GREASY GRASS Chapter Six

 

I wonder what 38 year old Captain Thomas Benton Weir (above) expected to see a when he topped the twin promontory which bears his name?  It was about 5:45pm on Saturday, 25 June, 1876.  The Ohio Captain was one and a half miles in front of Reno Hill. And by advancing here, Weir was endangering the lives of the 30 or so men who followed him, plus the more than 300  men he had left vulnerable on Reno Hill.  Why was he doing this? What the hell did he expect to see?

Thomas Weir had been a member of the Custer "Royal Family" (above) since the Civil War, basking in reflected warmth from the "Son of the Morning Star".  Libbie Custer enjoyed Weir's  "quick mind and wit," calling him “well read, and social in his disposition”, and Weir had made a point of endearing himself to her.  But eventually, as with the friend's of most addicts, a breaking point came. Libbie, who had converted "Audie" into a teetotaler, finally drew the line.  In the fall of 1874, after Reno had reprimanded the captain for being intoxicated on duty, Custer would accept no further excuses. The Royal Family had disowned Thomas Weir.  

On Sunday, 25 June, 1876, Captain Thomas Weir (above) was in command of "D" company, explicitly subordinated to Captain Benteen in his three company battalion sent to check the southern end of the Little Big Horn valley.   

At 5:15pm, Captain Thomas McDougall, his escorts and the pack train had reached the defensive position on "Reno Hill".   Major Marcus Reno now had 345 men - counting the 11 men the scout Gardner had just brought in from the valley fight.  They had 24,000 rounds of ammunition, 12 days of hardtack and 2 days grain for the horses. What they did not have was water. But for the first time since noon, when Custer had divided his command, the majority of the seventh cavalry was in a position to defend themselves.

While the command was now suppressing the Indians who were still clambering up the bluff, the officers gathered to discuss the tactical situation. Abruptly  most of the Indians still in the valley mounted and rode northward. Remembered Benteen, “Heavy firing was heard down the river. During this time the questions were being asked: "What's the matter with Custer, that he don't send word? What shall we do?" "Wonder what we are staying here for?...but still no one seemed to show great anxiety, nor do I know that any one felt any serious apprehension but that Custer could and would take care of himself.”

It was now that Captain Weir approached Captain Benteen.  According to a private who overheard the exchange, Weir insisted, "Custer must be around here somewhere and we ought to go to him." Benteen replied that because they were surrounded by armed hostiles the command should remain where it was.  "Well, " replied Weir, "if no one else goes to Custer, I will go." Benteen said, "No, you cannot."  Despite this, Weir returned to his position, mounted up and with only an orderly, rode off to the north.  

Assuming Weir had received permission for the scout from Reno, his second in command, 30 year old Winfield Scott Edgerly (above) mounted "D" troop and followed toward the twin peaks of Weir Point, a mile and a half away.

But having arrived there, Weir dismounted. To see, what? The clear dry western air put his visible horizon over the rolling sage brush and grasses at more than 3 miles. And he stood there for a few moments with just his orderly, holding his horse, gazing into the distance. To his right, up the slope, he could see two Indians moving  to flank the advancing "D" troop. By hand signals he warned Lieutenant Edgerly, who threw out a skirmish line. But Weir still stood there, on Weir point staring into the distance.   What held him there? 

A few moments later two more soldiers rode up - 38 year old Sergeant James Flanagan and Private William Morrin, both of "M" troop. Eventually their arrival prompted Weir to point and announce, "That is Custer over there. "  Whereupon he mounted his horse, as if to gallop to Custer's rescue. 

He was stopped by Sergeant James Flanagan, who said, "Here, Captain, you had better take a look through the glasses; I think those are Indians." Weir had ridden out in search of Custer without a telescope or binoculars, making the endeavor even more of a hopeless pointless romantic act.  

In fact, Flanagan had seen more than that. He might have witnessed the death of perhaps the last man to escape last stand hill. When he first raised the binoculars  to his eye he had see a mile distant a trooper on horseback, being chased by Indian warriors, who cut the man off and killed him.

When Flanagan passed the binoculars to Weir, the captain saw across two to three miles of heat shimmers and mirages, according to the Sergeant, "...clouds of dust rising from the bluffs to the north where Custer and his men were wiped out."  According to Flanagan,  having gotten a good look through the magnifying glasses, and with Flanagan there to confirm what was visible , Weir changed his mind about leaving the place. Accordingly the men were dismounted and their horses were led behind the hill.”

The cranky Captain Fredrick Benteen, who would shortly join his rebellious officers,  explained what little he could see from the same perspective. "The air was full of dust. We could see stationary groups of horsemen, and individual horsemen moving about. From their grouping and the manner in which they sat their horses we knew they were Indians. "

Lieutenant Edgerly had thrown "D" troop out in a skirmish line on the right or east wing from Weir Point,  and within a few minutes the 42 year old Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey arrived and extended the skirmish line westward with his "K" troop.  Next to him 33 year old Captain Thomas Henry French placed his "M" troop in the skirmish line.  But they did not remain there for long. Benteen had come come not to support them but to bring them back to a better defensive position, closer to Reno's original hilltop.

A retreat was clearly called for. A trooper remembered the hills were covered with Sioux and Cheyenne warriors “...as thick as grasshoppers in a harvest field."  Another soldier recalled fresh dust rising in all directions converging on Weir Point.  Lieutenant French shouted the order to retreat to Edgerly. Both companies immediately mounted and began to ride to the rear. But Edgerly and his aide, Private Charles Sanders,  hung back to get in a last shot or two.   Then, just as Lieutenant Edgerly and his aide were preparing to run for it they discovered a wounded man crawling through the dry grass. 

Edgerly recognized him as Private Vincent Charley (above), a 22 year old Swiss born red haired member of  "D" troop. He had been shot through the hip, and hit his head when thrown from his horse. Charley begged the Lieutenant to take him with them.  But Edgerly felt they did not have time to help, and told Charley to hide in ravine somewhere. As the two men galloped away they looked back and saw two Indians fall upon the defenseless trooper. Three days later Vincent Charley's body would be found with a stake driven into the back of his throat.  And that was the cost of Thomas Weir's need to see what had become of Custer.

Lieutenant Godfrey's "M" troop provided a skirmish line covering fire for the retreat, but Benteen quickly realized what Reno had learned some hours before - any skirmish line in this land was easily out flanked and the gun fire not accurate enough to suppress the fire from repeating rifles and the indirect fire from bows and arrows.  

The entire surviving portions of the 7th Cavalry now occupied a new position, a shallow depression with a steep cliff to the west over looking the Little Big Horn River.  Reno had the horses and mules gathered in the center, and stripped of their saddles and pack mounts, which the men used for barricades. 

Edgerly later explained, "The firing was heavy, but only a few men were killed, as most of the shots went over our heads. It continued for more than an hour, and until half an hour after dusk. That ended the first day's fight."  Throughout the night, Major Marcus Reno (below) passed along the line, talking to the soldiers, encouraging them and making minor adjustments to their positions. And almost all the men under his command - even those in the valley fight - survived. 

- 30 -

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. He is 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, transferring to the cavalry in 1865. There, under his brother's proud eyes, Tom earned two Medals of Honor for bravery.

In fact, George Armstrong had kept 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 shrunken 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 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 even more 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."

- 30 

GREASY GRASS - Part Two

 

I suppose the most unexpected 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 own 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 with his bloody trophy to the relative safety of Reno's new position.  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?

                                                    - 30 -