Troopers With Custer: Historic Incidents Of The Battle Of The Little Big Horn

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Text originally published in 1953 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TROOPERS WITH CUSTER

Historic Incidents of the Battle of The Little Big Horn

By

E. A. BRININSTOOL

Author of

Trail Dust of a Maverick (Western Verse)

Fighting Red Cloud’s Warriors

Major M. A. Reno Vindicated

Campaigning With Custer and the 19th Kansas

Cavalry (with D. L. Spotts)

The Dull Knife Outbreak at Ft. Robinson in 1877

The Bozeman Trail (2 vols.) (with Dr. Grace Hebard)

The Killing of Billy the Kid

Capt. F. W. Benteen’s Experience in the Custer Fight

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Author of 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

DEDICATION 6

PREFACE 7

ILLUSTRATIONS 9

CHAPTER 1 — THE CUSTER FIGHT IN BRIEF 75

NOTE 1. — WHY CROOK DID NOT MEET TERRY, GIBBON AND CUSTER 86

NOTE 2. — THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE’S OPINION 87

CHAPTER 2 — A TROOPER’S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE. 88

CHAPTER 3 — CAPT. BENTEEN’S OWN STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT. 101

Foreword by the Author 101

CHAPTER 4 — WITH COL. CHAS. A. VARNUM AT THE LITTLE BIG HORN. 115

CHAPTER 5 — A THRILLING ESCAPE—DE RUDIO AND O’NEILL. 130

CHAPTER 6 — WAS MAJOR MARCUS A. RENO A COWARD IN CUSTER FIGHT? 144

CHAPTER 7 — THE STORY OF TRUMPETER MARTIN. 161

CHAPTER 8 — SIBLEY AND THE SIOUX. 165

CHAPTER 9 — THEODORE W. GOLDIN’S EXPERIENCE IN CUSTER BATTLE WATER DETAIL. 180

CHAPTER 10 — TWO MODEST HEROES OF THE CUSTER EXPEDITION. 187

CHAPTER 11 — WAS THERE A CUSTER SURVIVOR? 191

CHAPTER 12 — A GREAT NEWSPAPER SCOOP. 194

CHAPTER 13 — HOW CUSTER BATTLEFIELD WAS DISCOVERED. 197

CHAPTER 14 — MEDAL OF HONOR HEROES IN CUSTER’S LAST FIGHT. 200

CHAPTER 15 — THE STORY OF COMANCHE, SOLE SURVIVOR OF CUSTER FIGHT. 204

CHAPTER 16 — THE FAMOUS BRISBIN LETTER SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON THE CUSTER MYSTERY 207

CHAPTER 17 — WERE CUSTER’S REMAINS EVER POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED? 214

CHAPTER 18 — PRIVATE GEORGE BERRY’S EXPERIENCE IN CUSTER CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 216

CHAPTER 19 — CHARLEY REYNOLDS, CUSTER’S CHIEF OF SCOUTS. 223

CHAPTER 20 — THE KIDDER MASSACRE OF 1867 IN CUSTER’S REGIME. 233

CHAPTER 21 — TREATMENT OF RED MEN—GEN. JOHN GIBBON’S OPINION. 240

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 244

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 247

DEDICATION

To that under-paid, overworked, yet ever-dutiful body of men who paved the way for the advance of civilization through a land whose every inch was contested by the Red Man of the Plains—the men who marched, fought, bled and suffered—the Indian Wars Veterans.

PREFACE

There is no fiction in the contents of this volume; no lurid tales of adventure with a historical setting against a background of make-believe, such as is found on the magazine stands of today. Personally, I believe such stories do far more damage than good; they are entirely misleading to thousands of readers, and are very apt to give the rising generation a decidedly wrong impression and conception of the old-time West, and of the breed of men who composed the population of our isolated army posts and frontier settlements in the days of the wild Indian and the buffalo.

The stories contained herein are all of actual happenings and actual participants; there are no fictitious names, no colored circumstances. They are a part of the real history of the West, and for that reason I am not ashamed to place this volume in the hands of any interested boy or girl, youth or elderly person, who may desire to know the truth about one of the leading Indian battles, and other important frontier happenings pertaining thereto, and the men who played leading parts therein. Every character mentioned in each chapter was a living, breathing person, and every incident related in this book can be vouched for and verified.

The author has taken the liberty, here and there, of putting certain words and sentences in parentheses or italics, in the interest of historical accuracy or a fuller understanding of the facts on the part of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, such interpolations are the author’s.

There has been altogether too much bunk written around the history of the West. Many writers have drawn on their imagination to such an extent (and the movies have aided them) and have so distorted and twisted certain historical happenings, that any attempt to straighten them out and relate the TRUTH, is almost certain to meet with much opposition. Nevertheless, the writer intends to hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may.

The Indian has been held before the young people of this country as a bloodthirsty, murderous, sneaking devil, always lying in wait for scalps, not to be trusted, and only good when dead. But the Indian was only what Uncle Sam himself made him in that respect. While the Indian is belittled, scarcely anything is said about the political parasites at Washington and elsewhere, who robbed, cheated, tricked, swindled, defrauded, deceived and imposed upon the red man at every turn.

Had Uncle Sam raised a few more thousand William Penns, the Indian would have had no excuse for taking to the warpath in retaliation for the wrongs inflicted upon him. The Indian never was bad until first made bad by his white brother, through his villainous whisky and still more villainous trickery and chicanery. Contact with the white race was the real undoing of the red man. The only wonder is that the Indian was not ten times worse than he really was, considering his unjust treatment by unscrupulous whites. He had every reason for going to the bad.

I believe that every old regular army man, in spite of what he may have received at the hands of the Indian, will agree with me in the foregoing assertion. There were too many dishonest, unprincipled Indian agents who did more to keep the regular army man out in the field, jeopardizing his life, than the great American public of this day realizes.

If these various chapters shall enlighten the reader in any manner on the last ill-fated expedition of the Seventh Cavalry, the author shall feel repaid for his hard work in gathering the actual facts.

E. A. BRININSTOOL

ILLUSTRATIONS

Officers of the Seventh Cavalry

Sitting Bull, Medicine man of the Sioux

General George A. Custer

Mitch Boyer, noted Crow scout

Looking West from Reno Hill

Gen. Custer on a hunting trip

John Burkman, Custer’s striker

Vic and Dandy, Custer’s mounts

Sioux Indians

Capt. Myles W. Keogh

Emmanuel Custer, father of the General

General George Crook

Wm. C. Slaper, member of the water detail

Capt. Thomas W. Custer

Rain-in-the-Face, prominent Sioux

Chief Gall, a Hunkpapa

Capt. Thomas W. French

Spotted Tail, Brule Sioux

Lieut. James Calhoun

Looking East across the Little Big Horn

Lieut. William W. Cooke

Capt. F. W. Benteen

Capt. E. S. Godfrey

Sgt. Kanipe, message carrier

Looking West from Weir’s Point

Looking North from Reno’s entrenchments

Lieut. Charles A. Varnum

F. F. Girard, interpreter

Letter from Girard to his daughter

Looking East toward Reno’s bluffs

Capt. Myles Moylan

Old 45-70 Springfield Single Shot Carbine

Lieut. Charles C. DeRudio

Sgt. Thomas O’Neil

Billy Jackson, half-breed scout

Bend in Little Big Horn river at Indian Village

Maj. M. A. Reno

Capt. George D. Wallace

Site of Reno’s river crossing to attack Indian Village

Two views of the Little Big Horn

Crow King, prominent Sioux leader

Trumpeter John Martin

Scene at Custer monument

Lieut. F. W. Sibley

John F. Finerty, Chicago Times correspondent

Frank Grouard, scout

Big Bat Baptiste, civilian scout

Chief Two Moon, Northern Cheyenne

Theodore W. Goldin

The gully used by the water detail

Dr. H. R. Porter, surviving surgeon

Grant Marsh, Far West commander

Steamboat Far West

The author with Crow scout Curley

Lieut. H. M. Harrington

Lieut. James H. Bradley

White Bull, sub-chief of Northern Cheyennes

Comanche, only survivor of the battle

Col. James S. Brisbin

Gen. A. H. Terry

Lieut. A. E. Smith

Charley Reynolds, chief scout

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Custer, wife of the general

Col. John Gibbon

CHAPTER 1 — THE CUSTER FIGHT IN BRIEF

TO THE AVERAGE AMERICAN little is known regarding the actual facts surrounding the battle of the Little Big Horn. Perhaps he has read brief extracts, or heard others discuss the affair, and it therefore seems fitting that the story of this greatest of Indian battles should be briefly told, the main reason being to correct some of the exaggerated stories which have been broadcast over the years, and to refute others which have been foisted on the public by persons who were not in possession of the actual facts.

The battle of the Little Big Horn was the culmination of the invasion of the Black Hills of Dakota (ceded Sioux territory) by white gold hunters. Custer, in 1874, led a government expedition into that then unexplored and unknown region, under orders to spy out the land, and determine if the stories in circulation regarding its beauty and wealth were true. It was hinted that gold was there—in abundance—and where gold is, there the white man will go, regardless of treaties or the rights of anyone of whatever race or color.

After Custer had discovered and reported that there was gold in the Hills, a general stampede into the forbidden territory followed. In spite of the fact that the treaty of 1868 with the Sioux distinctly specified that no white man should ever set foot in the territory without the consent of the Indians, no attention whatever was paid to this edict. Gold had been discovered—and what else mattered?

The Sioux resented this invasion of their ceded territory—and rightly! But the government could not keep the gold-maddened miners out, although a feeble attempt was made in that direction. The protests of the Sioux went unheeded, and it soon became apparent that armed resistance was imminent.

Sitting Bull, the great medicine man of the Sioux nation—not a fighting chief in the strict sense of the word—was the leading fomenter among the Indians. He was a great schemer, a conjurer, with an immense following, particularly among the young men of the tribe. He was not an agency Indian but had a most bitter hatred for the pale-face. He preferred to roam, refusing to accept the agency rations doled out to him by the great Father at Washington, choosing instead to live by the chase as long as the buffalo were plentiful. His camp, in 1876, was supposed to be located somewhere in the Big Horn country of Wyoming, or in the adjacent Montana wilderness—just where was not known, as that entire section, in 1876, was an unsettled and all but unexplored region.

To Sitting Bull’s standard flocked thousands of the dissatisfied and rebellious among the Sioux. With them were allied many of the Northern Cheyennes. If the various Indian reservation agents were aware of these desertions from the agencies and the accessions to the ranks of the hostiles, they kept the information to themselves. This was one of the reasons why the Seventh Cavalry met with such disaster. They did not realize, nor for one moment dream, that the hostiles had been thus heavily reinforced.

These malcontents and dissatisfied among the Sioux were notified by the government, during the latter part of 1875, that if they did not cease their roving habits and come in and settle down on their reservations, where Uncle Sam could keep a watchful eye on their movements, armed forces of troops would be sent against them.

They did not obey Uncle Sam’s mandate, and as soon as spring opened and the country was in condition to travel over, an expedition was formed to go out against these hostiles. It was decided to send out three expeditions of troops from various points. The eastern column, under personal command of General Alfred H. Terry, was to start from Fort Abraham Lincoln, across the Missouri River from Bismarck, North Dakota; the western column, under command of Colonel John Gibbon, was to start from Fort Ellis, Montana, while the third column, under General George Crook, was to start from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming.

It was hoped, and confidently expected, that if the hostiles were in the region where reports had them located, they would thus be entrapped between the three commands, and be either crushed or compelled to return to their reservations.

It must be understood that at that time there was no telegraphic communication between Bozeman, Montana, on the west and Bismarck, North Dakota, on the east, while the nearest line to the south was at old Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Not a town, village, hamlet or settlement existed in all that vast stretch of country between the points named, unbelievable as it may seem at the present day, with that entire section now settled up and peopled by thousands, with cities, towns and villages galore in evidence. Seventy-six years ago the only means of communication was by mounted courier to the nearest telegraph line.

The eastern column, under personal command of General Terry, left Fort Lincoln, May 17, 1876. It consisted of approximately 600 to 650 men of the famous Seventh Cavalry, led by Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer, one of the greatest military figures of that time, and a cavalry leader whose superior the world has rarely seen—a man of unquestioned bravery, skill, energy and fighting ability, with a Civil War record second to that of no officer in the entire United States army. And Custer was but 36 years of age at his death!

It had been expected that Custer should go in command of the eastern column. Unfortunately, however, he had, a short time previously, incurred the enmity of General Grant, then President of the United States, and Grant had given orders that not only should Custer not go in command of the eastern division, but that he should not accompany the expedition in any capacity whatsoever, but should remain behind at Fort Lincoln.

This, to Custer, was a most humiliating condition in which he found himself. Smarting under the (to him) injustice of this edict of the President, Custer went to General Terry, whose headquarters were at St. Paul, and there begged (on his knees, so report has it) of General Terry that he intercede with the President to spare him the humiliation of seeing his regiment march away on a hostile Indian expedition and he not be allowed to accompany it.

General Terry, a most lovable and kindly man, and himself an army officer of distinction, at length agreed to take the matter up with Grant. The result was that the President finally reluctantly stated that if Terry really needed Custer, he would lift the ban and allow him to go at the head of the Seventh Cavalry, but not as commander of the expedition. Thus the expedition got under way.

Passing over the first few weeks of the march of the Seventh Cavalry (which were uneventful, so far as this article is concerned) Major Marcus A. Reno with six troops of the Seventh Cavalry, was sent out, June 10th, on a side scout in an endeavor to locate the hostiles.

Major Reno was an officer with a brilliant Civil War record, having received brevet after brevet, for meritorious and gallant services in action. His skill, bravery and ability in handling troops in the field had been proven time and again.

Reno swung west as far as the Rosebud river, there discovering a fresh Indian trail leading up that stream. Unfortunately he did not follow this trail far enough to definitely ascertain in which direction its destination appeared to be, but after scouting over it but a short distance, he cut across the country to the encampment of the balance of the Seventh Cavalry at the mouth of the Rosebud.

Here he reported to General Terry, the expeditionary commander, what he had discovered.

That night a conference was held in the cabin of the supply steamer Far West, the boat chartered by the government for use during the campaign to carry supplies for the troops to the head of navigation, and which was now lying at the mouth of the Rosebud awaiting orders. This meeting was attended only by General Terry, Colonel Custer and Colonel Gibbon, the latter having arrived with the Seventh Infantry, a few companies of the Second Cavalry, and a Gatling gun division from Fort Ellis. Here General Terry laid his plan of operations before his subordinates.

Briefly this plan was as follows:

Gibbon, with about 400 men of the Seventh Infantry and Second Cavalry, with the Gatling guns, was to proceed west to the Big Horn river, which stream he was to follow up, with the expectation of arriving in the valley of the Little Big Horn on June 26th, or possibly the 27th.

Custer, with the entire Seventh Cavalry, was to march south up the Rosebud until he reached the point where Major Reno had discovered the fresh trail a few days before. Custer was then to ascertain definitely in which direction this trail led. If it led across the divide and over into the valley of the Little Big Horn (as Terry confidently expected) Custer was not to follow the trail further, but to proceed south up the Rosebud, another day’s march, perhaps as far as the headquarters of the Tongue river, in order to give Gibbon’s slower moving infantry time to arrive in the valley of the Little Big Horn where Terry expected to find the hostiles. Then—and not until then—Custer was to swing west toward the Little Big Horn, and upon striking that stream was to march north downstream, while Gibbon was marching south up it. Thus, if the hostiles were located on the Little Big Horn, it was expected that they would be entrapped between the two commands.

General Terry was to accompany the troops of Colonel Gibbon, thus leaving Custer in supreme command of the Seventh Cavalry. Nothing had been heard of General Crook’s column, which was expected from the south; but, unknown to any of the other commanders, Crook had fought the Sioux in a fierce battle on the Rosebud, June 17th, and had met with such determined opposition that he had been compelled to retire to his base on Goose Creek (near the site of the present city of Sheridan, Wyoming) and send a call back to Fort Fetterman for reinforcements, in spite of the fact that his command numbered over one thousand men. (See note 1 at end of chapter)

The Sioux were greatly elated over the result of this battle, which had been disastrous to Crook, and were in trim for another—indeed it is stated that their leading chiefs, for some time afterward, thought they were fighting Crook’s men again at the Little Big Horn.

Custer was warned by General Terry at the evening conference aboard the Far West, that Colonel Gibbon’s troops could not possibly reach the vicinity of the Little Big Horn valley before June 26th at the most, and Custer was instructed to so time his marches that both commands would reach the rendezvous not earlier than that date.

Unfortunately, Custer did not carry out his commander’s plan for cooperative action. Indeed, Custer had stated to Colonel William Ludlow of the Engineer Corps of the U. S. army, on the streets of St. Paul, but a few minutes after having been notified that he was restored to the command of the regiment, that he was to accompany General Terry’s column, adding a statement that his purpose would be at the first chance in the campaign to cut loose from (and make his operations independent of) General Terry during the summer, that he had got away with Stanley and would be able to swing clear of Terry.{1} This, after General Terry had used his influence to have Custer restored to the regiment in order that he might accompany the expedition!

Upon reaching the trail which Major Reno had discovered, Custer gave no further attention to his commander’s instructions, but at once, and with almost feverish haste, followed the trail over into the Little Big Horn valley, making forced marches and exhausting both men and horses. It will be noted that Custer (reaching the valley of the Little Big Horn shortly after noon of the 25th) was at least twenty-four hours in advance of the time he was instructed to be there, thus completely wrecking and upsetting all the carefully-laid plans of the expeditionary commander. The approach of Custer’s troops having been discovered by the keen-eyed scouts of the hostiles, he had to do one of two things—fight, or see the Indians slip from his grasp. Needless to say, he chose to fight.

Unfortunately again, the written instructions to Custer from General Terry were not of a positive character, hence, for three-quarters of a century, dispute and bitter controversy has waged fiercely (and doubtless always will) as to whether Custer wilfully disregarded these instructions. In a confidential telegram to Washington, however, General Terry stated that he had warned Custer that Gibbon’s troops could not possibly get to the Little Big Horn valley before the 26th at the earliest.

General Terry knew the impetuous and dashing make-up of Custer. He had tried to induce him to accept a battery of Gatling guns and some of the Second Cavalry from Gibbon’s command as an auxiliary to his own forces; but Custer had declined this tender, arguing that he could, with the Seventh Cavalry alone, whip any body of Indians he was likely to encounter, and that the Gatling guns would only hinder and impede his progress.

The Indian village was strung along the west bank of the Little Big Horn river for a distance of over four miles, being pitched on a level plain. The east side of the stream washed the edge of broken, precipitous bluffs, all but impossible of ascent or descent by mounted troops, and there were fords only at certain places—all, of course, unknown to Custer. The village was from a half-mile to a mile in width across the valley, containing approximately eighteen hundred lodges, with many hundreds of single wicki-ups in addition, to accommodate the young braves who had jumped their reservations to join the hostiles. The entire population