The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (59 page)

John Gray describes how the size of Sitting Bull’s village doubled in just a week in
Centennial Campaign
, pp. 336–37. Kill Eagle noted that the camp’s large council lodge was yellow in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 55. Parkman wrote of the Lakota’s “characteristic indecision” in
The Oregon Trail,
p. 107. White Bull described the interior of Sitting Bull’s tepee and told of how a guest was typically welcomed in box 104, folder 22, WCC; according to White Bull, “Sitting Bull could take a joke on himself. I have been in Sitting Bull’s lodge many times and listened to the people cracking jokes. . . . It is true of Indians there are some who cannot take a joke.” Richard Hardorff reprints another White Bull account (box 105, notebook 24, WCC) in
Indian Views of the Custer Fight,
p. 150. Parkman described a typical evening in a Lakota lodge in
The Oregon Trail,
p. 145; he compared the light-filled tepee to a “gigantic lantern,” p. 169, “glowing through the half-transparent covering of raw hides,” p. 101. John Keegan writes of nomadism in
Fields of Battle:
“The nomad regards himself as a superior being, because he enjoys the greatest of all human endowments, personal freedom and detachment from material borders. Nomadism, anthropologists have concluded, is the happiest of human ways of life; and because of the happiness it brings, those who enjoy it react with ruthless violence against outsiders who seek to limit or redirect it,” pp. 277–78. Wooden Leg talked of the pleasures of “when every man had to be brave” in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
pp. 383–84.

Godfrey wrote of officer’s call on June 22, 1876, in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 135. Gibson’s letter describing Custer’s “queer sort of depression” is in Fougera,
With Custer’s Cavalry,
pp. 266–67. Edgerly also wrote about the scene in his letter to Libbie in Merington, p. 310. In a July 2, 1876, letter to Sheridan, Terry wrote, “I . . . at one time suggested [to Custer] that perhaps it would be well for me to take Gibbon’s cavalry and go with him. To this suggestion he replied that he would . . . prefer his own regiment alone . . . that he had all the force that he could need, and I shared his confidence,” in
The Little Big Horn 1876: The Official Communications, Documents, and Reports,
edited by Lloyd Overfield, pp. 36–37. According to James Willert, “The apparent undermining of his person before Terry angered him in no small degree,”
Little Big Horn Diary,
p. 219. Burkman spoke of Custer’s tendency to overreact in Wagner, p. 143. Benteen described his pointed interchange with Custer in his “Little Big Horn Narrative” in John Carroll’s
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 162. Godfrey wrote of Wallace’s prediction that Custer would be killed in his
Field Diary,
edited by Stewart, p. 9.

On the Seventh Cavalry’s difficulties with the pack train, see John Gray’s “The Pack Train on General George A. Custer’s Last Campaign,” pp. 53–68, and Richard Hardorff’s “Packs, Packers, and Pack Details: Logistics and Custer’s Pack Train,” pp. 225–48. According to Hardorff, “this new mode of transportation was totally ineffective. . . . [T]he implementation of this system could not have come at a more inopportune time,” p. 237. John McGuire told Walter Camp that it was “a great misfortune Gatling guns weren’t taken . . . as the ground was not nearly so rough as had been on Reno’s scout,” folder 73, Camp Papers, BYU. Vern Smalley discusses the pluses and minuses of buckskin clothing in
More Little Bighorn Mysteries,
section 18, pp. 1–3. Kill Eagle attested to the fact that Sitting Bull wore cloth clothing, testifying that “the last time I saw him he was wearing a very dirty cotton shirt,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 55. Charley Reynolds’s description of Custer as “George of the quill and leather breeches” is in a letter from George Bird Grinnell to Walter Camp, reel 1, Camp Papers, BYU. Richard Hardorff in a note in
Lakota Recollections
claims that in addition to the three Custer brothers and brother-in-law James Calhoun, five other officers wore buckskin, p. 67.

Charles Mills in
Harvest of Barren Regrets
writes of the rift between Benteen and his father during the Civil War, p. 19, as well the ongoing feud between Benteen’s two commanding officers during much of the war, p. 65. For a reproduction of an erotic drawing by Benteen, see
Camp Talk,
edited by John Carroll, p. 103. In an Oct. 20, 1891, letter to Goldin, Benteen wrote, “I lost four children in following that brazen trumpet around,” John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 197. Benteen described himself as a “Nihilist sure” in a Mar. 23, 1896, letter to Goldin, John Carroll’s
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 294. Benteen wrote of the pride that kept him from leaving the regiment and of his curious decision to request Custer’s return prior to the Washita campaign in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin, John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
pp. 259, 252. Corroborating Benteen’s claim that he had encouraged Sheridan to bring Custer back is Custer’s letter to Libbie: “even my enemies ask to have me return,” in Frost,
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 174. Benteen described his struggles with the pack train in his narrative of the battle in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
pp. 162–63.

The scouts’ description of Varnum as “Peaked Face” is in Libby, p. 197. Varnum recounted Custer’s words of praise during the Yellowstone campaign of 1873 to T. M. Coughlan in
Varnum: The Last of Custer’s Lieutenants
; Coughlan also wrote that Custer “and some of his young officers had their heads shingled with clippers shortly before leaving Fort Lincoln,” p. 4. Custer’s insistence that Reno had “made the mistake of his life” by not following the Indian trail is also in Coughlan, p. 9. Custer’s letter to Libbie referring to “the valuable time lost” by Reno’s failure to pursue the Indians is in Merington, p. 305. Custer’s claim that a victory over just five lodges of Lakota was sufficient to claim success is in Libby, p. 58. According to Peter Thompson, “all men knew that General Custer, if left to his own devices, would soon end the campaign one way or another. Custer and some of his officers were anxious to witness the opening of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in July 1876,”
Account,
p. 9.

Benteen described how he reorganized the pack train in his narrative in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 163. Thompson described the fall of Barnum the mule in his
Account
, pp. 11–12. In a Feb. 19, 1896, letter to Goldin, Benteen wrote: “The anti-Custer faction—if there was such a faction—were the people in the regiment that had all of the hard duty to perform and who did it nobly, because they loved their country and the ‘Service,’ ” John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 273. Cooke’s Arikara name of “the Handsome Man” was listed in Mark Kellogg’s notebook in Sandy Barnard’s
I Go with Custer,
p. 207. Benteen told of Cooke’s defection to the Custer faction in a Feb. 17, 1896, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 269. Benteen describes his interactions with Cooke and Custer about the pack train in his narrative in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
pp. 177–78.

My description of the regiment’s march up the Rosebud Valley is based in part on my own observations while following Custer’s trail in June 2007. Varnum’s description of the valley as “one continuous village” is from a May 5, 1909, letter from Varnum to Walter Camp in Richard Hardorff’s
On the Little Bighorn with Walter Camp,
p. 71. Burkman describes his interchange with Custer while riding along the Rosebud in Wagner, pp. 144–45. According to John Gray in
Centennial Campaign,
“Custer seems to have misinterpreted the signs to mean that the village was breaking up and fleeing,” p. 338. Varnum told of Custer’s order “to see that no trail led
out
of the one we were following” in
Custer’s Chief of Scouts,
edited by John Carroll, p. 60.

Godfrey wrote of the regiment’s activities at the location of Sitting Bull’s sun dance in his
Field Diary,
edited by Stewart, pp. 9–10, and in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
pp. 135–36. The article in which Daniel Kanipe described the wickiups as “brush sheds” as well as how Sergeant Finley placed the scalp in his saddle-bag is in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 248. Wooden Leg told of how the young warriors stayed in wickiups instead of lodges in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 210. The various signs left by the Lakota and Cheyenne are described in Libby, pp. 78–79. According to the Arikara scout Soldier, they found “a stone with two bulls drawn on it. On one bull was drawn a bullet and on the other a lance. The two bulls were charging toward each other. Custer asked Bloody Knife to translate it and Bloody Knife said it meant a hard battle would occur if an enemy came that way,” Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 187. Red Star’s comment that Custer had “a heart like an Indian” is in Libby, p. 77. Custer’s participation in the ceremony in Medicine Arrow’s lodge is described by Grinnell in
The Fighting Cheyennes,
p. 264; by John Stands in Timber in
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 82; and by Custer himself in
My Life on the Plains,
pp. 357–58. Charles Windolph in
I Fought with Custer
writes, “[S]eems to me that Indians must have put some curse . . . on the white men who first touched their sacred Black Hills. . . . Custer got a lot of notoriety from his Black Hills Expedition. . . . But he never had any luck after that,” p. 43. In a note in
Indian Views of the Custer Fight,
Richard Hardorff describes Custer’s flag as “a large, swallow-tailed guidon, divided into a red and blue field, with white crossed sabers in the center,” p. 55. Godfrey told how the wind repeatedly knocked down Custer’s flag in his
Field Diary,
edited by Stewart, pp. 8–9, and in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
pp. 135–36.

Wooden Leg speaks of the how the report of large numbers of antelope caused the village to move down the Little Bighorn in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 204. General Scott recorded that some Crow Indians had told him that the term Greasy Grass came from “a kind of grass growing up near the headwaters of [the river] that bore a kind of greasy pod or berry. After a horse had eaten a little while his jaws and nuzzle would be thickly smeared with a greasy substance,” in folder 52, Camp Papers, BYU. According to Ernie LaPointe in part 2 of
The Authorized Biography of Sitting Bull,
the term relates to the muddy slickness of the grass after a rain. Wooden Leg described the formation of Sitting Bull’s village on the Little Bighorn in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 206; see also Richard Fox’s “West River History: The Indian Village on the Little Bighorn River,” pp. 139–65. One Bull described how he and his uncle climbed to the top of the hills overlooking the river in box 104, folder 18, WCC. Robert Utley wrote of the Battle of Killdeer Mountain in
The Lance and the Shield,
pp. 55–57. White Bull described the battle in box 105, notebook 24, WCC.

The interpreter Billy Garnett’s account of how the Lakota believed “that the first white man came out of the water” and their use of the warning “Wamunitu!” are recorded in the typescript of the Walter Camp Papers, BYU, p. 652. In
The Oregon Trail,
Parkman wrote how after they’d wiped out a Dakota war party, the Snakes “became alarmed, dreading the resentment of the Dakota,” p. 85. Sitting Bull’s “Dream Cry” is in “25 Songs by Sitting Bull,” box 104, folder 18, WCC. One Bull also told of Sitting Bull’s “Dream Cry” on the night before the Little Bighorn, box 104, folder 18, WCC. Utley described Sitting Bull’s appeal to Wakan Tanka in
The Lance and the Shield,
p. 144. Wooden Leg told of the dance on the night of June 24, 1876, in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 215.

Chapter 8:
The Crow’s Nest

Benteen wrote two narratives of the battle, both in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
where he speaks of his greeting by Keogh, pp. 165, 179. Brian Pohanka writes of Keogh’s life in Italy and the Civil War in “Myles Keogh from the Vatican to the Little Big Horn,” pp. 15–24; Pohanka cites Captain Theo Allen’s remark about Keogh’s spotless and tight-fitting uniform, p. 20; Pohanka also cites Keogh’s comments to his sister about the need for “a certain lack of sensitiveness,” p. 22, and Libbie’s description of Keogh as “hopelessly boozy,” p. 22. Edgerly’s letter to his wife in which he mentions Custer’s handling of Keogh prior to the battle is in E. C. Bailly’s “Echoes from Custer’s Last Fight,” p. 172. Benteen’s July 25, 1876, letter to his wife in which he relates his “queer dream of Col. Keogh” is in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 150. Ronald Nichols provides a synopsis of DeRudio’s career prior to joining the U.S. cavalry in
Men with Custer,
p. 83. Benteen’s account of the conversation prior to officer’s call is in his narrative, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 165. Godfrey in “Custer’s Last Battle” describes officer’s call in the dark as well as Custer’s original battle plan, in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth
, p. 136. Varnum in
Custer’s Chief of Scouts
wrote of the Crows’ hope of seeing the village as the morning “camp fires started,” p. 61. John Finerty wrote of a night march in
War-Path and Bivouac,
pp. 241–42. Godfrey described losing his bearings when the dust cloud wafted away in “Custer’s Last Battle,” p. 136. Lee Irwin writes of the “below powers” and how “outstanding topographical features” provided the setting for Native visions in
The Dream Seekers,
p. 37.