Custer and Crockett

by Gregory Urbach

  “Bad luck for us. We might have gotten out of this scrape with him in command,” Baugh said, trudging back down the long dirt ramp.

  From Crockett’s expression, he didn’t seem to believe it.

  Sunday, March 6th, 1836. The pre-dawn hours of the Alamo. Crockett is standing at the wooden palisade connecting the chapel and the low barracks. There is smoke on the cloudy horizon, men are shouting, and the flash of musket fire is everywhere. A cannon booms. Dressed in hunting leathers, Crockett turns, his face smudged with powder. Blood drips from a bullet graze on his forehead. I can feel the desperation.

  “Behind us! Behind us!” Crockett shouts, seeing a new danger.

  The thick morning darkness is lit by occasional rockets. Several of the outer lying buildings have caught fire, giving off a hellish glow. The north wall, the fort’s weakest position, has fallen. A handful of defenders fall back across the courtyard, followed by a horde of bloodthirsty Mexican soldiers.

  Crockett fires his long rifle and starts to reload, but sees there is no time. The enemy is on them with such speed that there is little to do but fight or fly. He raises the rifle to swing at an approaching soldier, a captain in full uniform wielding a sword. Some of Crockett’s men turn to help. Others jump over the palisade to take their chances on the black prairie. I see Miciagh fall, a lance driven through his back.

  Crockett backs up against the Alamo chapel, swinging his rifle. The enemy captain takes a blow and falls, replaced by two privates. The rifle butt breaks off. Crockett throws the broken barrel and draws a knife, but too late. A glistening bayonet flickers from the encircling masses of enemies and stabs him in the chest. Crockett swings the knife at empty air and sinks to the ground, his coonskin cap falling next to him. The cap he only wore for public appearances. Boots trample past his dying body as the soldiers storm into the chapel. Cannon fire from the apse. The screams of frightened women. The grunts of fighting men giving no quarter and asking none.

  “No, it didn’t happen that way!” Crockett shouted.

  We were back at the campfire. In the hills of California. Crockett was sweating, his composure rattled. I had never seen the old woodsman with such an expression.

  “Take it easy, David. It’s only a hallucination,” I assured him.

  “I survived the Alamo. We survived it. I didn’t die under the boots of a tyrant,” Crockett said.

  “We’re safe and sound,” I said, feeling his distress.

  But then, Crockett was really just a civilian, attached to the army for a short time as a militia scout twenty years before. He could not be expected to face death with a soldier’s resolve.

  “That was the other path,” Slow said. “The path that led to the destruction of my people.

  “Didn’t rightly do nothin’ fer me, neither,” Crockett added, reaching for a jug of corn whisky and taking a swig. He offered the jug to me, but I declined.

  “I don’t see the point of all this,” I said, starting to get up.

  “The vision is not over,” Slow said.

  He was once again a boy, but he looked older. Burdened by the task. He chanted, gazing into the red flames, and threw a handful of the strange herbs into the fire. I caught my breath as a puff of smoke engulfed us.

  There was no cloud this time. No fog. None of the niceties afforded Crockett. I was suddenly riding Vic down a dust-filled coulee, E Company ahead, F Company behind me. It was insufferably hot, the horses exhausted, and my mind was in a haze, for I had barely slept in several days.

  “We need a report from Reno,” Tom said.

  More tired than I, Tom was riding at my side wearing his white broad-brimmed hat and fringed buckskin jacket. Cooke, Hughes, Butler, Voss, and my young nephew, Autie Reed, were all close by. We were in a hurry.

  The drainage channel abruptly turned northwest. I halted the command in a grassy swale, five companies of Seventh Cavalry anxious for a fight. Steep ridges rose to our left. To the right, sloping hills and scattered trees. Behind us was the fifteen-mile trail to the Crow’s Nest where I’d been unable to see the hostile village. It had taken us three days of forced marches to reach the top of the Wolf Mountains, and most of another to reach the Little Big Horn River.

  “Cooke, send another messenger to Benteen. I want him up here on the double with all the ammunition he can carry,” I ordered.

  Cooke scribbled a message in his notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to a young trumpeter. I looked back along the trail and saw my younger brother, Boston Custer, hightailing towards us on a fresh mount. He had a big smile.

  “Reno’s giving them hell,” Boston said.

  “Have you seen Benteen?” Tom asked.

  “Just a couple miles behind me,” Boston reported with a salute. Though as a civilian forager, he should not have been using military protocols.

  “Gen’ral! Gen’ral!” Mitch Bouyer shouted, riding down from one of the tall rocky peaks with a young Crow scout at his side. I think his name was Curley. “Gen’ral, Reno’s retreatin’ into the woods. Gots a thousand In’dins closing in on him.”

  “He’ll form the anvil. We are the hammer,” I said.

  “Autie, shouldn’t we be falling back?” Tom asked.

  Tom was no coward. Far from it. But he wasn’t the general, either.

  “With the warriors pulled toward Reno, the village is vulnerable. We’ll capture the noncombatants,” I said, turning to my men and shouting, “Harrah, boys! We’ve got them. We’ll finish them up and go home to our station.”

  I saw the trumpeter ride out with Cooke’s note, a young Italian boy assigned to H Company. Benteen would be along with three more companies in fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most. That would give me a striking force of three hundred and fifty.

  “Does this draw lead down to a ford?” I asked Bouyer.

  “Yes, sir. In’dins call it Medicine Tail,” the crusty scout answered.

  Bouyer had been loaned to me by Gibbon, and though a bit insubordinate, had proved reliable.

  “Yates, take E and F down to the river. Make some noise to draw the hostiles off Reno. If Benteen’s not up in the next few minutes, we’ll meet you on the next ridge,” I instructed.

  As Yates disappeared down the coulee toward a tree-lined ford, I led the remaining three companies up a steep trail to the next ridge. It wasn’t the best position, not large enough to maneuver, but I was finally able to get a good view of the river bottom. The village was in chaos, as I hoped, but our angle of attack was poor. With Captain Keogh at my side leading Company I, we crossed a wide gully to the next hill, skirmished with a handful of Indians at a distance, and then moved north again to a good position at the southern end of a long spiny ridge.

  “Give Yates a hand,” I ordered Lieutenant Jimmy Calhoun, my brother-in-law and commander of Company L.

  Calhoun’s forty men spread along the edge of the hill in skirmish formation, providing covering fire as Yates’ wing moved up a draw to rejoin the command. The fight at the river had been brief.

  I paused to study the village through the Austrian binoculars I’d borrowed from Lt. DeRudio that morning. As I expected, the big encampment was beginning to empty, and it was big. Bigger than any I’d ever seen. I doubted Deadwood City was so large. The women and children were being herded by the old men away from the teepees, some to the western slopes, but most north toward a heavily wooded bend in the river. There were only a few warriors present, some in the river bottom, a few crossing over into the hills on our left. Not enough to worry about. Once my command was reunited, I quickly issued the necessary orders.

  “Keogh, you will hold this hill with companies I, C and L. Keep the trail open for Benteen. Yates, you’re with me.”

  I gave Vic a kick, using no spurs. The poor old warhorse was tired, as we all were, but he’d never let me down. We rode briefly along the top of the ridge, then veered down to the right, riding below the crest so the warriors beyond the river couldn’t see us. Though a sharp eye would see the dust kicked
up by our passage, most of the Indians were occupied with other problems.

  We came around the edge of the hill. The terrain gently sloped down to the river on our left, mostly open space. Like much of the Montana range, the trees grew thickest along the rivers and creeks, the hills being scrub brush and buffalo grass. On the far side of the river, flocks of women and children were fleeing north. Bluffs prevented me from seeing the extent of their flight, but I could hear the dogs barking.

  “Forward,” I said, pointing toward the big bend in the river.

  I rode with F Company, along with Yates, Bouyer, and the reporter, Mark Kellogg, who was riding a feisty mule. Tom rode with his good friend Algernon Smith, who had command of the Gray Horse troop on our left flank.

  “Stay close, boys,” I said to Boston and Autie, for we might take some fire as we got close to the river. Both were well-armed and restless to prove themselves.

  The path down to the Little Big Horn was a cavalryman’s dream, steady and unbroken. We reached a good ford, lightly defended, and I tried to count the noncombatants. At the Washita in 1868, there had only been a few score, plus a handful that were killed by skirmishers before I put a stop to it. Now there were hundreds. Maybe even a thousand. I could not capture them with the eighty men close at hand. I needed Keogh, and I needed Benteen.

  “That’s a lot of Indians,” Tom said, cocking his Winchester.

  “It’s the best way to end this fight,” I said. “Remember what I wrote in My Life on the Plains?”

  “You write lots of things,” Tom said.

  “The knowledge that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, operates as a powerful argument in favor of peace,” I proudly quoted, for my book was a bestseller. Or soon would be.

  “They aren’t looking very peaceful, Autie,” Tom said.

  “We need to make the warriors back off, Tommy. There are too many to shoot,” I replied.

  And that was the truth. The reservation reports had led us to believe that only eight hundred warriors were on the loose, but now I was guessing their numbers at twice that. Not that I was terribly surprised. I knew the Indian agents to be liars and thieves. They were paid by the head for each Indian remaining in their care, and paid nothing for Indians that had left the reservation. Testifying before Congress against those scoundrels had almost cost me my career, for President Grant’s brother was one of the crooks.

  “Back to the hill,” I said, turning Vic around.

  There had been some skirmishing at the ford, but not much. A dozen braves would not stop a charge by the Seventh Cavalry.

  The long slope back to the ridge was still empty except for a few Indians who retreated eastward. I deployed Company E along the western slope overlooking the river and took Company F to an area near the top where I could keep an eye on the village. The ground was thick with sagebrush and June flowers.

  “We’ve got them, Tom. Got them exactly where I want them,” I said with great optimism. “This is when all the training, all the effort pays off. Every newspaper in the country will be singing our praises. And Grant can choke on his own arrogance.”

  I glanced south. Keogh’s wing was at the far end of the ridge, holding the trail open for Benteen. Sporadic carbine fire could be heard, for they were only three-quarters of a mile away. Benteen may even have arrived by now, joining with Keogh and coming forward at a trot. As my command waited on the grassy hillside, the alkaline dust subsided and I took off my rawhide jacket, tying it to Vic’s saddlebags. Most of the men were in shirtsleeves, their broad hats protecting their eyes from the glaring sun. It was late afternoon now, about 4 o’clock by the reckoning of my late father-in-law’s pocket watch. By nightfall the village would be in hand, the noncombatants secured, and the warriors on their way back to the reservations.

  I had Corporal Henry Voss, my regimental bugler, issue Officer’s Call. Tom and Lieutenant Cooke from by staff were already with me. Captain George Yates, Lieutenant Smith, Dr. Lord, 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Crittenden, and 2nd Lieutenant Harry Harrington arrived within minutes.

  “Sturgis?” I asked.

  “I think we lost him at the Medicine Tail crossing,” Yates belatedly said.

  This was not good news. 2nd Lieutenant James Sturgis was the son of Sam Sturgis, the official colonel of the Seventh Cavalry. My immediate superior. Twenty-two years old and fresh out of West Point, this was going to be James’ first battle. Apparently it was his last battle. Going home without any Indians, and young Sturgis dead, was not an option if I hoped for another promotion.

  “What happened to Kellogg?” Cooke asked, noticing the reporter was missing. As was his mule.

  “Haven’t seen him since we scouted the ford,” Boston said. “Should I go look for him?”

  “He’ll turn up,” I said.

  I waited on the hill for nearly twenty minutes, impatient for the moment we could attack. Indians began to approach the fords and wade across. Just a few, at first, and then by the dozens. They seemed to disappear into the tall grass at the foot of the hill.

  I ordered Company E back to a line between the hilltop and a deep gully on our left. Smith was a doing a fine job of directing fire, which was slow and controlled. Yates pushed Company F to the left for better contact on Keogh’s position, but kept a few to cover our rear. Tom was back and forth all over the field, making sure the ammunition held out and the men were staying calm. No Plains Indians had ever charged a prepared skirmish line over open ground, and the Northern Cheyenne weren’t going to do so now.

  “We’ve used half of our .45/70s,” Tom reported. “We’ll be down to pistol shot in another twenty minutes. Autie, I think we should retreat. There was good ground about four miles back along the ridge.”

  “That would be surrender, Tom,” I protested. “The defeat of the Seventh. Satisfaction for Grant. No, we can still win this.”

  “Can I shift the wing south?” Tom asked, not really listening.

  “Tell Keogh to come up. We’ll strike the village with what we have,” I decided. “Damn Benteen. Damn that insolent back-stabbing scoundrel.”

  Tom went to deliver the message himself, riding his Kentucky thoroughbred Athena along the top of the ridge to the cheers of the men. Tom doffed his hat.

  “Autie, the damn Indians are encroaching on our rear,” Captain Yates said, sweating from the heat. “They’re swinging down around the hill and infiltrating our flank. We need to recall E Company.”

  I glanced to the top of the hill. Good observation, but exposed from every side. I didn’t like it, yet we needed to solidify our defense. I nodded approval to Georgie and he dashed off to reorganize our skirmish line. We had served together since 1863 and he’d never let me down. Annie and the kids would be proud of him.

  I heard a sudden explosion of volley fire on the left, down where I knew Jimmy Calhoun’s position to be. It must be Benteen, thirty minutes late but finally arriving. It would take ten more minutes for his three companies to cross from the coulee to join Keogh, and another ten minutes to reunite with the command. The valley was filling with Indians. It was going to be close.

  “Smith, get the men mounted for a charge,” I ordered. “Yates, follow close on Company E to the ford. The moment Keogh and Benteen come up, we will attack.”

  I got up on Vic, the noblest warhorse in the regiment, and rode to the top of the hill, noticing scores of Indians on the eastern ridges, but all at a respectful distance. More were gathering down to my right at the ford. They would run quick enough with cavalry bearing down on them.

  With a few minutes to spare, I reflected on the great events that had brought me to this battlefield. Though last in my class at West Point, I had become the youngest Union general at 23. I had turned back Jeb Stuart at Gettysburg, saving Meade’s army from certain defeat, and become a brevet major general by war’s end. I had not only captured the first Confederate battle flag at New Bridge, but personally accepted Lee’s flag of surrender at
Appomattox Courthouse. Or, at least, his offer to parley. After this battle, I would return home to Libbie, rebuild my fortune, and if Grant still delayed my promotion to full colonel, maybe I would run for Congress. It’s a wonderful thing to be blessed by Custer’s Luck.

  “Gen’ral, we got trouble,” Bouyer shouted, out of breath. “Keogh. It’s Keogh.”

  I looked back along the ridge where huge dust clouds swirled around the southern end. Then Tom rode up, his face gaunt and filled with desperation. I had never imagined him with such a look.

  Tom reined in and slipped from his saddle. I immediately noticed a bullet hole through Athena’s side, though the brave horse was still responding to Tom’s instructions. The horse loved him as much as he loved her. Then I saw Tom’s left leg soaked in blood. He’d been shot through the knee, the bones shattered.

  “Tom!” I shouted, rushing to support him.

  “It’s bad, Autie. Real bad,” he said.

  “You’ll be okay,” I said. “Lord! Lord, get over here!”

  “It’s not about me,” Tom said in great pain. “C Company attempted to drive some Sioux back. Got caught in a crossfire. Winchesters and Henrys. When they retreated, the Indians followed. Hundreds. Maybe a thousand. They overran L Company, then fell on Keogh. Jimmy’s dead, Autie. So is Myles. They’re all dead.”

  I looked south. A few stragglers were emerging from the dust, protected by Company F’s covering fire. Some had horses, most didn’t. It was a beaten rabble, not an army.

  My God, I thought.

  “Form a line around this hill. If any of the horses are wounded, shoot them for cover,” I told Yates. “Dr. Lord, get my brother up the hill. We’ll hold out until help arrives. Butler! Butler, where are you?”

  “Here, General,” Sergeant Butler reported.

  “Jimmy, you’re our last hope. Ride to Reno. Tell him to bring the entire command forward on the double.”

  “Yes, sir,” Butler said, jumping on his horse and riding down the ridge without a second thought. A good man, tough and reliable. I hoped he’d make it through, for his sake if not ours.