The Real Custer (57 page)

A sense of the final scene on Battle Ridge may ironically have been captured by Frederick Benteen's imagined description of the end of Major Elliott and his men at Washita:

            
Who can describe the feeling of that brave band, as with anxious beating hearts, they strained their yearning eyes in the direction whence help should come? What must have been the despair that, when all hopes of succor died out, nerved their stout arms to do and die? Round and round rush the red fiends, smaller and smaller shrinks the circle, but the aim of that devoted, gallant knot of heroes is steadier than ever, and the death howl of the murderous redskin is more frequent. But on they come in masses grim, with glittering lance and one long, loud, exulting whoop, as if the gates of hell had opened and loosed the whole infernal host. A well-directed volley from their trusty carbines makes some of the miscreants reel and fall, but their death-rattles are drowned in the greater din. Soon every voice in that little band is still as death.
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Custer made the best of his defense. Edward J. McClernand, who was with Gibbon's command, believed “the position [Custer took] was the best obtainable; the line he established on the ridge, running from this position towards the river, showed more care taken in deploying and placing the men than, in my opinion, was shown on any other part of the field.”
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General Nelson A. Miles, who conducted a detailed survey of the battle site in 1878 accompanied by twenty-five prominent Sioux and Cheyenne warriors who fought there, concluded that “no man of military knowledge in riding over this field now, and examining the
position that Custer quickly took upon that crest commanding the valley, could fail to recognize the military ability of that commander; and those graves remain as monuments to the fortitude of men who stood their ground.”
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“This is a good day to die, follow me!” Low Dog said as his braves galloped toward Custer's men.
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The soldiers faced an improvised assault as each band arrived on different parts of the field. Sioux and Cheyenne warriors crossed downriver and came up a ravine, striking from the north and east, against F and I Companies (Yates and Keogh). E Company (Smith) faced a direct attack up from the river led by Cheyenne leader Lame White Man, who was later killed by friendly fire. Hunkpapa Chief Gall and Two Moons with his Cheyenne came up from the south, hitting C and L Companies (Harrington and Calhoun). Two Moons probably would not even have been there had his band not been turned back by Crook's attack on March 17. His profile later became well known; sculptor James Fraser chose him as one of the models for the obverse side of the famous Buffalo Nickel.

The Last Stand was not a close-in affair until the end. Some Indians used the terrain to conceal themselves, firing rifles and arrows from cover. Others rode about firing from horseback. Two Moons said his men made several charges on the troops on Calhoun Hill but were repulsed by heavy fire—perhaps the volleys the men on Reno Hill heard. “Then the shooting was quick, quick,” he recalled. “Pop—pop—pop very fast. Some of the soldiers were down on their knees, some standing. Officers all in front. The smoke was like a great cloud, and everywhere the Sioux went the dust rose like smoke. We circled all around them—swirling like water round a stone. We shoot, we ride fast, we shoot again. Soldiers drop, and horses fall on them.”
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“Among the bluffs there were numerous evidences of a desperate defense against overwhelming numbers,” according to a contemporary newspaper account, “and indications of repeated defeats of attempts to
reach the river or to break through the encircling savages.”
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Some say that part of the battle was over quickly—“about as long as it takes a hungry man to eat a meal,” according to one Indian participant. Others say it lasted longer, but it could not have lasted more than an hour and a half.

Questions remain about how organized the defense was and how well each company fought. Contemporary battlefield archaeology suggests that the soldiers on Calhoun Hill mounted the more coherent defense, though one hundred years of souvenir hunting around Last Stand Hill probably removed a great deal of the spent cartridge evidence on that flank.
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Gall and Two Moons said the southern flank broke first, though this may have been Calhoun pulling back in good order to assist Keogh. Custer wound up in the cluster of men on the north end of the field, but we don't know where he was or how he was managing his defense before the end. And many Indian accounts agree that Last Stand Hill was aptly named, since, as Lone Bear said, “There was a good stand made.”
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Indians told Nelson Miles in 1878 that “the fight was kept up until all the troops were killed or disabled except about forty men on the extreme right of the line” who “as a last resort, suddenly rose and made a rush toward the timber skirting the bank of the Little Big Horn.”
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But none of them made it. Some troopers were found in ones and twos some distance from the defensive line, maybe slipping out through gaps in the heat of battle or galloping off on their horses before being hunted down and slain.

The Indians almost universally agreed after the battle that had the “squaw” Reno come down the ridge quickly to Custer's aid, they would have had trouble. Urgent action might have saved the day. “At a smart trot or gallop, as a cavalryman goes into action, fifteen minutes would have brought the whole command into the engagement,” General Miles
concluded after his study, “and the result might have been entirely different.”
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As Little Bighorn veteran William Taylor put it, “Reno proved incompetent and Benteen showed his indifference—I will not use the uglier words that have often been in my mind. Both failed Custer and he had to fight it out alone.”

Benteen may have thought matters were somewhat in hand, at least at first. Sometime after 3:00 p.m., when he was five or six miles from the village, he encountered Sergeant Kanipe, who was on his mission from Custer to urge McDougall and the pack team up. As Kanipe rode off, he said to Benteen's men, “We've got 'em, boys, we've got 'em.” Fifteen to twenty minutes later, Benteen received the now famous final message from Custer, borne by John Martin: “Benteen. Come on. Big village. Be quick. Bring packs. P[S] Bring pacs [
sic
].” Benteen had not seen any Indians, none in force anyway, and Martin told him that those in the village were “skedaddling.” Benteen had a low opinion of Martin, “a thick headed, dull witted Italian, just about as much cut out for a cavalryman as he was for a King.”
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But Custer had said to be quick, and there was the sound of heavy gunfire in the distance. Captain Weir, a Custer favorite, counseled they ride hard to the sound of the guns. Benteen hesitated, so Weir and Company D rode off. Benteen then followed, not waiting for the pack train.

Benteen moved along the ridgeline and soon came across Reno's men struggling up the hill from the river, under fire. “I saw an immense number of Indians on the plain, mounted of course and charging down on some dismounted men of Reno's command,” Benteen wrote his wife. “[T]he balance of R's command were mounted, and flying for dear life to the bluffs on the same side of river that I was. I then marched my 3 Co's. to them and a more delighted lot of folks you never saw.”
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Benteen's men helped drive off the Indians who, at the sight of reinforcements, broke off the attack. Some swung north to move toward the sounds of battle raging over four miles down the ridge.

“Where is Custer?” Benteen asked. Reno said he did not know. Custer and his men were miles away across rolling terrain, somewhere in the direction of the dust cloud raised by the hundreds if not thousands of Indians moving on his command from every side. Reno was immobilized; he had lost his nerve and his judgment. Some men wanted to get in the fight, saying, “Our command ought to be doing something or Custer would be after Reno with a sharp stick.” They heard volley fire around 4:25 p.m., and someone said Custer was “giving it to them for all he is worth,” but Godfrey probably correctly interpreted the unified fire as a distress signal.
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Captain Weir and Reno argued sharply, then Weir took the initiative and moved his company north down the ridge, heading for Custer's position. But they had already lost precious time.

Weir rode about a mile and a half to the heights above Medicine Tail Coulee, about three miles from Calhoun Hill. Far off through the swirling dust, he saw horsemen riding and the distinctive swallowtail stars and stripes guidons of the 7th Cavalry.

“That is Custer over there!” he shouted, and ordered the company to make ready to ride to battle. A sergeant, standing next to Weir, stayed him.

“Here Captain,” he said, “you had better take a look through the glasses.” He handed Weir the binoculars. “I think those are Indians.” On the distant ridge, mounted Indians rode in circles, waving the guidons, shooting down at the ground, dispatching the wounded.

Benteen had set off after Weir about twenty minutes later “with Guidons flying,” as he wrote, “that Custer might see us.” Instead he was spotted by an “immense body of Indians coming to attack us from both sides of the river.”
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Benteen and Weir hurried back to the hill they had come from, turning back Reno, who had finally followed about forty minutes after Benteen. The six companies formed a defensive ring with the horses and mules in the middle, the men digging in with their camp
knives and tin cups. Warriors soon came riding and running over the hills in waves to finish off the soldiers.

“The Indians commenced to swarm around us like devils,” Captain Francis M. Gibson of Benteen's battalion recalled, “thousands of them, all with modern rifles, while we were using old carbines, so we were immediately put on the defensive.”
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The men fought into the evening and through the night, holding off repeated Indian attacks. Indians crept so close they could throw rocks.

Reno was the senior officer present, but Benteen was in command, walking among the men, exhorting them to fight, and leading sallies outside the perimeter. “Benteen is one of the bravest men I ever saw in a fight,” scout George Herendon recalled. “All the time he was going about through the bullets, encouraging the soldiers to stand up to their work and not let the Indians whip them; he went among the horses and pack mules and drove out the men who were skulking there, compelling them to go into the line and do their duty. He never sheltered his own person once during the battle, and I do not see how he escaped being killed.”
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By contrast, during the night Reno suggested that everyone who could should make a run for it on horses, and those wounded who could not ride be left behind.
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Some men left the line, not fleeing, but making the hazardous journey hundreds of yards to a bend in the river to fetch water. Twenty-four Medals of Honor were awarded for actions during the battle, and many citations simply read “Brought water for the wounded under a most galling fire.” Private Peter Thompson of Company C, shot in the head and wounded on one such trip, made two more, “notwithstanding remonstrances of his sergeant.” Otto Voit, a saddler with Company H, volunteered with three others to stand up in an exposed position and open fire on the enemy to divert attention from water teams making the trip in daylight.

And there were other acts of bravery, such as when Sergeant Richard P. Hanley of C Company took off after a stampeded mule loaded with critical ammunition and somehow brought it back under sustained fire lasting twenty minutes. Another trooper decided to send a message to the enemy; when a group rushed the line he “killed and scalped an Indian in plain view of the others,” Dr. Porter recalled. “This frightened them, and they kept a safe distance away after that.”
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“The sun was blazing hot” the next day, one Reno Hill defender recalled, “the dead horses were sickening, the air heavy with a hundred smells, the bullets thick, the men falling, and the bluffs for miles around black with the jubilant savages.”
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The fight continued until 1:00 p.m. the afternoon of June 26, when the Indians broke contact. “I did not want to kill any more men,” Sitting Bull explained. “I did not like that kind of work. I only defended my camp. When we had killed enough, that was all that was necessary.”
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Chief Red Horse gave a more credible answer. “A Sioux man came and said many walking soldiers were coming near. The coming of the walking soldiers was the saving of the soldiers on the hill. Sioux can not fight the walking soldiers, being afraid of them, so the Sioux hurriedly left.”
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