The Last Stand

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  Chapter 10: Reno’s Charge

  Wooden Leg told of how he and his brother woke up late on the morning of June 25 and went to the river for a swim, in Marquis, Wooden Leg, p. 216. Charles Eastman in “The Story of the Little Big Horn” wrote, “There were hundreds of young men and boys upon the flats playing games and horse-racing. . . . The young men who had been playing upon the flats were the first to meet Reno,” pp. 355–57. Moving Robe Woman spoke of “digging wild turnips with an ash stick,” in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 92. On Inkpaduta and the various accounts of his presence on the LBH, see Paul Beck’s biography of the Santee chief, pp. 136–37; according to Beck there is “a wide variance in Sioux recollections over Inkpaduta’s role in the Battle of LBH.” For a carefully reasoned assessment of the village’s size, see John Gray’s Centennial Campaign, pp. 346–57. Vine Deloria Jr. points out that the water needs of the village were the limiting factor in its size, making some of the soldiers’ inflated claims (some of which were as high as twenty thousand Indians and fifty thousand horses) ludicrously impossible: “Just figuring water-needs to keep that many people and animals alive for a number of days must have been incredible. If you have estimated correctly, you will see that the LBH was the last great naval engagement of the Indian wars,” Custer Died for Your Sins, p. 150. Wooden Leg told of Roman Nose’s visionary experience on a raft on Medicine Water Lake, near Goose Creek in modern Wyoming in Marquis, Wooden Leg, pp. 149–51.

  Reno testified to his actions and state of mind during the charge down the LBH Valley, in W. A. Graham, RCI, pp. 212–13, 217. Peter Thompson described how cavalrymen counted off by fours in his Account, pp. 16–17. My description of the McClellan Saddle and other equipment is based on James Hutchins’s Boots and Saddles at the Little Bighorn, pp. 39–40. Compared to a western-style saddle, the McClellan Saddle had relatively long stirrups. Young Hawk said that in addition to the black handkerchief with blue stars, Bloody Knife wore “a bear’s claw with a clam shell on it,” in Libby, p. 96. My account of Bloody Knife is based largely on Ben Innis’s Bloody Knife: Custer’s Favorite Scout, pp. 22–55. On the death of Deeds, see Richard Hardorff’s Hokahey! A Good Day to Die, pp. 17–30; Hardorff also presents the evidence regarding the killing of six women and four children at the beginning of the battle and speculates that “[m]aybe the Ree [or Arikara], Bloody Knife, was involved in the slayings,” p. 34. According to the Arikara scout Little Sioux, “We saw the Sioux squaws and two boys leaving village and we got after them. Squaws were on east side of river opposite timber,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 180. Little Sioux claimed they opted to pursue a herd of horses instead, but the evidence points to at least some of the scouts having in fact killed these and perhaps other Lakota noncombatants.

  Sergeant Culbertson testified that “one in ten [enlisted men] had not seen prior service” and that some were “not fit to take into action,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 128. According to Thomas McGuane in Some Horses, “Anxiety in a horse can spread like a virus,” p. 11; he continues, “Those who have not experienced a horse urgently going somewhere are unaware of their real physical capacity. . . . A runaway is far more dangerous than a downright bucking bronc as he becomes intoxicated by his speed and his adrenaline is transformed to rocket fuel,” p. 13. Rutten told Camp about how his horse started to act up “as soon as he smelled Indians . . . and he could not control him. The only thing he could do was to continually circle him around the three troops,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 118. John Henley recounted his similar experiences during the Yellowstone campaign, in Liddic and Harbaugh’s Camp on Custer, p. 48. Reno claimed that the dust on the trail they were following was “four to six inches deep,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 213. Varnum described seeing the Indians in the distance up ahead, “apparently trying to kick up all the dust they could,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 46. DeRudio described “the immense dense dust” and added that “we could see the shadows of Indians in that dust,” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 149. Custer’s claim that it would take “another Phil Kearny massacre” to convince Congress to properly fund the military is in Henry Carrington’s Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka, Land of Massacre, p. v. On Crazy Horse’s role as a decoy at the Kearny massacre, see Bray’s Crazy Horse, pp. 98–100. Private William Morris of M Troop described Captain French as “a fat man, with a falsetto voice,” in Wengert and Davis’s That Fatal Day, p. 25. Slaper’s description of French as being “cool as a cucumber” is in Brininstool, p. 53.

  French’s letter in which he wrote “I thought we were to charge headlong through them all” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 337. Jay Smith in “A Hundred Years Later” cites the statistic that between 1868 and 1878, there were nineteen attacks on Indian villages, with the only unsuccessful charge occurring at the LBH, p. 105. Concerning Custer’s decision to attack, Camp wrote: “[V ]illages of 100–200 lodges had been ‘jumped’ before and since. . . . [A]n attack on a village of 1500 with a force of less than 500 men should be regarded as something of an experiment,” in Hardorff, On the Little Bighorn, p. 213. As asserted by Gregory Michno, who compiled 216 instances during which the American military came upon an Indian village in Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, Custer’s decision to attack the Indian village without reconnaissance was perfectly in keeping with common practice at the time: “That was the whole point of the pursuit: find the Indians and attack. No commander . . . would expend time and energy to track Indians only to call it off at the crisis point, even with unfavorable odds,” p. 356. Regarding the dynamics of a cavalry charge, General A. B. Nettleton wrote, “[I]n campaigning with cavalry, when a certain work must be done, audacity is the truest caution,” in July 29, 1876, Army and Navy Journal. Sheridan’s claim that the defeat at the LBH was due to Custer’s “superabundance of courage” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 117. According to Pink Simms, if Reno had charged instead of thrown out a skirmish line, “a mounted charge would have temporarily demoralized the hostiles and the two commands would have joined. It is idle to think that they could have defeated them, but a united command, by employing defensive tactics could have survived. No doubt they would have suffered heavy casualties,” box 111, folder 1, Camp Papers, BYU.

  An officer is not supposed to let his personal feelings influence how he responds to a superior’s orders. But as later became obvious to a newspaper reporter who attended the monthlong RCI, such was not the case at the LBH. “It will be found,” the reporter wrote, “to be a general rule in human nature that where one man dislikes another, the dislike sways his judgment, without reference to the justice of the conclusion. Hence it is rather an unavoidable inference that Reno did not like Custer . . . ; and that, influenced by his feelings, he only half carried out Custer’s orders in attacking the Indians,” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 466; much the same could be said for Benteen’s subsequent conduct. Dr. Porter testified as to Reno’s strange behavior at the ford, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 62. Godfrey in “Custer’s Last Battle” quotes Reno’s belief that he “was being drawn into some trap,” as well as Reno’s response to the soldiers’ cheers: “Stop that noise,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 287. William Taylor heard Reno’s slurred order to charge then saw him sharing a bottle of whiskey with Lieutenant Hodgson, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 151, and in Taylor’s own With Custer on the Little Big Horn, p. 36. Reno testified that he felt he had obeyed Custer’s orders: “I did not charge into the village, but I went far enough to discover that it was impossible. Of course, ten men could be ordered to charge a million: a brilliant illustration is the battle of Balaklava. I then knew nothing of the topography, but it afterwards developed that had I gone 300 yards further the command would have been thrown into a ditch 10 yards wide and 3 or 4 feet deep,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 227. In Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, Varnum asserted that due to the line of timber on the right, only those in the advance on the left of the line could see “the tops of a few tepees, enough to show where the village was,” p. 101. Dr. P
orter insisted that most of them couldn’t see the village until they had fled into the timber, and then the village was a quarter mile away, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 64. My description of how the horse holders secured the other three horses is based largely on Hutchins’s Boots and Saddles, p. 40. Rutten related his wild ride to the verge of the village and back to Camp, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 118. Taylor in With Custer recounted the orders “Halt” and “Prepare to fight on foot,” p. 37.

  The testimony of Pretty White Buffalo Woman (also known as Mrs. Horn Bull) is in James McLaughlin’s My Friend the Indian, pp. 166–70, and in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, pp. 81–87. Little Soldier’s account is in Hardorff’s Indian Views, pp. 173–78. Kate Bighead told her story to Marquis, in The Custer Reader, edited by Paul Hutton, pp. 363–77. Black Elk’s account of children running from the river is in DeMallie’s The Sixth Grandfather, p. 181. One Bull’s account is in box 115, WCC, and is cited by Hardorff in Hokahey!, p. 38; see also One Bull’s account in Hardorff’s Indian Views, pp. 138–41. Holy Face Bear corroborated the fact that Sitting Bull’s first reaction to the attack was to see if the soldiers might be willing to negotiate; he remembered the Hunkpapa chief saying, “Wait, these men may want to make a treaty with us,” in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 182. According to Gray Whirlwind, Sitting Bull said, “I don’t want my children to fight until I tell them. That army may be come to make peace, be officials bringing rations to us.” Gray Whirlwind also recounted how the death of Sitting Bull’s “best horse” caused him to shout, “It is like they have shot me; attack them,” box 105, notebook 14, WCC.

  John Ryan told of using the prairie dog village as a breastwork, in Barnard’s Ten Years with Custer, p. 293. Private Daniel Newell opted for a buffalo wallow; “I said to myself,” he remembered, “ ‘Here is a good breastworks,’ ” in John Carroll’s Sunshine Magazine, p. 10. Thomas O’Neill told how “the men were in good spirits, talking and laughing and not apprehensive of being defeated and the Sioux . . . were . . . keeping well out of range,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 107. Charles White’s account of seeing the officers drinking whiskey is in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 17. Sergeant Culbertson testified that on the skirmish line “some of the new men [were] firing very fast,” W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 122; one of the men in Culbertson’s company reported that he’d fired sixty cartridges while on the skirmish line, p. 127. Moylan testified, “[I]t was impossible for an officer to regulate [the soldiers’ fire], owing to the men being new in the service, and not under fire before. On the part of those new men it was wild and at random,” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 214, which also includes Varnum’s account of soldiers “shooting right up in the air,” p. 154. Hutchins in Boots and Saddles describes how the men’s ammunition was distributed between their belts and their saddlebags, p. 33; he also discusses the weapons used by Ryan and French, p. 30. Morris wrote how French and Ryan “scored hits,” in Neil Mangum’s “Reno’s Battalion in the Battle of the Little Big Horn,” p. 5; Morris claimed he fired thirty rounds on the skirmish line and that his gun barrel “was burning in my hand, and the breechblock commenced to jam.”

  According to Richard Hardorff, Custer’s battalion was sighted on the bluff by at least seven officers and men: Moylan, DeRudio, Varnum, Roy, O’Neill, Petring, and Newell, On the Little Bighorn, p. 43. DeRudio said he saw Custer and Cooke on a bluff. “I recognized [them] by their dress,” he testified. “They had on blue shirts and buckskin pants. They were the only ones who wore blue shirts and no jackets; and Lt. Cooke besides had an immense beard,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 115.

  Little Soldier remembered that when Reno attacked, “older warriors were out hunting buffalo, for that reason boys 13 or 18 did the fighting. Old men sang death songs for warriors. Sweethearts, young Indian mothers, and children all wailing and crying,” in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 175. The account of Moving Robe Woman, also known as Mary Crawler, is in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, pp. 92–94. In Waterlily, a novel full of carefully observed factual details about Lakota life, Ella Deloria describes a woman drying her eyes, “fitting the base of her palm into her eye sockets as all women did,” p. 19. My thanks to Jennifer Edwards Weston for bringing this source to my attention. Rain in the Face’s memory of Moving Robe Woman being “pretty as a bird” is in Charles Eastman’s Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, pp. 146–47. John Ryan described how the warriors “tried to cut through our skirmish line” in Barnard’s Ten Years with Custer, p. 293. Billy Jackson talked of how the dust cloud raised by the warriors’ charge “almost choked us,” in Schultz, p. 136. Nelson Miles, who spoke with several Native participants soon after the battle, described in his Personal Recollections how, after the first charge, the ever-growing number of warriors “assembled out on the mesa, some 500 yards from the LBH,” p. 286. Moylan testified that Jackson said, “No man can get through there alive,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 80.

  Curley speculated that Boyer “probably told Custer Reno had been defeated, for Boyer did a whole lot of talking to Custer when he joined him and kept talking while they were riding side by side,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 166. Martin’s accounts of how he received his orders from Custer and Lieutenant Cooke are in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, pp. 289–90, and in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 100, 103. Libbie told of Custer’s tendency to rattle off his orders in Boots and Saddles, pp. 120–21. Benteen quoted Cooke’s note in a July 4, 1876, letter to his wife, in John Carroll’s Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 152. Standing Bear spoke of how Crazy Horse took time to “invoke the spirits. . . . [H]e delayed so long that many of his warriors became impatient,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 214. Black Elk’s memory of the cry “Crazy Horse is coming!” is in DeMallie’s The Sixth Grandfather, p. 182. Billy Garnett told of Crazy Horse’s determination to “have nothing to do with affairs political or social” and how “the Indians were almost uncontrollable” after Reno’s attack until Crazy Horse spoke to them, in Ricker, Voices of the American West, vol. 1, pp. 117, 118. Chipps explained that Crazy Horse “did not paint as the Indians usually do. . . . [H]e made a zigzag streak with red earth” in Ricker’s Voices of the American West, vol. 1, p. 126. Hutchins in Boots and Saddles discusses the cartridge-extraction problem in the Springfield carbine; a contributing factor was the soldiers’ use of leather cartridge belts, which tended to coat the shells with verdigris; when fired, the verdigris “formed a cement which held the sides of the cartridge in the place against the action of the ejector,” pp. 33–35. Red Hawk told how prior to the charge Crazy Horse exhorted his warriors, “Do your best, and let us kill them all off today,” in Ricker’s Voices, vol. 1, p. 312.

  In a May 15, 1934, letter to Goldin, Fred Dustin described how the skirmish line pivoted to accommodate the growing threat to the left: “[W]hen the skirmish line changed positions, it simply pivoted on the right flank of McIntosh’s troop, and occupied the edge of the woods and brush, and facing about, French was on the right and McIntosh on the left at or near the edge of a depression, probably the old stream bed of the river,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 123. Gerard’s account of Reno’s taking a drink from a bottle of whiskey as he left the skirmish line for the timber is in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 232. Morris recorded French’s threat, “I will shoot the first man that turns his back to the enemy,” in Mangum’s “Reno’s Battalion,” p. 5. Private Pigford recounted Sergeant O’Hara’s plea, “For God’s sake, don’t leave me,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 143. A Native participant later pointed out to Nelson Miles the place where the first soldier had been killed; he said the trooper had “a large yellow stripe down the side of the trousers,” in Personal Recollections, p. 287.