The Metzger/Myles Keogh Connection and the Little Bighorn’s Bravest Soldier

History often connects through intriguing coincidence. Several such occurrences connect the 1866 Fetterman Fight with the Little Bighorn. The annihilation of an entire force is one. An impetuous cavalry commander could be another.

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.