GREASY GRASS - Chapter Four

 

I suspect it was the most normal thing to happen on that Sunday, 25 June, 1876.  A young Sioux brave was trolling the Cheyenne village, hoping to "accidently" run into a particular young woman. He was an  alpha male in his prime - 26 years old -  and his name was White Bull (above, ten years older).  

Both his father and grandfather were leaders of the Minneconjou band of Northern Sioux. His mother was sister to the Hunkpapa Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull (above). White Crow had survived 19 fights, 10 against white soldiers. He had counted 7 coups, taken 2 scalps, killed 3 enemies, wounded another, rescued 6 wounded Sioux and under fire recovered a dead fellow Sioux warrior.  

White Bull had captured 45 horses, 10 on a single raid, and twice willingly endured the tortures of the Sun Dance (above). He had been invited to join three warrior societies, choosing to become a Fox Warrior.  

Just a week earlier, at the Battle of the Rosebud (above) - 17 June, 1876 - he had fought man to man against a Shoshone , scouting for the white soldiers.  After dismounting his opponent  White Bull had "ridden him down" and counted coup again, leaving the man crippled with a sliced tendon in his right leg. 

But today, White Bull was looking to convince the reluctant young southern Cheyenne woman named Mona Setah, to walk with him under the marriage blanket. So far she would only speak with White Bull in private through the buffalo hide of her family's lodge. Finally, " I...saw her carrying firewood up from the river....(Her son) was with her, so I just smiled and said nothing. I rode on to visit with my Cheyenne friend Roan Bear....We settled down to telling each other some of our brave deeds in the past."

The stories were interrupted when a man rode into the Cheyenne circle shouting an alarm. Soldiers were attacking the Sioux circle a mile to the south. White Bull jumped on his horse and rode to the camp of his uncle Sitting Bull. Seeing that his own family were all safely mounted on his pony herd, and that Sitting Bull had entered his lodge to make magic, White Bull rode off to defend the Sioux pony herd from the White Man's Indian scouts. 

High up on the bluffs, near the head of Medicine Trail Coulee, the French man Mitch Boyer solemnly ordered the scouts White Man Runs Him, Hairy Moccasin,  Curley and Goes Ahead, "You need go no further. You have guided Custer here, and your work is finished. So you had better go back to the pack train and let the soldiers do the fighting." Boyer then rode away over the ridge to join Custer down Medicine Trail Coulee.  But Curley stayed to watch what happened down below, at the river crossing. 

White Bull (above) helped drive off the Crow scouts who tried to capture the pony herd, and then chased the soldiers into the river. But just as he reached the water, "I heard someone behind me yelling that soldiers were coming...to attack the north end of the camp...We all raced downstream together."

Arriving back in the Cheyenne camp White Bull's saw the soldiers coming down the Medicine Tail Coulee, He dismounted and, with a handful of other warriors, took cover behind the berm along the river's edge, ready to defend the women and children to his death.

Then, according to White Bull, "...the soldiers had stopped at the edge of the river...One white man was wearing a big hat and a buckskin jacket...On one side of him was a soldier carrying a flag and riding a grey horse, and on the other was a small man on a dark horse. This small man didn't look much like a white man to me, so I gave the man in the buckskin jacket my attention." 

"The man in the buckskin jacket seemed to be the leader of these soldiers, for he shouted something and they all came charging at us across the ford. "Bobtail Horse fired first, and I saw a soldier on a gray horse fall out of his saddle into the water. The other soldiers were shooting at us now. The man who seemed to be the soldier chief was firing his heavy rifle fast. I aimed my repeater at him and fired. I saw him fall out of his saddle and hit the water."

Up on the bluffs above, Crow scout Curley saw two men leading Custer's command fall into the river. And suddenly the attack stopped.

And everything about to happen, explaining many of the mysteries of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, also known as Custer's Last Stand would be explained if the white man who was shot and fell into the river was George Armstrong Custer - shot in the chest, and badly wounded. That quickly the head of the royal family had been cut off. All that was left was for the body to twitch and fall. 

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Greasy Grass - Chapter Three

 

I invite you to stand atop the bluffs directly overlooking the Little Big Horn River, while  36 year old Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer watches Reno's troops form a skirmish line  across the valley floor. Sharing his binoculars is his brother, 31 year old Captain Thomas Ward Custer, commander of "C" company.  

Tom Custer had served in the Union infantry during most of the Civil War, transffering to the cavalry in 1865 to serve under his older brother. There, under his brother's proud eyes, Tom earned two Medals of Honor for bravery.

In fact, George Armstrong had become to depend on keeping his family so close they became known as "The Royal Family". Twenty-seven year old Boston Custer (above) had been too young to serve in the civil war, and George was unable to get him a spot in the post war army. So he hired Boston as a contractor, supposedly tending the pack animals which followed the seventh cavalry.

Henry Armstrong "Autie" Reed was George's nephew. At 18 years of age he never sought employment in the army, but was allowed to follow his famous uncle as a volunteer.  

Handsome 30 year old Lieutenant James Calhoun, "The Adonis of the Seventh" had married George's sister Margaret, and was now in command of company "C" of the 7th.

And finally there was James Calhoun's brother-in-law, 38 year old warrior Myles Moylan (above). He had fought in every major engagement of the civil war from Wilson's Creek to Gettysburg as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Cavalry. Then he was dismissed for being absent without leave while in Washington, D.C. 

Myles (above) promptly enlisted as private under an assumed name in the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry, being mustered out in 1865 with the rank of Major. The following January he re-enlisted under his own name as a private in the newly formed 7th Cavalry, and was quickly promoted to second lieutenant, and given command of Company "A", this day assigned to Major Reno's battalion. 

More distant members of the "Royal Family" were Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey (above), a Custer loyalist because he had been assigned to the 7th Cavalry since graduating West Point, and...

...Captain Thomas Benton Weir (above), once a family member in good standing. He had recently been distanced because of his addiction to alcohol and his over familiarity with Custer's wife, Libbie.    

Also with Custer this day was his 24 year old bugler and orderly,  John Martin (above), "a salty little Italian who had been a drummer boy with Garibaldi"  - born Giovanni Martino, an orphan in Sala Consilina, Italy.  

Following closely were three Crow scouts, Curley, Goes Ahead and Hairy Moccasin. 

Custer waved his hat to the men in the valley, and then turned away.  Mitch Boyar, the Frenchman and  Santee Sioux who was leader of the scouts,  asked Custer if he meant to help the soldiers below, but Custer dismisses the question. He said, "It is early yet and plenty of time. Let them fight. Our time will come.”  It would and soon.

After graduating as a second Lieutenant at the bottom of his 1860 West Point class, within three years George Armstrong Custer was promoted to Major General.  At 25 he was the youngest general in the Union Army.  He achieved this not by his intellectual ability, or intuitive tactical genius, or even inspired leadership of his subordinates,  but simply by being aggressive to the point of being fool-hardy-ness  

In the shrunken post war army, Custer was reduced in rank and appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the newly formed Seventh Cavalry at Fort Levenworth in Kansas. In the winter of 1867 he was arrested for abandoning his post to visit his wife Libbie (above), and given a two year suspension of rank. However he was called back early for a punitive winter campaign against the southern Cheyenne.

In the resulting " battle" or "massacre" on the Washita, perhaps 70 southern Cheyenne warriors were killed, as were many women and children. The elderly leader Black Kettle and his wife were driven into the icy river and shot in the back.  Six hundred and seventy-five Indian ponies were also killed to discourage any further Cheyenne raids, and some 53 women and children captives were used as human shields to protect Custer on his rapid retreat back to Kansas.         

During the engagement 20 troopers under 27 year old Major Joel Haworth Elliot (above), a good friend of Captain Fredrick Benteen's, were attacked by warriors from nearby villages, rushing to Black Kettle's defense.  Although it was later learned that Elliot and his entire command had been wiped out, Custer retreated without learning their fate.  Benteen, with a life long skill at hating,  blamed Custer for Elliot's death for the rest of his life.  

Ridding to the next high point in the ridge line,  bugler Martin saw "hundreds" of lodges in the valley floor, with "...squaws and children playing and a few dogs and ponies. The General seemed both surprised and glad, and said the Indians must be in their tents, asleep." Custer now waved his hat to his own command,  a few hundred yards further up the slope, shouting,  "Hurrah, boys, we've got them! We'll finish them up and then go home to our station."

After cantering another mile or so Custer pulled the command to a halt, at the head a big ravine or coulee leading down to the river. Custer called to Martin and told him  "Orderly, I want you to take a message to Colonel Benteen. Ride as fast as you can and tell him to hurry. Tell him it's a big village and I want him to be quick, and to bring the ammunition packs." 

Then before the private could pull away, Lieutenant Cooke told Martin, "Wait. I'll give you a message." He quickly scribbled in his small order book, ripped out the page, and handed it to Martin, telling him, "Now, orderly, ride as fast as you can to Colonel Benteen. Take the same trail we came down. If you have time and there is no danger come back. But otherwise stay with your company."  

Martin would later write, " My horse was pretty tired, but I started back as fast as I could go. The last I saw of the command they were going down into the ravine...Just before I got to the hill (where Custer had waved his hat)  I met Boston Custer. He was riding at a run...(he) shouted, "Where's the General?" and I answered pointing back of me, "Right behind that next ridge you'll find him." And he dashed on." 

"When I got up on the hill, I looked down...the last I saw of Reno's men they were fighting in the valley and the line was falling back..." Eventually, Martin reached the stream where Custer had turned to his left, toward the north. Here. at last, he spotted Captain Benteen. 

"As soon as I saw them coming I waved my hat to them and spurred my horse, but he couldn't go any faster....I saluted and handed the message to Colonel Benteen and then I told him what the General said, that it was a big village and to hurry. He said, "Where's the General now?" and I answered that the Indians we saw were running and I supposed that by this time he had charged through the village...."

"They gave me another horse and I joined my troop and rode on with them. The pack train was not very far behind them."  When Captain McDougal read the note from Custer he was angry. How did Custer expect him to "be quick" while leading 70 mules carrying heavy loads? As it was, Martin said, "..the mules were coming along, some of them walking, some trotting, and others running. We moved on faster than the packs could go, and soon they were out of sight, except that we could see their dust."

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GREASY GRASS - Part Two

 

I suppose the most amazing thing the soldiers did that afternoon, as far as the Indians were concerned, was that after they suddenly burst forth from the cottonwood trees and brush along the Little Big Horn, they stopped and formed up in a column of fours, before beginning their escape.

Private William Ephraim (Billy) Morris, from M company, who claimed to be 22, but was actually only 14, heard Major Marcus Reno tell his soldiers, "Men, we are surrounded, draw your revolvers and follow me." As they did, the mystical 34 year old Lakota warrior Crazy Horse (Lakota name Thasunjke Itko), shouted to his men, " “Here are some of the soldiers after us again. Do your best, and let us kill them all off today, that they may not trouble us anymore."

Crazy Horse (above) was told in a vision that as long as he did not take scalps in battle then bullets would never hurt him. However the modification of "in battle" had to be added to his magic in 1870 when Crazy Horse went on a "buffalo hunt" with Black Buffalo Woman. Her husband, fellow Lakota No Water, tracked the lovers down and shoved a pistol into their tepee and set off a cap  The previously impervious Lothelo took a bullet to the jaw.  He recovered, but collected a couple of horses when the elders fined No Water for his excessive version of fidelity.   

Crazy Horse (above) avoided ostentation in dress, never took part in the public dances, rarely joked in public, and never sang.  He often ignored his fellow tribe members. But in battle he was an electrifying presence, his trademark war paint of a lightening bolt and hail stones made him stand out.    

And on this day, according to witnesses, Crazy Horse was right among the soldiers, "shooting them down as in a buffalo drive." The Cheyenne Two Moons described the running battle as "All mixed up. Sioux, then soldiers, then more Sioux, all shooting."

As  George Herendon came out of the brush his horse stumbled and fell, throwing the scout to the ground and leaving him dismounted.  He scrambled back into the brush, and encouraged his fellow refuges to let their horses go and hide. 

Meanwhile Reno was now trying to lead his men back to the river ford they had crossed an hour earlier, But, "As we dashed through them, my men were so close...they could discharge their pistols right into the breasts of the savages...Our horses were on a dead run with...two or three men on one animal".  When his gun was empty Reno tossed it aside.  

During the ride Lieutenant Donald "Tosh" McIntosh (above), the 38 year old Canadian born commander of "G" company, emptied his pistol, whereupon a warrior - possibly Crazy Horse, closed in and at a full gallop and with a swing of his war club, knocked McIntosh from his horse.  Other warriors stopped to finish him off and mutilate his body.  Said Flying Hawk, an Oglala Sioux, "Crazy Horse...killed a lot of them with his war club." 

As they galloped southward across the flats an Indian warrior pulled up next to 32 year old Private Edward Davern, in "F" troop, and the two swung weapons at each other, until Davern's horse was killed. The Irishman was thrown to ground, and the unknown Indian warrior dismounted to finish him off. But Davern had a round left in his pistol and shot his attacker dead, Davern then immediately grabbed the Indian pony around the neck, swung up and galloped after the command.

Most of the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors were on the open right flank of the retreating soldiers, and gradually they forced the battalion closer to the river, until, when presented with a break in the tree line Reno led the men over a five foot high bank and into the river. The horse rode by his adjutant, 38 year old Second Lieutenant Benjamin Hurbert Hodgson (above) made the jump but was shot and landed in the water dead.

Hodgson was wounded in the leg, but managed to yell, "For God's sake, don't abandon me!" As M company trumpeter, 31 year old German born Charles Henry Fisher came splashing past him in the river, he held his stirrup strap out for Hodson to grab. Desperately holding on,  the lieutenant was dragged across the Little Big Horn, before dropping off on the eastern bank.  As he lay in the grass recovering he was shot a second time in the back, and died.

Private Charles Windolph estimated that half of the warriors were armed with bows and arrows, one in four carried single shot rifles and muskets, and perhaps only one fourth carried Winchester, a Henry or other repeating rifles. Still, with a battle moving at the speed of a terrified horse, combat intimacy favored the Cheyenne and Sioux warriors.  

Clambering ashore on the lower, eastern bank of the Little Big Horn, 33 year old Doctor James Madison De Wolf (above) was guarded by his sharpshooter orderly, 34 year old Hoosier, Elihu Clear. However, the private from the heavily Quaker Randolph County, Indiana, was shot and killed just after regaining solid ground. So the doctor started up the coulee on his own, and for some unknown reason chose to follow a side path which branched to the north of the main channel.   

Those members of Reno's command who first reached the top of the coulee, saw that, 300 yards to their north,  De Wolf was climbing straight toward three warriors. They shouted a warning. but De Wolf did not hear them until he had reached a plateau. Only then did the doctor pull up his horse, and pause to listen. And while he was stopped he and his horse were both shot. The horse went down, and De Wolf, hit in the belly, also fell. Despite a desperate barrage of gunfire, one Indian clambered down the slope and, in full view of the exhausted command, scalped and then murdered Doctor De Wolf.

As the last of the soldiers struggled up the coulee, Sioux warrior, White Eagle, closed with a soldier and was shot and killed. White Eagle fell from his horse, and the soldier returned and took the time to exact  vengeance by scalping the warrior, before escaping to the relative safety of Reno's position with his bloody trophy.  Neither he nor any of the white soldiers knew they had just mutilated the son the Oglala Sioux leader Horned Horse. Whether the warrior was dead before he was scalped would never be clear.

Reno gathered his men in a depression atop the bluff, and quickly discovered he had 3 officers and 29 enlisted men missing, presumed killed, and had 7 enlisted wounded. The Major immediately set his men into another skirmish line, but it was pretty thin - out of his original 140 men, he could only put 88 guns in his defense. Even after having his men share their remaining ammunition. it did not look as if his winded battalion would be able to hold out for long. 

But 10 minutes later, at about 4:20pm,  Captain Benteen appeared with his 125 fresh troopers. He observed that Reno "...was about as cool as he is now," adding, "He had lost his hat in the run..." However Benteen did say he saw, "...about 900 Indians...circling around in the bottom". 

Benteen's battalion was ordered to dismount and deploy as skirmishers on the edge of the bluffs overlooking the valley. Very soon after this the Indians withdrew from the attack. Reno then called for 25 year old Second Lieutenant Luther Rector Hare (above). When the young Hoosier reported, Reno named him as his new adjutant, and then ordered him to find the pack train and hurry it to join them. Hare borrowed a horse and rode up the slope and back along Custer's trail.  Until it's arrival, Benteen ordered his men to share their ammunition with Reno's beaten men.  It was just about 5:00pm. 

As scattered shots poured into the defensive position, the question on everyone's mind was where the hell was Custer?

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