Reno only stared dully at Gerard, whom he had fired at Fort Lincoln, then looked across the river and down the valley. A moment later he yelled, “Forward!”60 and the three companies cleared the fringe of timber onto the prairie, where the men dismounted briefly to tighten their girths and prepare for battle before swinging back into their saddles. Reno re-formed the command in column of fours, with A and M companies in the front and G in reserve in the rear. As the men formed in line, someone said, “There goes Custer,” and sure enough, there he was on the hills to the right, moving at a fast trot.61
Gerard recrossed the river and headed back up the creek after Cooke to deliver the news.62
RENO’S DEPARTURE with a quarter of the regiment had left Custer with 220 men, give or take a trooper — five seriously understrength companies, to be sure, but not unusual in this army. More serious was the battalion’s thin officer corps. Though each company was authorized three officers, none of them had more than two. Making things even worse, several officers had been assigned to companies other than their own in an attempt to cover the paltry distribution. Incredibly, one company, C, was led by a Second Lieutenant, Henry Harrington, who had no combat experience. (The troop’s assigned Captain, Tom Custer, was riding with his brother as aide-de-camp.) F Company was led by Second Lieutenant William Van Wyck Reily, who had been in the army less than eight months and had only recently mastered the fundamentals of horsemanship, much less cavalry tactics in a combat situation. (The troop’s veteran Captain, George Yates, was leading a wing.)
Captain Myles Keogh led I Troop and had been given command of Custer’s other wing, but another young and untested Second Lieutenant, James Porter, assisted him. Porter’s wife had just given birth to their second child in March, and he had requested a transfer to the general staff for a more settled life. Since his graduation from the Point in 1869 and his marriage to his wife, Eliza, later that year, the couple had moved fourteen times. His request had been endorsed by several senior officers but was still going through channels when the expedition had left Fort Lincoln.63
It was similar all down the line. First Lieutenant Jimmi Calhoun, commanding L Company instead of his own C, was a veteran of the Civil War and the skirmishes with the Sioux on the Yellowstone. His only subaltern was Second Lieutenant John Crittenden, the frail young infantry officer with only one good eye. First Lieutenant Algernon Smith, another experienced Indian fighter, led E Troop instead of his own A. His junior officer was Second Lieutenant James “Jack” Sturgis, the son of the regiment’s nominal commander, Colonel Samuel Sturgis. Young Jack had been with the regiment since the previous October, after graduating from West Point just months earlier.
Just as worrisome was the shortage of noncommissioned officers, the veteran soldiers who interacted with the enlisted men much more than the officers and knew their strengths and weaknesses — and provided bedrock confidence in battle. To a large degree, each troop’s day-to-day activities were handled by the First Sergeant and his duty Sergeants and Corporals. In point of fact, they ran the company.64 Of the thirty Sergeants authorized to the five companies, fully half were absent, either with the pack train or on detached duty.
Despite these serious shortcomings, Custer remained confident. The men with him were overwhelmingly veterans — only 15 percent of them had less than a year’s military experience, and none had been with the regiment less than six months. Virtually every troop commander with him was a friend and admirer. Each one of them, and a few of the junior officers, wore a buckskin jacket like the General’s, though most had by now stripped down to their wide-collared “fireman’s shirts.”65 They were men he could count on to do what was needed, do whatever he asked of them. Though few of his troopers or officers could claim any Indian-fighting experience, Custer still expected them to acquit themselves proudly when the time came. He had often boasted that his regiment could whip and defeat every Indian on the plains,66 and if his scouts were correct in their claims of the large number of Indians ahead, today he could make that brag fact.
From the bluffs ahead, Boyer and the four Crows could see some lodges downstream that indicated the large village they had expected. Boyer reported them to Custer.67 Varnum had noted much the same thing to the General before he had left with Reno.68 That meant the main camp was downstream as well, apparently all on the west side of the river, and the Indians Reno was chasing were not the majority, but a smaller group moving in that direction. Benteen was blocking the Indians’ escape south, and Terry and Gibbon were somewhere downstream to the north. With any luck — Custer’s luck, which had never failed the General before — the massive village was still intact and vulnerable. The battalion continued at a trot down the lodgepole trail toward the valley of the Little Bighorn.
Some twenty minutes later, Keogh and then Cooke came galloping back with the news from Gerard. Reno had followed the hostiles across a well-used ford about a mile away.69 But the enemy was not retreating; instead the Indians were riding up the valley to meet him. Custer was never one to follow another man’s charge, and he decided to implement an age-old cavalry maneuver that he had used time and again in the war and on the plains: hit the enemy’s flank while the main attack occupied his front. Since he had not specifically told Reno that he would follow him across the river, this new plan called for a messenger to be sent to inform the Major of the change. Whether he believed Reno would understand once he saw the battalion on the bluffs, or whether he reasoned that he would reach the scene sooner than a rider could overtake Reno, Custer sent no courier.70 He turned right and led his five companies north, following another trail of lodgepole tracks out of the ravine and over the rolling hills.71 A few minutes later, he stopped to water the horses. The early-afternoon heat was stifling, and the General pulled off his buckskin coat and tied it behind his saddle.72 He warned his men not to let the horses drink too much — they had a lot of traveling and a lot of fighting to do that day.73
Sergeant Daniel Kanipe of C Troop, a tall, twenty-three-year-old farm boy from North Carolina, noticed between fifty and seventy-five Indians on a higher hill to the north. When Custer was told, he ordered the command up the slope at a fast trot. The battalion followed him, the five companies in column of twos and riding abreast — ten men across and twenty men deep.74
AFTER DELIVERING THE news of the hostiles’ offensive movement to Cooke, Gerard headed back to the river. Before he got there, he passed a trooper — Private Archibald McIlhargey, Reno’s striker, the owner of a fast horse75 — riding back along the trail with much the same message from Reno to Custer: the Major now had the enemy to his front and in strength. When Gerard reached the Little Bighorn, he could see Reno’s battalion moving at a fast walk down the valley between the winding, tree-lined river flanked by high bluffs on the right and low plateau hills almost a mile to the left, where large pony herds were visible.76 He splashed across the stream and galloped after the command, on the way passing yet another courier, Reno’s cook, Private John Mitchell, bearing a similar message from Reno to Custer.
Gerard caught up to Reynolds, Herendeen, Dr. Porter, and some of the Arikara scouts behind the battalion on the left. The command’s trot soon became a slow gallop.77 The ground before them was flat and open, dotted with sagebrush, and the grass had been cropped by Indian ponies and trampled to dirt by their hooves. M and A companies rode in line of battle spread across the valley, with G Company in their rear, toward about fifty hostiles up ahead and a large cloud of dust about two miles beyond — all they could see of the small village they had been ordered to pursue. Once or twice, the troopers saw Custer’s battalion on the bluffs across the river, moving downstream. Some of the men began to cheer and wave their hats, but Reno, now in the rear of A Company, shouted, “Stop that noise!” Then he yelled “Charge!” At least one A Company trooper heard the order slurred and glanced back to see the Major drinking from a half-full flask and passing it to Benny Hodgson.78
One hundred and fifty men rode down the valley of t
he Little Bighorn.79
III
ATTACK
TWELVE
The Charge
When you run from an Indian you are his meat.
R. J. SMYTH, FRONTIERSMAN
By the time Custer’s battalion had reached the high ridge where one of his men had earlier sighted fifty or so Indians, the enemy had vanished. But there were plenty of other things to notice.
Below, nestled along the other side of the river and stretching for almost two miles downstream, was the largest gathering of Indians that Custer had ever seen. The bluffs and the trees, and a thick cloud of dust, hid some of it, but most of the village’s thousand-odd lodges were visible. The camp was in a frenzy as women and children rode and ran north, while hundreds of warriors rushed to find their horses in the herds to the west and north. Those already mounted galloped in circles and back and forth before the village to stir up dust and shield the fleeing families.
Almost directly across the river, Reno’s command could be seen galloping down the valley, approaching a large wooded bend of the river, beyond which the village lay. Custer’s troops began to yell at the sight of the camp and their charging comrades, and some of the horses caught the excitement and bolted ahead of the General.
During the war, Custer had often made light of a grim situation to inspire the men behind him.1 Here was just such an opportunity. He yelled, “Boys, hold your horses — there are plenty of them down there for us all.”2
There was no sign of other villages, as at the Washita; all of the Indians seemed to be encamped in one place. But Custer had almost lost his supply train at the Washita, and he wanted to safeguard against that. They needed all the troops and the pack train up now, he told Cooke. The adjutant turned to Tom Custer and asked for a courier.
Tom motioned forward one of his Sergeants. Daniel Kanipe trotted up.
“Go back to McDougall,” Tom told him. “Tell McDougall to hurry the pack train straight across the country to Custer and if any of the packs get loose, cut them and let them go — do not stop to tighten them.” As Kanipe headed his horse around, Tom added, “And if you see Benteen, tell him to come on quick — a big Indian camp.”3 The view from the bluffs made it clear that there were no other camps to the south within supporting distance, so the fight was in front of them. Benteen’s men were needed here.
Kanipe saluted, then turned his horse south. He was disappointed; he would miss all the action. But he rode quickly along the back trail until he saw a dust cloud over to the left. It could only be Benteen or the pack train. He spurred his horse across the hills in that direction.
CHARLES VARNUM, LUTHER Hare, and the scouts preceded Reno’s battalion down the valley. After they had gone about a mile, they could see a great many horses ahead of them. Up on the left, near the foothills, a few young Sioux herders led a large group of ponies toward the village.4 More than a few horses straggled behind. The Arikaras on the left made for these and began herding a great number of them back toward the river. They had not gone far before mounted Sioux thundered down the valley to cut them off. The Arikaras released part of their quarry, which the Sioux slowed to recover, and the scouts made the ford safely.5 Another group of Arikaras spied a herd of about two hundred ponies downriver beyond the bluffs and gave chase, cutting some of them out of the pack. They exchanged their worn-out mounts for fresh ones, then headed back into the hills. Before they left, they overtook several Sioux women, perhaps ten, and killed them in a ravine on the east side of the river.6
Not all of the Arikaras split off to gather horses as Custer had wanted. Some of them, perhaps as many as ten, elected to stick with the soldiers and battle their blood enemies, though their duties as scouts did not usually include line fighting.7 Another eleven of them never even made it across the river. Their smaller ponies had to work harder to keep up with the army mounts, and some of them played out, stranding their riders.
About a mile down the valley, Reno ordered G Company to move up to his right flank. By this time, the command was moving at a gallop in line of battle across the valley: M on the left, then A, then G along the timber. Ahead was an expanse of open prairie and about fifty Indians — the same ones they had been chasing for more than half an hour — galloping to and fro, back and forth, raising a massive cloud of dust, behind which little could be seen. Beyond them in the distance were other Indians, and the closer the soldiers approached, the more Indians they could see. There was still no support from Custer, though many men riding with Reno had seen his command on the bluffs on the east side of the river, a ways behind them. Reno, in command and likely inebriated to some extent,8 was becoming increasingly anxious.
The next mile brought another problem. Several hundred yards ahead was a shallow ditch that had once been part of the river’s course but was now a dry ravine about five feet deep and ten feet wide. Indians could be seen pouring out of it. If the command continued at a gallop, every horseman would hurtle into the ravine, experienced and inexperienced alike, and would likely be thrown off his mount. Discipline and momentum would be completely lost, and they would be extremely vulnerable to enemy attacks.9
As the battalion neared a timbered bend of the river that looped almost halfway across the valley, a somewhat clearer view of the village emerged, at least from the left side of the line. This was no sleeping camp of fifty-one lodges, like the one on the Washita that the Seventh Cavalry had charged and taken within minutes. The heavy dust still obscured the village’s full dimensions, as did the wooded bend, but now Reno could see that there were at least four hundred tepees in several large circles, and riding forth in increasing numbers were hundreds of painted, screaming warriors, most of them naked save for a small breechcloth.10 Though Custer had accomplished the rare feat of surprising a large Indian village at midday, the Sioux and Cheyennes were quickly mobilizing to defend their families.
Plains Indians could be surprisingly lackadaisical when it came to guarding their camps, and an effective attack could be achieved if a village could be closely approached before charging. Such was the case on another hot Sunday afternoon, in July 1869, at the Battle of Summit Springs in Colorado. There Major Eugene Carr and 300 men of the Fifth Cavalry, supplemented by a battalion of Pawnee scouts, had charged into a sleeping camp of 500 Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and routed them. In the process, they had killed the Cheyennes’ leader, Tall Bull, and fifty-one others. Army casualties had amounted to a scratch to one trooper’s cheek. In another attack near the headwaters of the north fork of the Red River in Texas, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie in September 1872 had led five companies of the Fourth Cavalry against a Comanche village of 262 lodges — at 4:00 p.m. Thirty-two Comanches had been killed and 124 captured, with the loss of only 4 troopers.11
This day would not see a charge the likes of those. Another cavalry officer with more dash, more experience, or more confidence and faith in his CO might have continued into the village, regardless of the odds. But Marcus Reno had never demonstrated much élan, during the Civil War or after.
Custer had shared no overall strategy with Reno, nor told him exactly what he planned to do. If his experience fighting Plains Indians had been greater, the Major might have known that the surest method of panicking them was a headlong, disciplined charge into their village. By this time, Reno also might have surmised his commander’s ploy, since Custer and his battalion had been sighted riding downstream on the other side of the river. One of the most common cavalry tactics was a pincer movement — striking an enemy from two directions at the same time. The Seventh had employed it successfully on the Washita, albeit against a much smaller gathering.
Perhaps the Major assessed the situation properly and decided that a charge into a camp this large by three depleted companies was suicidal. Or perhaps Reno’s liquid courage had lost its effect. Custer had ordered the Major after an escaping camp of Indians, not a large standing village, and had promised to support him. Now the situation had changed dramatically. If the General had decided on a new
plan, he was obligated to tell Reno. No courier had arrived with a message of any change in plans. At any rate, and for whatever reason, he called out, “Battalion halt — prepare to fight on foot — dismount.”12 His adjutant, Benny Hodgson, relayed the order to G Company on the extreme right.13 It was not quite 3:30 p.m.
The troopers reined in their horses and began to dismount a half mile or so from the nearest tepees.14 A few uncontrollable M Troop horses continued to gallop down the valley toward the hostile lines about a thousand yards distant, despite their inexperienced riders’ frenzied attempts to stop. Two Privates, James Turley and George Smith, galloped straight ahead and into the dust cloud. They were never seen again. Another Private, Roman Rutten, managed to steer his steed in a wide circle right through the timber to safety, while a fourth rode straight into the Indians and somehow shot his way out.
The rest of the command dismounted smoothly enough and assumed skirmish intervals — though the nervous troopers made the standard five-yard distance between them closer to five feet in most cases.15 After a ten-man detail from M Company had canvassed the woods for Indians, every fourth trooper16 took his comrades’ horses (each linked to the next by its “skirmish link,” the snap ring on the bridle strap) and led them behind the line into the timber along the river, just below the large wooded loop. Orderlies with their own horses and those of their officers accompanied the horse holders.
Left on the thin blue line were less than a hundred troopers stretched out across 250 yards of prairie, halfway to the hills on the left. These soldiers now walked down the valley, shooting feverishly at hundreds of Indians, some of them as close as five or six hundred yards away, within range of their breechloading Springfields.17 After they paced forward a hundred yards, the order came to stop. The soldiers promptly kneeled or lay prone on the ground, some of them using the mounds of a prairie dog town as breastworks. The officers walked behind them, cautioning them to stay cool and fire low, though most of the troopers managed neither. Beyond this cursory advice, little fire control was exercised, partly because the officers were too busy admiring their own marksmanship. Captain Thomas French, the thickset Irish immigrant’s son with a high-pitched voice and excellent aim, called attention to an Indian he knocked from his horse with his Long Tom infantry rifle. After eight or ten rounds, a few of the troopers’ carbines developed cartridge extraction problems, common to the Springfield (the extractor would tear into the soft copper shells), leaving the men to use knives to laboriously pry the empty shells out of the chambers.18
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