The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (52 page)

ARAPAHO

Left Hand: part of a five-man hunting party that joined the village shortly before the battle; mistakenly killed a Lakota warrior in the dusty confusion around Last Stand Hill

Waterman: companion of Left Hand’s who described the Oglala warrior Crazy Horse as “the bravest man I ever saw”

BLACKFEET LAKOTA

Kill Eagle: leader of a band detained against their will by Sitting Bull’s warriors

BRULÉ LAKOTA

Julia Face: married to Thunder Hawk; watched the battle from the hills to the west of the river

Standing Bear: not to be confused with the Minneconjou of the same name; told his son Luther of his experiences at the battle

CHEYENNE

Beaver Heart: told tribal historian John Stands in Timber of Custer’s boast about capturing the Lakota woman “with the most elk teeth on her dress”

Buffalo Calf Road Woman: rescued her fallen brother during the Battle of the Rosebud prior to the Little Bighorn

Comes in Sight: saved by his sister Buffalo Calf Road Woman at the Rosebud

Hanging Wolf: told the tribal historian John Stands in Timber of the soldiers’ northernmost approach to the river

Kate Bighead: told Thomas Marquis of how she watched the fighting from the periphery of the battlefield

Lame White Man: warrior killed by friendly fire during the charge near Battle Ridge

Little Hawk: discovered Crook’s Wyoming Column prior to the Battle of the Rosebud; also present at the Little Bighorn

Little Wolf: saw the Seventh approaching from the east but didn’t reach Sitting Bull’s village till after the fighting

Noisy Walking: cousin to Kate Bighead; mortally wounded by a Lakota during the battle

Two Moons: played a pivotal role during the battle with Custer; later spoke extensively about his experiences

White Shield: about twenty-six years old at the time of the battle; had a nine-year-old son named Porcupine and fought with a stuffed kingfisher tied to his head

Wolf’s Tooth: young warrior who later told John Stands in Timber about the battle

Wooden Leg: fought both Reno’s and Custer’s battalions and later told of his experiences to Thomas Marquis

Yellow Hair: brother to Wooden Leg

Yellow Nose: Ute captive raised as a Cheyenne who figured prominently in the Custer fight

Young Two Moons: twenty-one years old at the time of the battle; nephew to Chief Two Moons

HUNKPAPA LAKOTA

Black Moon: announced Sitting Bull’s vision at the 1876 sun dance; lost a son during the battle

Crawler: father of Deeds and Moving Robe Woman; closely aligned with Sitting Bull

Deeds: ten-year-old son of Crawler; one of the first killed

Four Blankets Woman: younger sister of Seen by the Nation and wife of Sitting Bull

Gall: lost two wives and three children at onset of the battle; subsequently led in capturing the troopers’ horses

Good Bear Boy: friend of One Bull injured during the attack on Reno’s skirmish line

Gray Eagle: brother of Sitting Bull’s two wives, Four Blankets Woman and Seen by the Nation

Gray Whirlwind: with Sitting Bull when Reno attacked the Hunkpapa circle

Her Holy Door: mother of Sitting Bull

Iron Hawk: only fourteen years old during the battle; fought near Last Stand Hill

Jumping Bull: adopted brother of Sitting Bull

Little Soldier: Sitting Bull’s fourteen-year-old stepson at the time of the battle

Moving Robe Woman: also known as Mary Crawler; joined the fighting after the death of her brother Deeds

Old Bull: close ally of Sitting Bull who later claimed, “Soldiers made mistake attacking Hunkpapas first”

One Bull: Sitting Bull’s nephew and a major source on the life of his uncle

Pretty White Buffalo Woman: also known as Mrs. Horn Bull; claimed Reno might have won the battle if he had charged the village

Rain in the Face: noted warrior who became famous for the apocryphal story that he cut out Tom Custer’s heart

Seen by the Nation: elder sister of Four Blankets Woman and wife of Sitting Bull

Shoots Walking: just sixteen years old, fought against the objections of his parents; claimed that the soldiers “did not know enough to shoot”

Sitting Bull: forty-five-year-old political leader and holy man whose sun dance vision presaged the victory at the Little Bighorn

MINNECONJOU LAKOTA

Red Horse: spoke of a single soldier who “alone saved his command a number of times by turning on his horse in the rear in the retreat”

Standing Bear: seventeen years old at the time of the battle; described the slaughter as Reno’s battalion retreated across the river

White Bull: brother of One Bull and nephew of Sitting Bull; counted seven coups during the battle

OGLALA LAKOTA

Black Bear: leader of a seven-person band seen at the divide by Custer’s scouts on the morning of June 25

Black Elk: twelve years old at the time of the battle; later related the story of his life in the classic
Black Elk Speaks

Crazy Horse: thirty-five years old at the time of the battle; the preeminent Lakota warrior

Eagle Elk: twenty-four-year-old cousin to Crazy Horse; one of the many warriors who reported seeing Yellow Nose capture a company’s flag

Flying Hawk: twenty-four-year-old nephew of Sitting Bull

He Dog: thirty-six-year-old warrior and Shirt Wearer noted for his bravery

Low Dog: also about twenty-nine years old; married to a northern Cheyenne woman; later fled to Canada with Sitting Bull

Red Hawk: part of the Crazy Horse–led charge of Reno’s skirmish line; later drew a detailed map of the battle

SANS ARC LAKOTA

Long Road: killed just seventy-five feet from the soldiers’ line on Reno Hill

SANTEE SIOUX

Inkpaduta: veteran of Minnesota Uprising of the 1860s and ally of Sitting Bull

TWO KETTLE LAKOTA

Runs the Enemy: leader of a hundred-warrior band that fought both at the Valley Fight and on Last Stand Hill

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Mike Hill, friend and researcher extraordinaire, without whom this book would not have been possible. Thanks also to Steve Alexander for talking about his career as the country’s foremost Custer reenactor; to Jack Bailey for sharing his knowledge of Montana’s Rosebud Valley and for providing access to the Deer Medicine Rocks; to Rocky Boyd for all his research help and especially for his insights into the life and writings of Peter Thompson; to Ladonna Brave Bull Allard at the Standing Rock Sioux Agency for speaking with me about the history of her people; to Jim Court, past superintendent of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, for his help in retracing Custer’s route up the Rosebud River to the Little Bighorn; to Joan Croy for a tour of the Custer sites in Monroe, Michigan; to the
Delta Queen
, the historic sternwheeler that showed me what it’s like to travel upriver by steam power; to Major Ray Dillman of the English Department at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, not only for directions to the Crow’s Nest but for putting me in touch with Lieutenant Colonel Peter Kilner of the Center for Company-Level Leaders at West Point, who shared with me his extensive firsthand knowledge of leadership in battle; to West Point’s Alicia Mauldin-Ware and Gary Hood for their research assistance; to John Doerner, historian at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, for all the leads and research help; to Michael Donahue, author and seasonal ranger at the battlefield, for his insights into the battle; to Sharon Smalls at the battlefield for her help with the images; to Zach Downey at the Lilly Library at Indiana University; to Robert Doyle for the tour of Myles Keogh’s birthplace in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland, and also to Elizabeth Kimber for sharing documents relating to Myles Keogh; to Dennis Farioli for his research help; to Jeffrey Flannery at the Manuscript Reading Room of the Library of Congress; to the Gilcrease Museum Archives at the University of Tulsa for permission to quote from the Benteen-Goldin papers; to Susan Goodall for photographic assistance; to Mark Halvorson at the State Historical Society of North Dakota for the tour of his institution’s collection relating to Sitting Bull, to Greg Wysk for the archival assistance, and to Sharon Silengo for her help with the photographic collection; to Bruce Hanson at the Denver Public Library; to the Reverend Vincent Heier for some late-inning research help; to June Helvie for permitting me to quote from the writings of both her mother, Susan Taylor Thompson, and her grandfather Peter Thompson; to Marilynn Hill for sharing her writings about Libbie Custer; to Eric and Betsey Holch for navigational and moral support during a research trip in Ireland; to David Ingall, James Ryland, and Chris Kull at the Monroe County Historical Museum; to Bill Kupper for passing along an important resource; to Ernie and Sonja LaPointe for the conversation and hospitality; to Doctor Tim Lepore, the only physician I know with a topographical map of the Little Bighorn Battlefield in his office, for allowing me to fire his Springfield 73 carbine and his Colt .45; to Minoma Little Hawk and Christal Allen at the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site; to the Reverend Eugene McDowell for a most instructive conversation about horses under stress; to Castle McLaughlin, whose exhibit during the spring of 2009 at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University (curated with Butch Thunder Hawk) “Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West” was immensely helpful; to Elizabeth Mansfield for her research assistance; to Bruce and Jeanne Miller, for navigational and video assistance during research trips to Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Montana; to Tim Newman for all his help with assembling the images for this book; to Al and Mary Novisimo, the scanning and PowerPoint gurus of Nantucket; to Mickey and Bruce Perry for sharing their knowledge about horses, and to their daughter, Megan, for a riding demonstration worthy of Custer himself; to Crow tribal member Charlie Real Bird, for guiding me by horse across the Little Bighorn Battlefield and especially to his twenty-seven-year-old former rodeo horse Tomcat for not throwing me; to Matthew Reitzel and Ken Stewart at the South Dakota State Historical Society; to John and Rebecca Shirley at the Eagle Nest Lodge in Hardin, Montana, for their hospitality and especially for the jet-boat tour of the Bighorn and Little Bighorn rivers; to Neal Smith at The Tropical Research Institute for identifying the finder on Mitch Boyer’s hat; to Russell Taylor and John Murphy at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University; to Leroy Van Horne for the tour of the Custer sites in and around New Rumley, Ohio; to Charmain Wawrzyniec of the Dorsch Memorial Library in Monroe, Michigan, for making available one of the best collections of Custer-related books in the world; and to Jennifer Edwards Weston for all her research help and to her mother, Marge Shoots the Enemy Edwards, for showing the way to Sitting Bull’s cabin.

For reading and commenting on my manuscript I am indebted to Louise Barnett, Susan Beegel, Rocky Boyd, Jim and Virginia Court, Raymond DeMallie, Richard Duncan, Michael Elliott, Hal Fessenden, Peter Gow, Michael Hill, Castle McLaughlin, Bruce Miller, Jennie Philbrick, Melissa D. Philbrick, Sam Philbrick, Tom and Marianne Philbrick, and Gregory Whitehead. All errors of fact and interpretation are mine alone.

At Viking Penguin, it has been a privilege to work, once again, with the incomparable Wendy Wolf. Thanks also to Clare Ferraro, Nancy Sheppard, Margaret Riggs, Bruce Giffords, Francesca Belanger, Amy Hill, Carolyn Coleburn, Louise Braverman, and copy editor Adam Goldberger. Thanks also to Jen Neupauer for the cover and to Jeffrey Ward for the maps.

My agent, Stuart Krichevsky, has a knack for intelligent and blessedly clearheaded advice. Many thanks, Stuart, for your friendship and for keeping me on track. Thanks also to his associates Shana Cohen and Kathryne Wick.

Finally, thanks to my wife, Melissa D. Philbrick, and our children, Jennie and Ethan, and to all our family members for their patience and support.

Notes