A Terrible Glory

by James Donovan

  The majority of what was left of the sodden, exhausted battalion finally reached the summit a few minutes after four o’clock. Varnum, still making his way up, yelled, “For God’s sake, men, don’t run, we have got to go back and get our wounded men and officers!” When Luther Hare scaled the hill, he echoed the Lieutenant, hollering, “If we’ve got to die, let’s die like men. I’m a fighting son of a bitch from Texas.” To Moylan’s troop, which was following its Captain away from the river, he added, “Don’t run off like a pack of whipped curs!”94

  Their appeals roused Reno enough to tell Moylan to dismount his men. The Captain managed to convince enough of his demoralized troopers to throw out a skirmish line just below the edge of the hill, though the Indians below and on the nearby bluffs had begun to withdraw even before the deployed men began to fire at them.

  That action and the remonstrances of Varnum and Hare stopped most of the men from running any farther, especially since the Indians were not pursuing them up onto the bluffs. Many of the men flopped to the ground to rest. Some descended the hill to the river to fill their canteens. One trooper, Private John Wallace, reached the crest clutching a Sioux scalp, taken from a dead Indian he had come across on the side of the hill. Meanwhile, Captain French found his guidon-bearer, eighteen-year-old Private Frank Sniffin. “You damned fool, where are your colors?” he snarled. The other two companies in the valley fight had lost theirs. Sniffin reached under his shirt and pulled them out — he had torn the guidon from the staff and stuffed it close to his chest during the frenzied retreat. The Captain affixed the colors to a carbine and stuck it into the ground.95

  When Dr. Porter reached the summit, he saw Reno walking around excitedly with a red bandanna wrapped around his head. Porter said to him, “Major, the men were pretty well demoralized, weren’t they?”

  “That was a charge, sir!” was the Major’s strange reply.96

  About half of Reno’s shattered column had made it to the bluffs unscathed. Twenty-nine enlisted men and three officers lay dead in the valley below, where at that moment, all along Reno’s route to the river, Indians in plain view were ransacking their bodies for clothing, ammunition, and other possessions, scalps included.97 Nearly twenty others were missing, quite possibly still in the timber, maybe dead. Seven wounded men98 would eventually make it to the temporary hospital area Dr. Porter was establishing. None of the white scouts and only a few of the Indian scouts were on the hill. Ammunition was low, and so was morale. No other soldiers were in sight, and Reno and his men had just been chased up the bluffs by a thousand Indians, some of whom had repeating rifles and had put them to good use.

  But for some reason, the enemy had quit the battle. Most of the Indian horsemen were now galloping north down the river, some pointing, others yelling at their comrades.

  Finally, there was a ray of hope for the beleaguered cavalrymen. Ten minutes or so after regrouping, they saw a column of bluecoated horsemen approaching from the south along the bluffs, a sight that raised a hoarse cheer from most of the men.

  AS THE BLUECOATS dragged themselves across the flats and up the steep bluffs beyond, Lakotas a few hundred yards downstream yelled over to the warriors near the water, and some waved blankets: other soldiers to the north were riding toward the village, down a large coulee that widened as it approached the river, and they were after the women and children. Within minutes, hundreds of warriors, all save a few, turned and galloped downstream — some arcing around the bend, some splashing through the woods and water, and some crossing the river and climbing to the ridgetop on the east side of the Little Bighorn.

  “They seemed to fill the whole hill,” remembered a Two Kettle chief named Runs the Enemy, speaking of the soldiers. “It looked as if there were thousands of them, and I thought we would surely be beaten. As I returned I saw hundreds of Sioux. I looked into their eyes and they looked different — they were filled with fear.”99 After Sand Creek and the Washita, as well as other smaller battles with the bluecoats, every warrior knew what could happen if their families fell into the hands of the wasichus: death, injury, imprisonment, or dishonor. It was time to see whose medicine was stronger.

  THIRTEEN

  “The Savior of the Seventh”

  Come on. Big village. Be quick.

  GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER

  Custer halted his battalion where the narrow ravine turned north and dumped into a larger one that appeared to head toward the river. The troopers dismounted and adjusted their saddles and girths — both men and animals were sweating in the torrid heat. The General turned to his adjutant, Cooke, and instructed him to write a message to Benteen. He needed the Captain’s men and the pack train with its ammunition.

  “Orderly,” Cooke said as he ripped the page out of a small notebook and handed it to John Martin, “I want you to take this dispatch to Captain Benteen and go as fast as you can. Take the same trail we came down. If you have time, and there is no danger, come back, but if there is any danger or Indians in the way stay with your company.”

  Martin’s horse was tired, but he turned and rode back up the ravine. When he looked back, Custer and his command were headed down toward the river. They were galloping.1

  He reached the high ground a few minutes later. To his left, some Indians fired at him, but he spurred his horse faster, and they did not pursue.

  Then he saw Boston Custer riding hard toward him. They both stopped.

  “Where’s the General?” asked Boston.

  “Right behind the next ridge you’ll find him,” said Martin, gesturing.

  Boston pointed out to Martin that his horse was limping. Then, anxious not to miss the action, he dashed down the ravine after his brothers.2

  Boyer had watched Reno’s panicked retreat from the ridge where Custer had left him and the Crow scouts. Figuring that the General would want to know of this turn of events, Boyer told the three Crows to leave, then rode past the grassy peaks and down into the wide coulee below to find Custer. He reached him at about four o’clock. The news called for a change in strategy.

  Eight years earlier on the Washita, taking a hundred captives had helped Custer keep a thousand warriors at bay and had enabled the Seventh Cavalry to retreat safely. That might work here, but Reno’s predicament presented a dilemma. They needed to move farther north to cut off the families and corral them, but the Major’s beleaguered battalion needed immediate help. After the Washita, Custer had been criticized by some for not making a stronger effort to find and rescue Major Elliott’s contingent. That could not happen again.

  Boston Custer galloped up soon after, bearing good news. He had passed Benteen’s battalion on the lodgepole trail less than an hour before, and the pack train had been only about a mile behind. The courier Martin was making good time on the back trail and would likely deliver the message safely.

  Custer needed a lookout point to reassess the situation. He took his command across the wide ravine and onto the ridge on its north side and called a halt.3 From the elevation, he could see a good deal of the village — which he now realized was even more extensive than he had first thought — and, four miles or so to the south, a dust cloud that must be Benteen’s battalion. That meant it was a good bet that Benteen would be up in a half hour at the most, if he accelerated his pace as ordered.

  The situation called for a gamble, and Custer had always been a gambling man, whether it was a horse race, a poker game, or a battle. He instructed his old friend George Yates to take his two companies — Keogh’s seniority dictated that he lead the larger wing, of three troops — and ride swiftly over the hills down to the river a mile away. There, with a big show, he would feign a crossing into the village and secure the ford until Benteen arrived and Custer, with six companies, joined Yates to storm into the camp. The demonstration would draw a good portion of the hostiles from Reno. Meanwhile, the General and Keogh’s troops would wait for Benteen and join him in riding toward the ford and the village. If Benteen did not arrive soon, they would rid
e north along the high ground, keeping an eye out for him and a clear path for his 125 men. A volley of rifle fire would signal Yates to leave the ford and move north across the hills to rendezvous with Keogh’s right wing on the high ground about a mile and a half northeast, where a long ridge a half mile back from the river ran northwest. The closer end of that ridge would be their rendezvous point.4

  Victory could still be seized if Custer stayed on the offensive, but not with a retreat. Fortune favored the bold — everyone knew that — and boldly was the only way Custer knew how to fight. Splitting his battalion once again was risky, but there seemed to be no other way to assist Reno while the rest of the command united and rode into the camp to secure noncombatant hostages.

  Captain Algernon Smith and young Jack Sturgis led E Company over the hills along the coulee toward the river. Yates and his only Lieutenant, the green but game Willie Reily, followed with F Company. Custer watched the seventy-six troopers leave.5

  IN LATER YEARS, Fred Benteen would claim that Custer’s orders to him were vague and “senseless”6 — “valley hunting ad infinitum.”7 But on this day, dissent was not an option. He may have despised the former Boy General, even hated him — he derisively referred to Custer’s recently published book as “My Lie [rather than “Life”] on the Plains” — and he disagreed with him about the strategy he had decided on. But Benteen was a good soldier, so he followed Custer’s orders — up to a point.

  The scouts all swore there was a very large Indian camp up ahead, with more hostiles than Custer had ever seen, and Benteen tended to believe them. The cherub-faced Captain had been ordered by Custer to take his three-company battalion and ride toward the southwest “to see if the Indians were trying to escape up the valley of the Little Big Horn, after which we were to hurry and rejoin the command as soon as possible,” Benteen’s subaltern, Lieutenant Frank Gibson, remembered soon after the battle.8 Every cavalry attack on an Indian camp produced some attempt to flee to safety, and if these Indians tried to escape, the south had to be blocked — to the west lay the country of the Crows, blood enemies of the Sioux, and to the north was Terry’s battalion.

  Benteen led his men out toward the bluffs at a brisk walk. His bay mount, Dick, was a fast walker, and some of the horses had to trot to keep up. Per Custer’s instructions, he ordered Gibson to ride ahead with the Captain’s French field glasses and six additional troopers. The small detachment would scale the bluffs when they reached them and inspect the valley on the other side. That would relieve the rest of the battalion and its tired horses from doing the same, since they could skirt the ridges and avoid the steep hills.

  Further instructions were delivered by the two messengers — first the regimental chief trumpeter, Henry Voss, and then Sergeant Major William Sharrow — sent by Custer soon after his battalion had proceeded down the trail a ways and he was able to see more of the country into which Benteen was riding. Voss arrived as Benteen neared the base of the hills and ordered him to move into the valley beyond. Sharrow reached him fifteen minutes later and told him that Custer wanted him to move even farther, to the second line of bluffs, and look into the next valley. If no Indians were discovered, Benteen was to look into the valley after that. What was initially expected to be a quick reconnaissance in force to the nearby valley of the Little Bighorn9 was becoming a longer and, to Benteen’s mind, aimless scout. Convinced that there were more than enough Indians to the north to pose a challenge to the entire regiment, he did not like Custer’s orders. Benteen acknowledged them, and as he watched Sharrow ride away after Voss, he glimpsed the main column, or at least E Company, the Gray Horse Troop, almost two miles to the north, galloping down the lodgepole trail.

  Benteen’s battalion moved forward, wending its way through ravines and up and down hills, as Gibson and his men guided their horses up the first bluffs, which were not as steep as expected, more like rolling hills. “Gibby” signaled that there were no Indians to be seen from the highest point, then descended into the rough terrain beyond. He rode up the next line of bluffs, descended, and yelled to his Captain that there was no valley to be seen, only more intervening hills. He climbed the next line of bluffs, then the next — at least four altogether.10 From the final ridgeline, a higher divide almost five miles from where they had left the main column, Gibson finally gained a good view of what he was sure was the upper valley of the Little Bighorn and examined it with the glasses. There were no Indians to be seen.11

  Benteen had already decided that he had gone far enough, and Gibson’s report confirmed his decision to return to the trail. This felt like a wild-goose chase, and perhaps, he thought, that had been the plan all along: to keep him out of the fight and away from any attendant glory.12 Besides, the horses were tired and thirsty, not having been watered since the evening before, and that water had been heavily alkaline. He ordered a right oblique — a forty-five-degree turn — and moved his men north through the hills back to the trail. The battalion moved at a slow walk, the horses having become jaded after the two-hour off-trail march.13 Since he had been specifically ordered to send a messenger only if he found any signs of Indians, he sent none, although a reconnaissance usually called for a report by courier, and an anxious Custer (he had, after all, sent two follow-up orders regarding Benteen’s mission) would certainly have appreciated knowing there were no Indians upstream.

  Four or five miles later, the battalion reached the Indian trail and turned to trot west along the right bank of the creek, less than a mile ahead of the slow-moving pack train. Benteen was now only a few miles behind the main column — less than an hour’s walk.14 A half mile later, in a large depression surrounded by low hills, they stopped at a morass that covered the trail to water the thirsty, tired horses. The men filled their canteens as their mounts drank, and some took off their heavy blue coats, for the heat was stifling. The break continued for twenty minutes or so. Some of the officers discussed why Benteen didn’t order them out. “I wonder what the Old Man is keeping us here for?” said one.15 As the watering continued, the buckskinned Boston Custer rode into view from the rear on his fresh mount.16 He gave Lieutenant Winfield Edgerly a cheery salutation as he trotted by to rejoin his brothers ahead.

  Among those impatient with the long break was Captain Thomas Weir. He approached Edward Godfrey and suggested that they petition Benteen to move forward, but Godfrey demurred, unwilling to incur the Old Man’s wrath. We ought to be over there, said Weir, and being at the head of the column, he mounted his troop and started off down the trail with his men. Benteen immediately ordered the rest of the battalion to follow.17 As the last of the troopers moved out, the van of the pack train reached the area, the thirsty mules plunging into the water despite all the attempts of the packers to restrain them.18 The lead mules quickly became bogged down, slowing the pack train’s progress to a standstill.

  Benteen quickly caught up with the insubordinate Weir and passed him without a word. They soon encountered the lone tepee, still burning, at the abandoned Indian camp about a mile west of the morass. Benteen dismounted to inspect the lodge, then remounted and continued down the trail, a few hundred yards in advance of his battalion. Gunfire could now be heard, and it soon became constant and furious. A mile or so farther on, a rider approached waving his hat. It was Sergeant Kanipe, with a message from the General for the pack train to move forward at a faster pace. To Benteen he said, “They want you up there as quick as you can get there — they have struck a big Indian camp.” He made no mention of the division of the regiment into two more battalions. Benteen directed him toward the back trail, where he would find the pack train in about a mile or so. Kanipe rode past the column, yelling, “We’ve got ’em, boys!” and added, “They are licking the stuffing out of them.” Benteen’s troopers now had the impression that Custer and his eight companies had attacked and captured the village.19 All the glory work, it appeared, had been done.

  Despite the order to hurry — and Benteen’s original orders to hurry back after ac
complishing his mission — the column continued to move at a fast walk.20 The horses were tired, but none had fallen out due to exhaustion, and they were capable of a faster gait. Benteen would have none of it.

  Apprehension increased as they rode down the trail. Even the horses felt it and became anxious, as weary as they were. The gunfire had become sporadic. Was the battle finished? Few of these troopers had fought before; some could barely shoot their guns, much less attempt to do so from horseback. But they unholstered their pistols and checked their chambers. An Indian attack could come from anywhere, particularly from the hills to the right of the trail. And there was still the hope of some Indians left to charge, if Custer had not rounded them all up.

  A mile or so after they encountered Kanipe, another horseman came into sight, galloping over the hills to the right — a trooper again, this one Private Martin, the young Italian whose English was not so good. He was one of Benteen’s own men, picked to go with Custer as a regimental orderly that morning. As he reined in, the excited trumpeter was almost jumping out of his skin and had failed to notice that his spent horse was bleeding from Indian gunfire. Martin bore a written message from Custer that he gave to Benteen, who was now riding a few hundred yards in advance of his battalion. Written in Cooke’s hasty pencil scribble, it read:

  Benteen

   Come on. Big

  village. Be quick.

  Bring pack.

   W. W. Cooke

  PS bring pacs.21

  Benteen found the message confusing. Bring the packs? Clearly Custer meant the ammunition boxes — or did he? He knew where the pack train was, not far behind them — they could see the dust it kicked up about a mile back — and no Indians had as yet been seen. To wait for the pack train to arrive, or even to go back for it, made no sense if they were needed. How could he do that and “come on” and “be quick” at the same time? Which did Custer want, the packs or Benteen’s men?