by Andy Conway
A hundred in the hand. This account of a winkte offering warriors a number of opponents to fight, and being repeatedly sent back for more, is borrowed from an account of a battle ten years earlier. The Fetterman Fight, also known as the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands, was a battle during Red Cloud’s War on December 21, 1866, between the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians and soldiers of the United States Army. All 81 men under the command of Captain William J. Fetterman were killed by the Indians. This story of the winkte ceremony was told to George Bird Grinnell in 1914 by the Cheyenne White Elk, who took part in the Fetterman Fight. The account is in The Fighting Cheyennes by George Bird Grinnell (University of Oklahoma Press, 1983) and is referenced in Powers. I have borrowed it for my fictional character Little Star.
The Greasy Grass. Little Bighorn is a literal translation of the Crow name for this river. The Lakota call it the Greasy Grass.
Suicide Boys. Much of our information regarding the Suicide Boys comes from Cheyenne Memories: Second Edition by John Stands In Timber (Yale University Press; 2nd Revised edition, 1998). There is a useful account of this at the Friends Of The Little Bighorn Battlefield website. I’m grateful to Lorna Thackaray’s article Warriors’ Act Kept Secret For Decades, which provided much of the information I cite in my fictional account.
Song of the night. An account of Sitting Bull’s prayer on the hill overlooking the Little Bighorn is given in Philbrick, chapter 7 and is referenced entirely from an account given by One Bull (box 104, folder 18, WCC) It is tempting to imagine that this hill was Last Stand Hill, and I’ve been unable to resist that temptation in my fictional account.
Gall’s wives and children murdered. Among the first to fall at Little Bighorn were Gall’s two wives and three children, who were among the six women and four children murdered by the Arikara scouts, who had been sent ahead by Custer to scare away the Lakota horse herd. Here came to a head the lifelong grudge between Gall and Bloody Knife, ending with Bloody Knife’s head shot off as he talked with Major Reno, who was leading this assault on the southern part of the camp. It is highly unlikely that Gall was the one who shot Bloody Knife, for he was scouting the north-eastern slopes of the river to reconnoitre Custer’s forces at this moment. It was Gall’s immediate assessment of the two-pronged attack on the village that gave the Indians the vital intelligence they needed to overwhelm Custer’s forces. (This account of Gall’s movements is in Micheno, Gregory F, Lakota Noon, The Native Narrative of Custer’s Defeat, Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1997, p. 78).
However, the myth is strong, and several contemporary accounts have it that it was Gall that shot Bloody Knife. This is as much based on assumption as eyewitness testimony. According to Bloody Knife’s sister (who lived with the Hunkpapa and was present in the camp), her daughters had found his body on the battlefield, and unaware that it was the body of their uncle, cut off his head and took it to the Hunkpapa village where it was displayed on a pole. (see Hardorff, Richard G. (2005). Indian Views of the Custer Fight: A Source Book. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 89.) According to David Humphreys Miller, an interviewer who talked with many of the participants and witnesses from the battle, she cried out: “Gall has killed him at last!”
Three horses carried on charging. This account of the soldiers who lost control of their horses and rode into the camp is in Philbrick. Private Roman Rutten was the soldier who survived by pulling his horse into an arc. Rutten’s horse apparently circled his battalion three times as the battle commenced. “Rutten saved himself, but two others were carried into the village and never seen again.”
Thechihila. [New Lakota Dictionary Online.] I love you.
Moving Robe Woman. One of several Lakota women who fought in the battle. Like Gall’s wives, she had been digging for turnips when the village was attacked and ran to her tipi where she learned her ten-year-old brother Deeds had been murdered by Crow scouts (Her father, Crawler, and his son Deeds were the first to see the army approaching and were chased for hours back to camp and Deeds killed.) Moving Robe Woman wept, braided her hair, painted her face red, and set off to get her revenge. Her account is the main inspiration for Bright Star Falling’s reaction to Little Star’s death.
Buffalo hunt. Almost every account of Reno’s retreat describes it as a buffalo hunt, the soldiers fleeing in disorganized fashion like a ‘panicked herd’, while the Indians flitted among them and picked them off with ease.
The officer in the red bandana. This is Major Reno, who led the ill-fated first attack on the village and during the ignominious retreat gave confusing orders to his men to unmount and mount again, apparently suffering battle fatigue.
They wait and watch their soldiers fighting over there. A much debated topic in historians’ attempts to make sense of Custer’s actions. While many point to brave Custer being let down by Reno’s cowardice, most contemporary accounts and all reliable battlefield reconstructions point to the fact that Custer did nothing while Reno’s attack was repelled and his force routed. Sitting Bull’s account of the battle makes it clear he thought these two forces were the same, so long was the gap between Reno’s retreat and Custer’s appearance. Philbrick writes, “Custer, the officer of seemingly perpetual motion, had paused — possibly for as long as forty-five minutes — at the most crucial stage of the battle.”
The surviving Crow scouts who were with Custer testified to photographer and ethnographer Edward Curtis that Custer had waited till Reno’s battalion was in retreat and he had the entire Indian village to himself before he moved, despite the entreaties of scout White Man Runs Him to assist.
Oglala braves chased down Medicine Tail Coulee. This is possibly apocryphal. Some Indian accounts of the battle state that in the encounter with Custer’s forces at the ford, the company that rode down, were in fact chasing a group of braves who were returning from a hunt and had no idea the camp was under attack. However, it appears there were two confrontations at two different fords, and it is likely that the Indians being chased were crossing at ‘Ford D’ further north up river, after Custer had sought to cross the Little Bighorn further north, following this unsuccessful attempt to cross at ‘Ford B’. At this point, Custer had sent Yates down Medicine Tail Coulee, while he observed from Butler Ridge. Seeing as there is still confusion over the two ford crossings, I have decided to conflate the events and have Katherine witness both the chasing of the Oglala braves across the river and the attempted Ford B crossing that was successfully repelled by White Cow Bull and a handful of Cheyenne braves.
Custer shot at Miniconjou Ford. Dismissed by most historians, largely due to the brass bullet shells found by Custer’s body on Last Stand Hill (which would indicate he was alive and fighting to the very end) there are several Indian accounts of the battle that point to Custer being shot before the battle had begun. White Cow Bull’s own account is even backed up by Pretty Shield of the Crow, who says, “The monument that white men have set up to mark the spot where Son Of The Morning Star [Custer] fell down, is a lie. He fell in the water.”
Bruce Brown’s research into the question of who killed Custer makes great use of White Cow Bull’s testimony regarding the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The problem is that most historians dismiss White Cow Bull’s version of events because they don’t tally with other details. (There is also an in-built prejudice among historians to favour white accounts over Indian accounts, which are deemed to be less reliable.)
If Bruce Brown’s referencing is to be believed, White Cow Bull’s account of Custer’s men charging down Medicine Tail Coulee to the banks of the Little Bighorn is supported by White Man Runs Him, Curley, Pretty Shield, Bobtailed Horse, White Shield, Sitting Bull, Horned Horse, He Dog, Foolish Elk, Peter Thompson, John Martin and an Anonymous Sixth Infantry Sergeant.
White Cow Bull also says Custer and his men were pursuing a small band of Indians when they reached the river, which is backed up by Foolish Elk and George Bird Grinnell.
His claim that a couple of 7th Cavalry troopers we
re shot out of the saddle and fell in the river is backed up by Curley, Horned Horse, Pretty Shield, Soldier Wolf, Elk Head and Thomas LaForge.
If his account is true, it points to White Cow Bull shooting Custer long before the famed ‘last stand’.
It is possible that both accounts can be reconciled. Custer might have received the bullet below his heart at the ford, a fatal wound that sent his command into retreat and disarray. By the time they were surrounded on Last Stand Hill, Custer might well have been alive enough to be shooting those brass cartridge shells from his revolver, until the very end, when he might have received the coup de grace of a bullet through his left temple. This interpretation relies on that first bullet not being instantly fatal.
A sudden volley of gunfire. This is from Captain Keogh’s company on Nye-Cartwright Ridge, who are observing Custer’s retreat from Butler Ridge and firing on Indians approaching from the south. Those Indians appear to have been crossing the river in great numbers following the Reno retreat and attacking Keogh’s company from the south.
Stirring Gravy. An old Lakota phrase for close hand-to-hand fighting. Much of this chapter deals with the major part of the Little Bighorn battle, which Custer takes little to no part in. The chapter deals with the attacks on Keogh and Calhoun’s forces of the right wing and runs from Greasy Grass Ridge, up Calhoun Ridge to Calhoun Hill, and along Battle Ridge and the eastern side of it where the right wing was finally routed, but for 20 survivors who fled to Last Stand Hill.
The soldiers charged. At approx. 5.05pm, Captain Keogh sends Second Lieutenant Henry Moore Harrington’s Company C out to charge at Indians forcing them to retreat to Greasy Grass Ridge. This is only momentarily successful. But the cavalry forces have now ‘broken range’. Up until this point in the battle, the cavalry had fought long range, but now they had allowed the Indians to get close. This ‘profoundly changed the course of the battle’ (CusterApollo).
The Indian counter-attack quickly smashed C Company, resulting in four deaths, and forced it to retreat to Calhoun Ridge, where it was smashed again, with another seven fatalities. As they fled up Calhoun Ridge, another eight men fell.
Naked Cheyenne warrior. This was Lame White Man, 34 at the time of the battle, who had been in a sweat lodge when the attack happened and had rushed straight into battle without dressing.
Short Cheyenne warrior. This was Yellow Nose, who lived with the Cheyenne but was an Ute by birth, captured with his mother when he was four years old.
Suicide Boys attack. This is variously described as either totally devastating or ineffective, with varying accounts of how many of the Suicide Boys died. It is the only real attack on Custer’s left wing during this part of the battle. Whether in truth it was devastating or not, I have opted for the version that Katherine would find most risible. My fictitious account sees them riding through Custer’s left wing with barely a murmur, then blindly continuing to Battle Ridge and smashing into the soldiers who were fleeing from Crazy Horse’s much more effective charge through the remnants of the right wing.
Crazy Horse’s charge. Spoken of with wonder by all who witnessed it, Crazy Horse’s bravery run is regarded as the real turning point in the battle. If he had not smashed through the right wing, it is quite possible they would have mustered a siege-like defence that might have held the Indians at bay, much like Benteen’s successful siege that followed.
The Hungry Man’s Meal. From the very first accounts of the battle, there is dispute that there ever was anything resembling a ‘last stand’ — more of a running panic, a rout, a disorganized retreat that was surrounded and wiped out, as Gall testified, “in the time it takes a hungry man to eat a meal’. This quote has always seemed to belie the very notion of an heroic last stand.
David Humphreys Miller, who interviewed Lakota survivors of the battle, puts Custer’s fight as lasting a mere 35 minutes. Custer’s Fall, the Indian Side of the Story (University of Nebraska Press, 1985 (reprint of 1957 edition).
Estimates of the battle generally agree that it began at 3.30 with Reno’s attack, and ended at 5.55 with the deaths of everyone on Last Stand Hill (this conveniently ignores the 38 hours that Benteen and Reno held out, which are as much a part of the Battle of the Little Bighorn as anything else).
But if we ignore the Reno attack and the Benteen/Reno siege, the part of the battle we can call Custer’s can be said to have begun at roughly 4pm, which gives us two hours. However, for most of those two hours Custer is trying to find a way across the river with the left wing, leaving the right wing to fight the actual battle.
Keogh and Calhoun’s right wing engage the Indians at 4.18 and are routed an hour and fifteen minutes later at 5.35, during which time Custer does little but scout for fords and then watches from Cemetery Ridge, suffering only the Suicide Boys’ charge at 5.25pm. After that, he moves his companies up to Last Stand Hill at 5.30 and sees that the right wing is totally destroyed, with only 20 survivors racing towards him.
At 5.35pm the Indians begin their assault on Last Stand Hill. It is all over at 5.55pm.
This puts Custer’s part of the battle as lasting a mere 20 minutes.
Time enough for even the hungriest of men.
Farewell to the Squawman. This account of what happened to Custer’s body following the battle is widely reported, but there are a few tantalizing details which have allowed me to propose a very specific interpretation. Most historians agree that following the battle Custer’s body was stripped bare, but did not suffer the mutilations of many of the rest of the command. Most agree on the account of a pair of Lakota women, who urged others not to mutilate his body because he was a relative of theirs. They administered the only mutilation reported officially: taking a sewing awl and pricking his eardrums so that he might hear better in the Spirit Land.
This account comes from Cheyenne youth Dives Backwards, who does not identify the women. Philbrook also cites Kate Bighead as a source for the story. But White Cow Bull’s story of the same encounter is more detailed, for it is he who attempts to mutilate Custer’s body, by cutting off his trigger finger (he claims he did not know it was Custer). He is scared off by Monahsetah and her aunt, Mahwissa, who are there with Yellow Tail, the son that was rumoured to have been sired by Custer. This makes sense of both accounts, seeing as Monahsetah is the only person in the camp who could reasonably make the claim to have been related to Custer. So, White Cow Bull is interrupted by Monahsetah, the Cheyenne princess he’s in love with, and watches her standing over the dead body of the man who kidnapped, raped her and gave her a son. She fends off others who want to mutilate his body, but her aunt sticks the sewing awl in his ears, that he might hear better in the Spirit Land. All of this makes sense.
There was, however, one further mutilation of Custer’s body that was not widely reported, out of respect for his widow, Libbie Custer. Either at that moment or later, someone shoved an arrow down the dead Major’s penis.
With Monahsetah witnessed in close proximity at the time, and seeing as this is a highly specific mutilation that might appeal more to a rape victim than, say, a warrior, I’ve concluded that it can only have been Monahsetah who lodged the arrow, and for the very specific reason I have stated at the end of this chapter.
The Last Stand. A perhaps controversial title for this chapter, which deals with the aftermath of what is widely considered to be the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
However, once Custer was dead, the massed Indian forces turned their attention to Reno and Benteen’s forces to the east. While these men are traditionally painted as the cowards of the battle — the men who left Custer to fight alone — the fact remains they defended their hill for the following 24 hours and held their ground till the great camp disbanded and retreated.
If there was any ‘last stand’ that day, then surely it was by these men?
“Come down here you white livered son of a bitch, and I’ll cut your heart out and drink your blood.” From Philbrook. Accounts by soldiers swear they heard this sh
outed to them in English from the Indian side, and it was rumoured that there were renegade whites, or ‘squawmen’, fighting with the Indians that day. I have chosen to give these words to Katherine.
Ashland. Lodgepole. Whitewater. While I have given these place names for the route of Sitting Bull’s flight to Canada, the exact route is, in fact, unknown and, unlike Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce flight to Canada, very little has been written about this. What we do know is that immediately following the battle the Indian camp travelled southerly from the Little Bighorn to the Bighorn Mountains, after which the seven camps divided and the Hunkpapa apparently set out on their long journey north. But the route from the Bighorn Mountains to Wood Mountain, Canada is a distance of only 350 miles as the crow flies, so it is inconceivable that the Hunkpapa set out on June 28th 1876 and did not arrive until 5 May 1877, even allowing for numerous camps and hunting expeditions along the way.
The place names I have chosen, merely for their symbolic properties, suggest a long, slow arcing manoeuvre in a north-westerly direction veering north-east to cross the border, but, of course, it is only conjecture on my part.
Eating the Ponies. This account of Red Shirt visiting Sitting Bull’s fleeing band of Hunkpapa is entirely fictional.
Fight no more forever. This quote comes from Chief George of the Nez Perce and is from his famous speech of surrender.
Death of Crazy Horse. Katherine’s vision of this event follows the account in Powers, Thomas (2010). The Killing of Crazy Horse. New York: Knopf. pp. 415–416, drawn from sixteen eyewitness sources.
Death of Sitting Bull. The similarities between the deaths of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are startling. Both Lakota leaders had surrendered and pledged to live in peace on reservations, but were murdered in botched arrests. It was paranoia over the Ghost Dance movement in 1890 that led James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Agency, to prevent Sitting Bull fleeing the reservation with the Ghost Dancers. On December 14, 1890, McLaughlin ordered Indian agency policeman, Lt. Henry Bullhead, to arrest Sitting Bull at dawn on December 15. The account in Katherine’s vision follows that in Powers. The messy fight left eight policemen dead, including Lt. Bullhead, with Sitting Bull and seven of his supporters killed.