Should Custer Have Taken Gatling Guns? (And/Or More Cavalry?)

Based on paintings and Hollywood depictions, most of us likely envision the Little Bighorn battle ending with a “last stand” on what is now known as Last Stand Hill. It’s easy to picture a last surviving remnant of Custer’s five companies surrounded by attacking Sioux and Cheyenne, with Custer on or near the highest point.

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.