The Last Stand

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  By that time, Reno had returned to the bluff. He’d discovered Hodgson’s lifeless body beside the river, and although Hodgson’s watch had already been taken, Reno had been able to retrieve the lieutenant’s ring and keys. Weir found the major talking with Benteen and Moylan. “Custer must be around here somewhere,” Weir said, “and we ought to go to him.”

  “We are surrounded by Indians,” Reno insisted, “and we ought to remain here.”

  Benteen and Moylan tried to convince Weir that Reno was right. “Well if no one else goes to Custer,” he countered, “I will go.”

  Without saying anything to Edgerly, Weir mounted his horse and started to ride north.

  In the past, Weir had given his lieutenant great latitude in handling the troop. Assuming that Weir had received the requested permission and that he wanted him to follow with the rest of the company, Edgerly ordered his men to mount up on their coal black chargers and march north.

  Weir and the rest of D Troop had already left by the time Captain McDougall arrived with the pack train. Before him was a scene of astonishing placidity. “One would not have imagined,” he remembered, “that a battle had been fought.” Officers and men lounged casually on the bluff. Reno and Benteen had not even taken the precaution of throwing out a skirmish line. The whole battalion, McDougall later testified, might have been annihilated if the Indians had suddenly chosen to attack.

  According to Lieutenant Mathey, who was also with the pack train, Reno greeted him with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Look here,” he said, “I got half a bottle yet.” Mathey took particular note of the remark because Reno, who was obviously drunk, didn’t offer any of the whiskey to him. Reno pointed to the river and said distractedly to McDougall, “Benny is lying right over there.”

  A box of ammunition, containing five hundred rounds, had already been unloaded from the mules, and after the box was broken open with an ax, the cartridges were distributed among the men. The firing to the north was still audible to anyone who chose to listen. Standard military procedure dictated that the battalion march toward the sound of the guns. But Reno, McDougall euphemistically testified, “did not appear to regard the seriousness of the situation.” McDougall pointed to the north and said, “I think we ought to be down there.”

  McDougall was a good friend of Benteen’s, and his appearance may have made Benteen realize that he could no longer simply sit and watch as Reno wallowed in an alcohol-soaked stupor of terror and despair. Once again Benteen must follow Weir’s lead. McDougall later claimed that it was Benteen’s deference to Reno’s rank that caused him to wait for more than an hour on the bluffs. But as his subsequent actions made clear, Benteen had no qualms about ignoring Marcus Reno.

  Without consulting his superior officer, Benteen ordered his two remaining companies to mount and headed north. Reno, who’d just sent Lieutenant Varnum down to the river to oversee the burial of Hodgson, seems to have been caught by complete surprise. “Continuously and assiduously,” Benteen remembered, Reno’s trumpeter sounded the call to halt, but Benteen pretended not to hear. It was time to see, Benteen wrote, “what I had left my valley hunting mission for.”

  As the warriors in the bottom streamed past the timber toward the firing to the north, George Herendeen periodically ventured to the edge of the trees to monitor the state of the valley floor. After close to an hour, he decided it was as safe as it ever was going to get. Time to cross the river and find Reno’s battalion.

  He turned to the dozen or so soldiers in the timber behind him and told them it was time to leave. “We must walk and not run,” he said. “Take it cool and we should get out.” Sergeant White, who was badly wounded, assured Herendeen that the men would do as he said. “I will shoot the first man who starts to run or disobeys orders.”

  They crossed the open flat without incident. As they approached the river they came upon a small group of Indians. Herendeen fired only a single shot and the warriors dispersed. When they started across the chest-high river, Herendeen and Sergeant White remained on the west bank covering the soldiers, who dutifully covered Herendeen and White when it was their turn to cross. Up on the bluff they could see the guidons of Reno’s battalion.

  When Weir arrived at the high sugarloaf-shaped peak that eventually bore his name, he wasn’t sure what he saw about four miles to the north. He could see the huge village on the flats to the west of the river, but the hills to the east were shrouded in a thick cloud of dust and smoke. There were plenty of people over there; he just wasn’t sure whether they were Indians or soldiers. Then he saw the guidons. “That is Custer,” he said as he prepared to mount his horse and continue heading north.

  —To WEIR PEAK AND BACK, June 25, 1876—

  Sergeant James Flanagan stood beside him staring through his binoculars. “Here, Captain,” Flanagan cautioned, “you had better take a look through the glasses. I think they are Indians.” After taking a look, Weir decided that Flanagan was right. Not only were they Indians, they were beginning to head in their direction.

  By that time, Lieutenant Edgerly had led the rest of the troop beyond Weir’s position on the hill. Since Edgerly was down in a hollow to Weir’s right, he could not see that a vast number of warriors had begun to rush toward them from the north. The Indians were far enough away that the troopers still had some time, but it was a daunting sight nonetheless: Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of warriors who just a few minutes before had been moving leisurely over the distant hills were now riding with frenzied purpose south. Weir signaled Edgerly to bring the company back toward him on the hill. With their horses clustered behind Weir Peak, the soldiers of D Company formed a skirmish line from east to west. Ahead of them, the wide and rolling green hills were covered with warriors, “as thick as grasshoppers,” one trooper remembered, “in a harvest field.” Another trooper remarked on the fresh clouds of dust rising in all directions as the horsemen in the advance “converged toward our position.”

  Benteen arrived soon after with his companies in columns of fours. Once he climbed up to Weir Peak, he realized that “perhaps this time we had bitten off quite as much as we would be able to well chew.” He took up his company’s guidon and jammed the staff into a pile of rocks. “Perhaps the fluttering,” he wrote, “might attract attention from Custer.” He also knew that this hill was, as he was overheard to say, “a hell of a place to fight Indians.” They must fall back toward their original position. He was determined, however, that this time the retreat would not be a rout.

  By then, Reno, who’d been joined by Herendeen and his dozen soldiers, had reluctantly ordered his battalion to follow Weir and Benteen to the north. Benteen ordered Captain French’s M Company to form a skirmish line behind Weir’s troop; he then directed Godfrey to dismount his company along the bluffs to the south of the hill to prevent the Indians from overrunning them from the river. Under no circumstances were French and Godfrey to fall back until Weir’s men, who were still to the north, had been given sufficient opportunity to withdraw in safety. Now it was time to speak to Reno.

  Benteen found the major about a half mile back. Whether it was before or after this conversation, Captain McDougall, who’d been observing Reno during the delayed and disorganized march north, made a point of speaking confidentially with Benteen. “Reno,” McDougall said, “is doing nothing to put the command on the defensive.” Since Benteen was the senior captain, he “had better take charge and run the thing.” Otherwise, they would surely be overrun and massacred. Benteen answered McDougall with a grin and continued on to Marcus Reno.

  No one was more aware of the perilous nature of their situation than Peter Thompson. After witnessing what he was certain was the demise of at least a portion of Custer’s command, he and Watson had just spent the last half hour dodging Indians as they worked their way to the foot of the bluffs south of Weir Peak. On the hill above them, they could see “several guidons fluttering in the breeze.” The only trouble was that to get to them, they now had to climb up a near-ve
rtical two-hundred-foot-high cliff.

  It was getting close to 7 p.m., but the day was still stifling hot. The hill ahead of them was a broken, crumbling mess of dusty clay, with only the dry stalks of grass and sagebrush providing potential handholds. But as the valley around them filled up with Indians, Thompson and Watson knew they must climb the bluff.

  About halfway up, Thompson was overcome with exhaustion. He told Watson to continue on without him and fell gasping to the ground as the Indians down below blasted away at him. Up ahead, Watson shouted that the troopers were “now in plain view.” Finding reservoirs of energy he did not know he possessed, Thompson once again started up the hill “amid showers of lead.”

  One of the first soldiers he saw as he staggered onto the bluff was a fellow member of C Company, Sergeant Daniel Kanipe. “Thompson,” Kanipe cried, “where in the devil have you been?”

  In the years to come, Thompson found the question increasingly difficult to answer. On the evening of June 25, he simply said, “Well, my horse gave out and left me afoot.”

  Once Lieutenant Edgerly had dismounted his troops, he led his horse beyond the northeast edge of Weir Peak, where he hoped to catch a glimpse of Custer’s battalion. But it was too late for reconnaissance. The Indians, he could now see, were upon them.

  Behind him, Weir and the troops of D Company had mounted their horses and begun to retreat. It was already past the time to join them. Unfortunately, his horse had started to panic and was plunging wildly up and down. A vanguard of mounted warriors had ventured to within fifteen feet of his position.

  For reasons that were not apparent to Edgerly, Sergeant Thomas Harrison of Sligo, Ireland, was smiling. Harrison, a veteran of the Battle of the Washita, later explained that the Indians’ poor marksmanship was what amused him that afternoon on Weir Peak. In the meantime, Edgerly, who was referred to by his men as “Big Feet,” still hadn’t managed to climb onto his horse. In an attempt to calm the lieutenant’s mount, Harrison brought his own horse alongside, and with one last desperate lunge Edgerly vaulted into the saddle. The two troopers threw their reins behind their backs and with six-shooters in hand “cut through” the warriors between them and the rest of their troop.

  Up ahead, D Company was retreating along the ridge in columns of two as the warriors raked them with what Corporal George Wylie remembered as a “hot fire” from the high ground of Weir Peak. A bullet punctured Wylie’s canteen; another splintered the staff of the guidon he was holding and the flag fell to the ground. Nearby, Vincent Charley, the company’s farrier, or blacksmith, was blasted off his horse by a shot through the hips. By the time Edgerly and Harrison arrived, Charley was “half crawling on his feet and one hand,” and he begged Edgerly not to leave him. The lieutenant paused and promised he’d return with a rescue party. Until then, Charley should crawl into a nearby ravine and wait.

  It may have been a well-intentioned promise, but it was an unrealistic one given the proximity of the warriors. When Edgerly subsequently asked Weir to mount a rescue effort, the captain sadly insisted that they must continue the retreat. Edgerly later referred to Weir’s refusal with bitterness, but it had been Edgerly who’d declined to dismount and save Charley when a rescue might still have been possible. Inevitably contributing to Edgerly’s feelings about the incident were the circumstances of the farrier’s death. Charley was later found with a stick—perhaps the broken piece of Corporal Wylie’s flagstaff—jammed down his throat.

  The retreat to Reno Hill did not go as well as Benteen had hoped. Even before Weir’s company rode past “in hot haste,” Captain French’s M Company was also on the run. That left only Lieutenant Godfrey’s K Company between the battalion and the onrushing warriors.

  By that time, Benteen had conferred with Reno about the necessity of taking up a defensive position before the Indians had worked their way completely around the command. Not only were the warriors riding toward them along the bluffs; even more of them were returning south along the west bank of the river. The battalion needed to find a place where the steepness of the bluff facing the Little Bighorn protected at least one side of their entrenchment from attack. The location Benteen eventually chose was certainly not perfect, but it was as good as they were going to find under the circumstances: a shallow crater of grass and sagebrush beside the bluff with a hill to the south overlooking both the depression and a ravine down to the river to the west.

  When Benteen realized that French’s company had, in his words, “flunked” its test against the warriors, he sent word to Godfrey “to hold his vantage point, and everything would soon be O.K.” He then turned to Lieutenant Wallace of G Company. “Wallace,” he shouted, “put your troops here!” Wallace had inherited the leadership of his decimated company from Lieutenant McIntosh. “I have no troop,” Wallace said, “only three men.”

  “Well, then,” Benteen replied, “put yourself and your three men here and don’t let any of them get away. I will look out for you.” It was a pathetic, even absurd way to begin what was about to become one of the greatest sieges in the history of the American West, but Wallace’s three men would have to do. With G Company serving as what Benteen called “the nucleus,” he assigned each company a position as he strung the men along in the arc of an irregular circle. Five of the seven companies were concentrated on the northern half of the entrenchment, with Moylan’s A Company bridging the gap to the east and Benteen’s H Company assigned to the hill to the south. Clustered in the center, in a “saucer-like depression of prairie,” were the mules and horses, positioned so as to screen the wounded, who were stationed in what was loosely termed Dr. Porter’s hospital: “the blue canopy of heaven being the covering,” Benteen remembered, “the sage brushes [and] sand being the operating board.”

  As Benteen and Reno oversaw the positioning of the men, Lieutenant Godfrey did his best to hold back the Indians. Benteen had been deeply disappointed in the staying power of French’s M Company, but he was pleasantly surprised by the doggedness of K Company. Godfrey threw out a skirmish line about five hundred yards to the north of the entrenchment. Even when Reno’s new adjutant, Luther Hare, arrived with an order to retreat, Godfrey resolved to stay; otherwise “the Indians would make sad havoc in the other companies.” Seeing that Godfrey needed all the help he could get, Hare decided to remain with K Company, “adjutant or no adjutant.”

  The two officers positioned the men so there were about five yards between them. Many of the soldiers had never been in battle before, and as the fire of the warriors increased, they began to bunch protectively together. The “swish-thud” of bullets striking around their feet was bad enough, but the high-pitched “ping-ping” of bullets whizzing around their heads was what bothered them the most. Up until this point, the soldiers had been slowly retreating toward the entrenchment. Godfrey ordered them to halt and restored the original intervals between the men. Sure enough, the rate of fire once again increased, and the warriors were temporarily driven back.

  They continued to retreat slowly toward the rest of the battalion. They had reached the ridge overlooking Reno’s position when Godfrey realized that the Indians were galloping toward a hill to the right that would enable them to rake the entrenchment. He told Hare to go with a platoon of ten men and take the hill. But Reno had had enough. They must join the others on the line. Reluctantly, Godfrey called Hare back, and after firing one last volley at the Indians, the soldiers of K Company sprinted for the entrenchment without having lost a man.

  Godfrey was justifiably proud of how his company had covered the battalion’s retreat, but they were not alone. The Arikara scout Young Hawk had played a role as well.

  When the Lakota and Cheyenne began leaving the valley, Young Hawk and his grandfather Forked Horn had emerged from the bushes and seen that they could now safely join Reno’s battalion on the ridge. To make sure the soldiers didn’t confuse them with the enemy, Young Hawk tied his white handkerchief to a long stick and rode at the head of the Arikara as they climbed
the bluff. By the time they rejoined the battalion, the retreat to the entrenchment had begun. As the other Arikara fell back, Young Hawk, who had managed to kill two enemy warriors during Reno’s previous retreat, resolved to remain behind and fight. Soon the Lakota and Cheyenne were upon him, and Young Hawk had no choice but to pull back. Waving his white flag, he galloped toward the soldiers, who fired at the warriors behind him as the warriors fired at the soldiers. About a hundred feet from Reno’s line, the crossfire caught Young Hawk’s beloved horse, and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Young Hawk was quickly back on his feet, and with the white flag still in his hand, he ran to the entrenchment just as the guns of the Lakota and Cheyenne began what he later remembered as “a continuous roar.”

  In the beginning, the fire from the warriors was so hot that the soldiers had little alternative but to lie as flat as possible and “take it.” A ridge provided the companies in the northern portion of the entrenchment with some protection, but Benteen’s H Company, high on its hill to the south, was exposed to fire from both ahead and behind, with only sagebrush and tufts of grass between them and the path of the warriors’ bullets. Even more exposed were the horses and mules, and during the three deadly hours before nightfall, dozens of the animals were killed.

  The adrenaline rush of having held back more than a thousand warriors with his single troop seems to have endowed Godfrey with a giddy sort of bravado. Given the intensity of the Indians’ fire, he decided he must “reassure the men.” He stood up and began walking back and forth, spouting instructions and encouragement. It was clear to everyone but Godfrey that his actions were drawing the Indians’ fire, not only on him but on those who lay at his feet, and Lieutenants Hare and Edgerly both told him repeatedly to get down.