The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (60 page)

My account of the Battle of the Washita is based on the following sources: Richard Hardorff’s excellent compilation of primary source material in
Washita Memories;
Custer’s
My Life on the Plains;
Godfrey’s “Some Reminiscences, Including the Washita Battle, November 27, 1868”; Jerome Greene’s
Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1876–9;
Stan Hoig’s
The Battle of the Washita;
and Charles Brill’s
Conquest of the Southern Plains
. Greene in
Washita
refers to the campaign as “experimental,” p. 86; Custer’s description of setting out in the blizzard is from
My Life on the Plains,
pp. 215–16. Hardorff in
Washita Memories
has a useful note describing the “coloring of the horses,” p. 177, a process Custer describes in
My Life,
p. 208; Benteen’s complaints about Custer’s actions are in the annotations he left on his own copy of Custer’s book, cited by Hardorff in a note,
Washita Memories,
p. 177. Benteen wrote of how Elliott had been “peppering” Custer in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 253. The doctor who examined Benteen in 1888 wrote that he “has had attacks of neuralgia of the head (beginning in the eyes) ever since his eyes were affected in 1868—a campaign on the snow . . . he blackened the eyelids above and below, with powder moistened with saliva. The glare affected the vision of the horses and men,” in John Carroll’s introduction to Karol Asay’s
Gray Head and Long Hair: The Benteen-Custer Relationship,
p. v.

John Ryan wrote of the crunch of the horses’ hooves and how the men warmed the horses’ bits at night, in
Ten Years with Custer,
edited by Sandy Barnard, pp. 75, 72. Brewster’s comparison of the regiment to a snake winding up the valley is in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 159. Dennis Lynch told Walter Camp how Custer and Tom strangled one of Custer’s dogs with a lariat; William Stair claimed Custer tied a dog’s head up in a woman’s apron in an attempt to quiet it; in Walter Camp’s Field Notes, folder 75, BYU. Ryan described the black dog getting a picket pin through the skull in Barnard,
Ten Years,
p. 74. Ben Clark related how Custer summarily dismissed an officer’s fears that there might be too many Indians, in James Foley’s “Walter Camp and Ben Clark,” p. 20. Custer described the “rollicking notes” of “Garry Owen” in
My Life,
p. 240. Ben Clark was beside Custer as he charged into the village; see his interview with Walter Camp, cited in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 225. Custer described Benteen’s encounter with the young Cheyenne warrior in
My Life,
pp. 241–42. Benteen wrote of how he “broke up the village” in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 252; he wrote of how he taught Custer to respect him at the Washita in a Jan. 11, 1896, letter, p. 238.

Godfrey told of discovering the much larger village to the east and his conversation with Custer about Elliott in “Some Reminiscences,” pp. 493, 495–96. The Cheyenne Moving Behind, who was a young girl during the battle, remembered how the injured ponies “would moan loudly, just like human beings,” in Theodore Ediger and Vinnie Hoffman’s “Some Reminiscences of the Battle of the Washita,” p. 139. Dennis Lynch told of how the wounded ponies ate all the grass within their reach in Walter Camp Field Notes, folder 75, BYU. Benteen described the “steam-like volume of smoke” that rolled up from the burning tepees in the letter that was published in a St. Louis newspaper, in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 178. Charles Brill interviewed the scout Ben Clark, who claimed that after taking Black Kettle’s village, Custer planned on attacking the much larger village to the east. Clark’s account of convincing Custer that this “would be little less than suicide” is in Brill’s
Conquest of the Southern Plains,
pp. 174–79. Custer recounted how he attempted to do what the enemy neither “expects nor desires you to do” in his feint toward the larger village in
My Life,
p. 249; Godfrey wrote that the band played “Ain’t I Glad to Get Out of the Wilderness” as the regiment marched toward the village, in “Some Reminiscences,” p. 497. Ryan described the use of captives as human shields in Barnard,
Ten Years,
p. 77. On Clark’s and Custer’s versions of events, see Elmo Watson’s “Sidelights on the Washita Fight,” especially p. 59, in which he speaks of Custer’s “delirium of victory.”

Godfrey described Elliott’s determination to go “for a brevet or a coffin,” in “Some Reminiscences,” p. 493; Benteen admitted that Elliott had ventured from the regiment on “his own hook” in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 252. Benteen wrote to Barry of his certainty that Custer would one day be “scooped,” in
The D. F. Barry Correspondence at the Custer Battlefield,
edited by John Carroll, p. 48. According to Walter Camp, “Custer’s tactics for charging an Indian camp Benteen did not approve of,” in Hardorff,
On the Little Bighorn with Walter Camp,
pp. 232–33; Camp also wrote of how Indians “had to be grabbed,” p. 188. Godfrey wrote of the need for surprise when attacking Indians in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 137. Benteen’s obsession with the Major Elliott affair is made clear in his Oct. 11, 1894, letter to Goldin: “Now, as ever, I want to get at who was to blame for not finding it out then,” in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 229. The description of the “sixteen naked corpses” was in the Jan. 4, 1869,
New York Herald,
in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 259. Benteen’s letter to William DeGresse about the Washita appeared in the Dec. 22, 1868,
St. Louis Democrat
and the Feb. 14, 1869,
New York Times
and is reprinted in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 176. For a synopsis of the evidence concerning the abuse of the Cheyenne captives, including the adage “Indian women rape easy,” see the note in Hardorff,
Washita Memories,
p. 231. See also Jerome Greene’s discussion in
Washita,
p. 169. Benteen makes the claims about Custer and Monahsetah in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 258. Custer employed Monahsetah as a scout from Dec. 7, 1868, to Apr. 17, 1869; sometime in January of 1869 she gave birth to a son. According to Cheyenne oral tradition, she later gave birth to another son who was the product of her relationship with Custer. However, Monahsetah, who was known as Sally Ann among the officers of the Seventh, may also have had relations with Custer’s brother Tom. The son she gave birth to in January was jokingly known as Tom among the officers of the Seventh. For a more sympathetic view of the Custer-Monahsetah relationship, see “My Heritage, My Search” by Gail Kelly-Custer, who claims to be a descendant of Yellow Hair, also known as Josiah Custer, the child of Monahsetah and Custer. According to Kate Bighead, the southern Cheyenne women “talked of [Custer] as a fine-looking man.” Bighead added that Monahsetah (also known as Meotzi) “said that Long Hair was her husband, that he promised to come back to her, and that she would wait for him,” in
The Custer Reader,
edited by Paul Hutton, p. 364.

Varnum compared the “peculiar hollow” near the lookout in the Wolf Mountains to the “old Crow Nest at West Point,” in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 60. Thomas Heski writes of how the original Crow’s Nest at West Point was named for the lookout on the masthead of a ship in “ ‘Don’t Let Anything Get Away’—The March of the Seventh Cavalry, June 24–25, 1876: The Sundance Site to the Divide,” p. 23. See also Richard Hardorff’s “Custer’s Trail to the Wolf Mountains.” My descriptions of the two Crow’s Nests—one in southern Montana, the other in New York—are based on my own visits to these areas. My thanks to Major Ray Dillman for his directions to Storm King Mountain (the closest peak in the Hudson River valley to the Crow’s Nest, which as part of a former firing range is now off-limits) and to Jim Court for taking me to the Wolf Mountains at first light of June 25, 2007. The Crow scouts’ description of how “the hills would seem to go down flat” is in Libby, p. 87. Varnum wrote of how the Crows claimed the village was “behind a line of bluffs” and how they described the pony herd as “worms on the grass” in
Custer’s Chief of Scouts,
p. 87. Varnum’s mention of his inflamed eyes is in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
as is his description of “a tremendous village,” p. 60.

Burkman spoke of using buffalo chips as a fire source on the Wolf Mountains in Wagner, p. 147. Theodore Goldin described the exhaustion of the regiment that morning in a Nov. 8, 1932, letter to Albert Johnson: “[H]ardly had we halted when men threw themselves to the ground and slept, while horses with heaving sides and drooping heads, stood just where their riders left the saddles,” in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 39. Benteen described his breakfast of “hardtack and trimmings” in his narrative of the battle, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 166. Burkman told of how Custer lay down under a bush and immediately fell asleep in Wagner, p. 148. Peter Thompson wrote of “how poor and gaunt” the horses were becoming in his
Account,
p. 13. William Carter in
The U.S. Cavalry Horse
writes of how much a horse was typically fed, p. 377. Godfrey described the use of a carbine socket, in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 346.

Red Star told of how he turned his horse “zig-zag” to indicate that he’d seen the enemy; he also recounted how Custer told Bloody Knife about Tom’s supposed fear, in Libby, pp. 89–90. My account of how Tom Custer won two Medals of Honor is based on Jeffrey Wert’s
Custer,
pp. 219–20, and Thom Hatch’s
Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
pp. 56–58. Custer’s immense respect for Tom is reflected in his comment to some friends while on the East Coast in the spring of 1876: “To prove to you how I value and admire my brother as a soldier, I think he should be the general and I the captain,” in Libbie Custer’s
Boots and Saddles,
p. 193. Fred Gerard witnessed Custer and Bloody Knife’s testy exchange the night after leaving the
Far West,
when Custer ordered Gerard to tell the scout, “I shall fight the Indians wherever I find them!” in Frances Holley’s
Once Their Home,
p. 263. William Jackson recounted Bloody Knife’s prediction that he would not “see the set of tomorrow’s sun” in James Schultz’s
William Jackson Indian Scout,
pp. 129–30. William Taylor in
With Custer on the Little Big Horn
wrote of how Custer rode bareback through the column after receiving Varnum’s message, p. 33; the bugler John Martin also described the scene in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 289, as did Benteen in his narrative, in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 180. Godfrey in “Custer’s Last Battle” recounted Custer’s insistence that instead of two or three days, “we’ll get through with them in one day,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 136. Thomas Heski offers a detailed description of the ravine in which the regiment temporarily hid in “ ‘Don’t Let Anything Get Away,’ ” p. 25. Edgerly recounted Cooke’s remarks about how “I would have a chance to bathe my maiden saber” in a letter to his wife, in Bailly’s “Echoes from Custer’s Last Fight,” p. 172.

My account of Crawler and Deeds’ brush with the Seventh in the Wolf Mountains is based on the testimony of Low Dog and Little Soldier, both in Richard Hardorff’s
Indian Views of the Custer Fight: A Source Book,
pp. 63–64, 174. Utley writes of Sitting Bull’s leadership role in the Silent Eaters Society,
Lance and Shield,
p. 101. Varnum in
Custer’s Chief of Scouts
describes the “long lariat” with which Crawler held Deeds’ pony, p. 63. My account of DeSmet’s 1868 peace mission to the Hunkpapa is based on Louis Pfaller’s “The Galpin Journal: Dramatic Record of an Odyssey of Peace,” pp. 4–23, and Utley,
The Lance and the Shield,
pp. 76–81; Pfaller mentions the fact that Sitting Bull continued to wear the crucifix given to him by DeSmet, p. 21. Holy Face Bear recounted Crawler’s statement, “We thought they were Holy Men,” in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 182. Hugh Scott wrote of the Lakota’s interest in peace instead of war, in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 113; see also the statement of Pretty Voice Eagle, who claimed that he and a delegation of Lakota spoke with Custer prior to the Seventh’s departure from Fort Lincoln in May 1876 and “asked him not to fight the Sioux Indians, but to go to them in a friendly way. . . . We begged him to promise us that he would not fight the Sioux. He promised us, and we asked him to raise his hand to God that he would not fight the Sioux, and he raised his hand. . . . After we got through talking, he soon left the agency, and we soon heard that he was fighting the Indians and that he and all his men were killed,” Joseph Dixon,
The Vanishing Race,
pp. 76–77.

In a note, Hardorff writes, “Evidence suggests . . . that [Black Bear and his party] were treated with contempt by the camp police of the Northern bands,” in
Indian Views,
p. 45. Black Bear’s account, in which he refers to how they attempted to camouflage themselves with grass, is in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 203; see also Standing Bear’s account in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 214, and He Dog’s account, in which he says Black Bear “took a look at the soldiers and went toward the agencies,” Camp Papers typescript, p. 291, BYU. White Bull, Brave Wolf, and Hump claimed that Black Bear returned to the camp after seeing the soldiers, in Hardorff,
Indian Views,
pp. 50–51. Varnum described how he and some others went off in pursuit of Crawler and Deeds in
Custer’s Chief of Scouts,
p. 63; he described Black Bear’s party on the ridge as looking “as large as elephants,” p. 88.