The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  Susan Taylor’s comments about Thompson’s fear of water are in the Susan Taylor MS, p. 282; she adds, “Thompson was much concerned with the depth of the river, especially when the water was running fast. He was terrified of water after falling off the boat into the ocean when he immigrated with his parents from Scotland in 1865.” In “Coming to an Understanding,” Michael Wyman and Rocky Boyd look to the testimony of Rain in the Face as possible corroboration of Thompson’s account of his and Watson’s cautious attempt to cross the river: “[A] soldier was detailed to ride down to the river and test the footing and the river’s depth,” Rain in the Face told an interpreter. “He was in the act of doing this when the Indians could not control themselves no longer, and rushed forward,” p. 47. Susan Taylor identified the vegetation surrounding Thompson and Watson’s lair as “buffalo berry bushes. . . . They have little red, sour berries, terrible thorns and silver leaves,” in Susan Taylor MS, p. 304. As Thompson stated in a questionnaire sent to him by Camp, Custer’s fight began about a half hour after Reno’s retreat, in Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 28; this was the same interval independently claimed by both Herendeen and Gerard, who were hiding in the brush to the south of Thompson’s position. The time of 4:25 p.m. for the beginning of Custer’s battle comes from the timeline in John Gray’s Custer’s Last Campaign, p. 368.

  Chapter 13: The Forsaken

  Herendeen told Camp, “This firing down the river consisted of a great many volleys, with scattering shots between the volleys,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 224. Gerard told Camp that he heard “two volleys and straggling shots,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 234. McDougall also heard two volleys (“a dull sound that resounded through the hills”) as he and the pack train marched north toward Reno’s position, in W. A. Graham, RCI, pp. 194–95. Varnum testified that he heard the volleys from Custer’s battalion a few minutes after Benteen’s arrival on Reno Hill and shouted to his friend Wallace: “ ‘Jesus Christ, Wallace, hear that—and that.’ It was not like volley firing but a heavy fire—a sort of crash-crash—I heard it only for a few minutes,” in W. A. Graham , RCI, p. 55; he recounted asking, “What does that mean?” in Custer’s Chief of Scouts, p. 121. Varnum’s frustration and exhaustion were apparent to Edgerly, who testified that he saw Varnum “excited and crying and while telling us about what had occurred, he got mad and commenced firing at the Indians,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 160. McDougall told Camp that he asked Godfrey, “who was deaf,” if he heard firing and he said he did, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 70. Benteen testified, “I heard no volleys,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, 139. William Moran of the Seventh Infantry told Camp that he’d heard “that when Benteen met Reno he asked where Custer was, and when Reno said he did not know, Benteen replied: ‘I wonder if this is to be another Maj. Elliott Affair?’ ” in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 102.

  Benteen’s lack of enthusiasm for going to Custer’s aid was apparent to several members of the regiment. James Rooney claimed that Benteen “went fishing instead of getting to where he was told to go. I saw him with a large straw hat and fishing pole over his shoulder, when he rode up after the ammunition mules got to Reno,” in Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 21. Rooney was clearly mixing several memories (Benteen had fished on the Rosebud on the evening of the twenty-third), but the essence of his memory—that Benteen had taken his time—was certainly justified. According to William Morris of French’s M Company, Benteen arrived at Reno Hill going “as slow as though he were going to a funeral,” in Brady’s Indian Fights and Fighters, p. 404. As far as Reno’s insistence on finding Hodgson’s body, one can only wonder whether Hodgson might have had his own flask of whiskey, and Reno, whose personal supply may have been running low, decided to retrieve it. Godfrey used the battalion’s idle moments on Reno Hill trying to harass the warriors in the valley; holding his carbine at a forty-five-degree angle, he launched a bullet at the group of Indians surrounding Lieutenant McIntosh, probably about a mile away. “The Indians immediately scattered, and the bullet probably struck close to them,” he reported to Camp, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 76. Godfrey recorded Moylan’s claim that Custer had made “the biggest mistake of his life” by dividing the regiment in “Custer’s Last Battle,” W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 141. Sergeant Culbertson overheard Weir ask Moylan whether “Custer gave him any particular orders” when he had served as adjutant, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 127. In the years after the battle, Benteen attempted to rationalize his conduct once he’d rejoined Reno’s battalion. “After getting with Reno,” he wrote to Goldin in a Feb. 10, 1896, letter, “not that I didn’t feel free to act in opposition to Reno’s wishes, and did so act, but then, what more could be done than we did do? Like ostriches, we might have stuck our necks in the sand, only that Custer had galloped away from his reinforcements, and so lost himself,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 246; of course, if Weir had not, in Benteen’s words, “exhibited a very insubordinate spirit,” Benteen and Reno would most likely have remained on the bluff, much like the proverbial ostrich, also in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 217.

  Davern testified that he told Weir that Custer must be fighting the Indians “down in the bottom,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 121. John Fox of D Company recounted the conversation between Weir and Reno and how Moylan and Benteen tried to dissuade Weir from going toward Custer, in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 94. Edgerly recounted how he ended up following Weir with the entire troop, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 55–56. Although some accounts have Benteen heading north before the arrival of the pack train, Captain McDougall saw Benteen and Reno talking when he first arrived: “[A]ll was quiet with Reno and Benteen’s men and one would not have imagined that a battle had been fought. [I]f the Indians had appeared suddenly . . . and attacked they could have annihilated the whole 7 cos.,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 70. Mathey told of how Reno greeted the pack train with a raised bottle of whiskey and said, “I got half bottle yet,” in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 43. McDougall spoke of how Reno “did not appear to regard the seriousness of the situation” and how he (McDougall) said, “I think we ought to be down there with [Custer],” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 70. Benteen recounted how Reno had “his trumpeter sound the ‘Halt’ continuously and assiduously,” in his narrative, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 186.

  Herendeen described how he led his group of frightened troopers to safety, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 225. George Wylie told how Sergeant Flanagan pointed out to Weir that what he thought were troopers were really Native warriors, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 129. Private Edward Pigford described the approaching warriors as being “thick as grasshoppers”; he also claimed to have seen the last stages of Custer’s battle: “[T]he Indians were firing from a big circle, but gradually closed until they seemed to converge into a large black mass on the side hill toward the river and all along the ridge,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 143. Edgerly remembered how Weir “standing on high point signaled that Indians were coming and he [Edgerly] therefore turned back and circled over to left and crossed his track and swung . . . ahead to high ground in front of Weir. . . . French’s troop came up next . . . Godfrey, then Benteen,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 56. Gibson heard Benteen say that Weir Peak was “a hell of a place to fight Indians,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 81. Benteen recorded his impression that the regiment “had bitten off quite as much as we would be able to well chew,” in a Mar. 1, 1892, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 215. Hare said Benteen and Reno conferred “a half mile to the rear of Company D,” and that Benteen said they must fall back, since Weir Peak was a “poor place for defense,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 67. Benteen described his activities at Weir Peak and during the retreat back to Reno Hill in in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 171–72, and in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin, in which he described how French “flunked” his assignment by abandoning his position at Weir Peak too soon and how he (Benteen)
was the one who told Godfrey to cover the battalion’s retreat, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 208–9. McDougall recounted how he told Benteen he’d “better take charge and run the thing,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 71. Peter Thompson recounted how he climbed up the bluff under heavy fire and joined Reno’s battalion in his Account, pp. 29–31. Kanipe told how he greeted Thompson by asking “[W]here in the devil have you been?” as well as Thompson’s reply, in Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 126.

  Edgerly described how he fled from Weir Peak, as well as his promise to the wounded Vincent Charley and how Charley was later found with “a stick rammed down the throat,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 56–57, and in W. A. Graham, RCI, pp. 162–63. Sergeant Harrison’s account of how he assisted Edgerly in mounting his plunging horse is in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 62; Harrison’s military record is in Nichols’s Men with Custer, p. 143. Wylie also recounted the retreat from Weir Peak, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 130. In contrast to the general lack of bravery and compassion displayed during the incident involving the death of Vincent Charley was an occurrence at the Battle of the Rosebud the week before when the Cheyenne warrior Comes in Sight tumbled from his horse in the midst of the fighting. Before he could be killed by the enemy, his sister Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who’d been watching from the sidelines, bravely rode to his rescue and carried him to safety. As a consequence, the Cheyenne called the battle “Where the Girl Saved Her Brother,” in Stands in Timber’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 189.

  Benteen told how Wallace and his handful of men became the “nucleus” of the entrenchment in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 208–9, and in his narrative in the same volume, pp. 171–72. My account of how Godfrey covered the battalion’s retreat is based on his Field Diary, pp. 13–14, on “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 143, and on “Cavalry Fire Discipline,” pp. 252–59. Young Hawk’s account of his actions during the retreat to the entrenchment is in Libby, pp. 100–103. Godfrey recounted how he gradually came to realize his overzealous actions on the firing line were “endangering others” in his Field Diary, edited by Stewart, p. 14. In a Mar. 19, 1896, letter to Goldin, Benteen claimed Godfrey “is rather an obtuse fellow, and like the traditional Englishman, it takes him a good while to see the nub of a joke,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 289. Hanley’s account of how he retrieved the mule Barnum is in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 127. Private John McGuire told Camp that he had assisted Hanley in the capture of the mule and that when Hanley received his Medal of Honor, he confided, “McGuire, you deserve a medal as much as I do, if not more, for you were wounded and I was not,” in a footnote in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 82. Ryan told how he and French and some others finally killed the Indian sharpshooter, in Barnard’s Ten Years with Custer, p. 298; according to Ryan, French “cut a notch in the stock” of his rifle every time he killed an Indian. Varnum told of the “one ring of smoke” coming from the surrounding warriors and how the warriors “would sit back on their horses” during a charge, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 57. McDougall described the hills as being “black with Indians looking on,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 71. Slaper’s account of how French sat tailor-style “while bullets were coming from front and both sides” is in Brininstool, p. 55. William Taylor claimed it was his idea to build the barricades in With Custer, pp. 51–52. Benteen testified that after firing ceased on the night of June 25, Reno “was up on the hill where my company was stationed . . . and recommended that I build breastworks. I was pretty tired, and I had an idea that there wasn’t much necessity for building breastworks; I had an idea that the Indians would leave us [italics in original newspaper story],” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 324. In his defense, Benteen claimed that he “sent down for spades to carry out his instructions, and could get none”; the lack of proper tools did not prevent the other companies from digging pits with their knives and cups or from using the saddles and boxes from the corral to build barricades.

  In a Jan. 6, 1892, letter to Goldin, Benteen told how Reno “recommended the abandonment of the wounded on the night of 25th . . . but I killed that proposition in the bud. The Court of Inquiry on Reno knew there was something kept back by me, but they didn’t know how to dig it out by questioning . . . and Reno’s attorney was ‘Posted’ thereon,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 207. Godfrey testified concerning his and Weir’s conversation on the night of June 25 “that we ought to move that night and join [Custer] as we then had fewer casualties than we were likely to have later,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 181. For an intriguing theory that it was Godfrey and Weir’s original conversation about going to join Custer that spawned the rumor about abandoning the wounded (which “with perverse delight” Benteen later attributed to Reno), see Larry Sklenar’s To Hell with Honor, pp. 314–15.

  Bell told Camp that “Benteen’s weakness was vindictiveness,” in Hardorff, On the Little Bighorn, p. 7. According to John Gray in Custer’s Last Campaign, “When it later developed that Custer’s battalion was wiped out, Benteen must have realized that his indiscretion [in not obeying Custer’s orders] had spared his battalion the same fate as Custer’s. This recognition apparently drove him to an indefensible cover-up, so simplistic as to be transparent and which scarred his conscience for the rest of his life,” p. 261. Burkman’s account of Reno’s snide reference to Custer as “the Murat of the American army” is in Wagner, p. 170. My account of Reno’s drunken encounter with the packers is based on their own testimony, in W. A. Graham, RCI, pp. 172–73, 186–87. Edgerly recounted Reno’s late-night remark, “Great God, I don’t see how you can sleep,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 164. For a compilation of the evidence that Reno was, if not drunk, “utterly unfit,” in Camp’s words, “to wear a uniform in the service of his country,” see Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 236. As Camp states elsewhere, “After giving all the array of testimony about Reno and his bottle . . . need there then be any doubt as to what was the matter with Reno[?] With me there is not,” p. 208. Peter Thompson told of Private McGuire and the dead horses in his Account, p. 32. He also described how the men speculated that “if Custer would only turn up, our present difficulties would soon vanish” and “the howling of the Indians,” p. 33. Godfrey wrote about the “supernatural aspect” of the Indians’ bonfires and “the long shadows of the hills”; he also told of the “phantasma of imaginations” that led one packer to shout, “Don’t be discouraged, boys, it’s Crook!” in “Custer’s Last Battle,” W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 144. The sound of a warrior playing a bugle was described by many survivors, including John Ryan in Barnard’s Ten Years with Custer, p. 299, and William Taylor in With Custer, p. 54.

  Chapter 14: Grazing His Horses

  Gibson recounted how after the warriors fired a pair of rifle shots at 2:30 a.m. on June 26, Benteen ordered the trumpeters to sound reveille, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 81. Trumpeter Hardy’s account of “a large body of Indians [dressed] in the uniforms of Custer’s men” is in a footnote in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 83. Prior to fooling Reno’s battalion, the Indians dressed in soldiers’ clothes had also fooled their own village. According to the Cheyenne Two Moons: “The young people of the Indian camp must have robbed the dead of clothing for next day they appeared up the river above the camp mounted on captured horses, dressed in soldier clothing, which led the Indians to think other troops were coming, which alarmed the camp until it was discovered who these mounted persons were,” in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 112. William Taylor described the warriors’ fire on the morning of June 26 as “a perfect shower of bullets” in With Custer, p. 54. Sergeant Stanislas Roy told Camp, “They fired at us so heavy that [the bullets] cut down all of [the] sage brush in front of us,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 114. In a July 4, 1876, letter to his wife, Gibson wrote that “my only wonder is that every one of us wasn’t killed,” in Fougera’s With Custer’s Cavalry, p. 269. Unless other
wise indicated, all of Benteen’s quotations in this chapter are from his narrative in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 172–75. Windolph’s description of the death of the soldier beside him and the shattering of his rifle butt are in his I Fought with Custer, p. 103. Windolph told Camp about how “someone cried: ‘Get the old man back here quick,’ ” in Hardorff, On the Little Bighorn, p. 180. Besides Benteen, Edgerly also testified to seeing Reno “in a pit with Captain Weir,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 181. As to Reno’s drinking on the twenty-sixth, Private Corcoran, who was with the wounded that morning, told Camp that Reno came into the hospital with “a quart bottle of whiskey and [Corcoran] saw him take a big drink out of it,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 150; Corcoran also told how Benteen called out to the men gathered in the corral, “Come on back, and we will drive them off. You might as well be killed out there as in here.” In a Sept. 21, 1904, letter, William Morris wrote that when Benteen ordered M Company “out of their pits to reinforce his troop . . . [t]here was some dissatisfaction . . . as the men believed that the necessity was due solely to the neglect of ‘H,’ in digging pits,” in Brady’s Indian Fights and Fighters, p. 404. Taylor described Benteen walking calmly as the bullets flew around him in With Custer, pp. 57–58.