Little Bighorn Burial Details

On June 27^th 1876, the Montana Column, with General Terry, reached the main field where Custer had fought his final battle. Before mid-morning Lt. Bradley, after scouting forward on the east side of the Little Bighorn River, had returned with his sad news. He had found and counted 197 bodies of Custer’s command.

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.