cross it in pursuing the hostiles.

The Lieutenant in charge of Fetterman’s cavalry troop was of questionable character. (During the Civil War he courted and married a young Tennessee woman while still married to his first wife up north.) He was apparently impetuous as well. It is likely the lieutenant pursued the decoys past where he was authorized to proceed. Mounted, his troop easily outdistanced the infantry. He was soon surrounded and overwhelmed.

It is likely that Fetterman went over the ridge in order to reinforce the impetuous lieutenant who had defied orders. We will never know for sure. Such scenarios have been debated for 150 years regarding Custer at the Little Bighorn as well.

What is known is that Fetterman’s entire command – 78 enlisted men and two civilians – were annihilated. The ambush would become known as the Fetterman Massacre, or the Fetterman Fight, depending on one’s perspective. If he really did say, “Give me 80 men. . .” his end might seem poetic.

A Persistent Pattern

What we can be observed is a developing pattern. First Grattan barged into a Sioux camp in 1853 with only 29 men. He made demands, and his entire command died with him. Fetterman charged out with his 80 men in 1866, apparently expecting the Sioux warriors to flee. All his command died with him there as well.

Less than 10 years later Custer would charge toward a camp of “hostile” Sioux and Cheyenne. He apparently expected them to flee. All five of his troops – more than 200 men, plus more who fell in Reno’s separate charge – would soon lie dead. He likely failed to grasp the size of the village he attacked, but his scouts had warned him. Whether due to ignorance or arrogance, his command was wiped out too.

The Foreshadowing

Among the decoys who drew Fetterman and 80 men out of from Fort Phil Kearny was a young warrior named Crazy Horse. Like Sitting Bull he disdained white men’s ways and treaties. He would later face an impetuous cavalry officer along the banks of the Yellowstone River in 1873. He would try decoy tactics there, too. By then, Custer, the officer had learned.

The two warriors, Custer and Crazy Horse, would meet again in 1876. Crazy Horse’s forces would prevail. Ten years before that fateful meeting, though, Fetterman’s fight would foreshadow would occur at the Little Bighorn.

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