Lonesome Charley Reynolds: An Unobtrusive Scout

Sources vary, but most give March 20, 1842 as the birth date of a quiet — but very competent — individual who came to be known as “Lonesome” Charley Reynolds. After serving the Union in America’s Civil War, he served capably as a scout for Custer and others. He scouted for the 7^th Cavalry in the 1872-73 Yellowstone Expedition, in  Custer’s 1874 Black Hills expedition, and during what can be called the Little Bighorn Campaign in 1876. He died there on June 25^th.

Sources also vary as to the place of Reynolds’ birth. It was either Kentucky or Illinois. Regardless, his father was both as farmer and a physician. At some point the family moved to Abingdon, Illinois and Reynolds attended Abingdon College for three years. He then went to Kansas, but by 1860 gold fever, and the Pike’s Peak gold rush, took him. He joined a wagon train headed that way, but it was attacked and looted by Cheyenne.

Reynolds then joined with a mountain man to trap along the Platte, but by mid-1861 he had returned to Kansas and enlisted in the Union’s 10^th Kansas Infantry. After duty in the bitter Kansas-Missouri conflicts, he escorted officers and supply trains along the Santa Fe Trail to Fort Union, in New Mexico. He may have served as a Union scout as well, but he mustered out in August of 1864.

Reynolds tried a trading venture, but after his partner was killed (again by Cheyenne – could this have influenced his future endeavors?) he turned to buffalo hunting. He earned a living supplying military posts until a conflict with drunken officer caused him to move to the Upper Missouri. (He had shot the abusive officer, but not fatally. It is reported that the officer lost an arm, though.)

Reynolds became known for his skillful hunting around Forts Rice and Berthold, in Dakota Territory before he joined Colonel Stanley’s military escort for the Yellowstone railroad survey expedition. Serving as a scout in 1872-73 he became acquainted with Custer. Historian Thom Hatch notes that Reynolds shared many interests with the exuberant Custer, including hunting and natural history.

It should be noted, though, that Reynolds’ personality was vastly different from Custer’s. Reynolds was quiet and reserved, which led to his nickname “Lonesome Charley. Not only did he refrain from drinking and gambling, he much preferred the quietness or solitude of hunting alone or with a small party. Unlike many scouts or frontiersmen, he was equally unassuming in his dress.

In her memoir Boot and Saddles, Custer’s widow, Libby, described Reynolds. She stated he was “most valued” and greatly admired by her husband. She wrote that the difficult missions, and those requiring stealth, were entrusted to him. She called him shy and went on, “He did not assume the picturesque dress, long hair, and belt full of weapons that are characteristic of the scout. His manner was perfectly simple and straightforward, and he could not be induced to talk of himself. . . He had been the best shot and most successful hunter in the territory for fifteen years.”

Along the Upper Missouri, Reynolds had reportedly become fluent in the sign language of Plains tribes and also the Sioux tongue. This might have played a role in later unrest. In 1873, along the Yellowstone, two non-military members had wandered away from the survey crew, apparently looking for fossils. They were killed by one or more Sioux. In 1874, at Standing Rock Agency, Reynolds overheard a warrior named Rain-In-The-Face boasting he had killed the two whites.

Reynolds reported this news to Custer, who assigned Captain Tom Custer, his brother, with a detachment to apprehend Rain-In-the-Face. This would result in the arrest, escape and later rumored revenge of Rain-in-the Face, a topic for another post altogether.

In April 1876 Reynolds signed on as a scout for the Dakota Column, with which Custer would ride. They would set out from Fort Abraham Lincoln in General Sheridan’s campaign against non-treaty tribes. Reynolds would serve in his usual capacity; he would ultimately warn Custer against attacking the huge Sioux and Cheyenne village that the scouts spotted from miles away.

Reynolds had sustained an infection in one of his hands, and he requested to be released from the command. He was dissuaded, as one account puts it, and another says he was shamed into staying. He was assigned to Major Marcus Reno’s battalion when Custer divided his troops for the attack.

Reynolds had apparent premonitions regarding his death, however. He gave his possessions away to fellow members of the command on the night before Custer’s attack. On the morning of June 25^th, 1876, Reynolds joined the other scouts at a high promontory called the “Crow’s Nest, from which they were able to see the big village miles away. Reynolds is said to have told Custer it was the biggest village he had ever seen.

Reynolds was assigned with the other scouts out on the left end of Reno’s skirmish line when the major began his attack on the south end of the huge village. Like many, Reynolds was left behind during Reno’s headlong retreat back across the Little Bighorn and toward refuge on bluffs above the river. One source notes that, like many other soldiers and scouts, Reynolds’ body was found paired with that of his horse. Most soldiers who died in Reno’s retreat fell because their horses had been killed.

Reports vary, but some say that Reynolds appeared to have used his fallen horse’s body as a breastwork. A large number of spent cartridges were later found near his body after the battle. Some sources say Reynolds died trying to protect a surgeon who was caring for a mortally wounded trooper.

With his back exposed to danger, the dutiful doctor later reported Reynolds warmed him of the impending onslaught. The surgeon survived. Reynolds did not. Another source says he died with Isaiah Dorman, the black interpreter whose horse had also been shot beneath him.

One author has compared Custer with his friend and contemporary James Butler Hickock (also a topic for another post.) Thom Hatch quotes that author as stating they came from “a reckless breed” with “excitement and wanderlust in their blood.” The author, Joseph Rosa, went on, “An ancient General Custer or Wild Bill Hickok would be unthinkable. Maybe fate felt that way too.”

Maybe on the frontier, that applied to a man like Lonesome Charley Reynolds as well.

If a few higher-up officers had heeded the concerns of this quiet, capable and unassuming scout, perhaps he and many others would have lived. Rather, as Libby Custer concluded in Boots and Saddles regarding this little-known man,  “. . . my eyes fill with tears; for he lies there on that battle-field, unwept, un-honored, and unsung. . . he is chronicled as ‘only a scout.’”