A Terrible Glory

by James Donovan

  One trooper was killed in Benteen’s surprise maneuver, and his body remained partway down the ravine. Another shot in the action died a few minutes after they resumed their original position.37

  Benteen was as much of an inspiration on this day as he had been on the previous. He remained on his feet the whole time, walking around the entire position with his shirttail hanging out, ignoring the bullets flying around him, and talking to the weary, thirsty troopers: “Men, this is a groundhog case. It is live or die with us. We must fight it out with them.”38 When Hare asked him if he was trying to draw the Indians’ fire, Benteen told him, “If they are going to get you they will get you somewhere else if not here.”39 To another officer he said, “When the bullet is cast to kill me, it’ll kill me, that’s all.”40 Not only the enlisted men but also the officers were inspired by his confidence.

  At one point after the charge, Benteen walked up to Private Charles Windolph, a young German whose former occupation was shoemaker and who was using the name Charles Wrangel at the time, since he had deserted from the infantry four years earlier. The Indian rifle fire had resumed and happened to be particularly fierce at the time. Benteen told the prone Private to stand up. Young Windolph hesitated, since two of his H Company comrades, Julien Jones and Thomas Meador, had only recently been killed beside him. He asked his Captain if it was really necessary that he stand.

  “On your feet,” ordered Benteen.

  Windolph obeyed.

  “Look at all those Indians,” Benteen said. “If you ever get out of here alive, you will be able to write and tell the Old Folks in Germany how many Indians we had to fight today.”41

  As the onslaught continued, more soldiers went down, among them a Corporal named George Lell, who took a shot in the abdomen. A few other troopers dragged him to the hospital, but he was dying, and he knew it.

  “Lift me up, boys,” he told his comrades. “I want to see the boys before I go.”

  They helped him to a sitting position. Lell watched the battle, and the fight the regiment was putting up, and managed a weak smile. Then they lay him down. He died soon after.42

  One of the citizen packers, Frank Mann, sat at Moylan’s position facing the east, apparently aiming a carbine over a three-foot-high barricade. But he had been quiet and motionless for about twenty minutes. A trooper scrambled over to him and discovered he was dead. A bullet through the temple had killed Mann, leaving him frozen in position as if he were sighting his gun.43

  Noticing that H Company seemed to be the target of many of the sharpshooters, Benteen suspected that the Indians had a ploy in mind. He walked up to find Reno again. He found him sequestered in the same pit on the north side of the line. Standing above him, a smile on his face as the bullets whizzed about him, Benteen told the Major that if steps weren’t taken soon, the Indians would overrun the lines. Reno gave no reply.

  “You’ve got to do something here on the north side pretty quick,” Benteen said impatiently. “This won’t do, you must drive them back.”

  Reno asked, “Can you see the Indians from there?”

  “Yes,” answered Benteen.

  “If you can see them, give the command to charge.”

  Benteen walked to the highest position on Reno’s side — every Indian seemed to be firing on him — and rallied the troopers in the area. “All ready now, men,” he yelled. “Now’s the time. Give them hell. Hip, hip, here we go!”

  Reno managed to get up and leave his hole just in time to lead the charge.44 Every man of the four companies on the north side but one (who stayed in his rifle pit crying like a child) jumped up and leaped over the ridge. The large group of Indians a few hundred yards away, who were clearly gathering for an attack, rapidly dispersed as the troopers strode forward, firing steadily. They advanced fifty yards or so before Reno called the command back. It was only fifty yards, but it was enough:45 the Indians in their front quickly retreated to the hills behind them. Every man in the charge made it back to the lines alive. The trooper who had remained in his pit was shot in the head moments later and died instantly.46

  This second charge ended about 10:00 a.m.47 The sun was already beating down pitilessly, and the cries of the wounded men for water increased. Some men sucked on raw potatoes, which seemed to help a bit. Others put pebbles and even the lead from bullets in their mouths in hopes of inducing salivation. At least one trooper’s lips were so dry and swollen that they cracked and bled.48

  About eleven o’clock, Godfrey sent a detail down to the river with canteens to try to secure water, but the men came back empty-handed: the Indians in the brush on the opposite bank were too numerous. There was one other alternative. At the south end of the position, on the west side of the hill Benteen’s men occupied, a steep draw crowded with thick underbrush and some scrub trees ran down to the flat at the river, about five hundred yards away. This was the same draw the Indians had crept up and been repulsed from earlier. Benteen called for volunteers, and almost twenty men stepped forward. He detailed a dozen to descend the irregular ravine. The twelve men would climb down and, in smaller groups, run across the thirty feet of exposed space to the river, where they would have to throw themselves down at the water’s edge and reach down three feet to fill their canteens and camp kettles. Benteen assigned four of the best shots — Sergeant George Geiger and Privates Henry Mechling, Charles Windolph, and Otto Voit — to stand on the bluff above them and provide covering fire. The riflemen began to shoot, despite exposure to the higher ridge several hundred yards to the north. When the fire from the ridge got too hot, they scrambled over to the south slope of the hill, until the Indians to the south began firing on them, at which point they returned to the north slope. They repeated this maneuver for twenty minutes, until the water party finished their work. Somehow, none of the four was hit.49 And while a few water containers were punctured, all of the troopers made it back alive, although one, Sergeant Mike Madden, was wounded and his leg broken. He had to lie in the gully partway up the hill for some time until he could be carried to safety. (His leg would be amputated the following day after gangrene set in. Madden so enjoyed the liberal dose of whiskey given to ease his pain that he offered his other leg for more.)50

  Most of the water was delivered to the hospital, where Porter distributed it to his charges. Several other water parties were sent, and eventually the crisis was averted. But a mystery was born from the mission: someone with the Indians across the river had yelled at the water carriers in good English, “Come on over to this side, you sons of bitches, and we will give it to you! Come on over!” This and other observations would lead Reno, among others, to claim later that there were white men among the Sioux.51

  By now, most of the Indians surrounding the command had left for the village, leaving only a contingent of warriors guarding the river. A brief resurgence of fire at about two o’clock lasted only a short while. By three o’clock, the firing had ended altogether, though a few groups of warriors remained in the valley, across the river. Later that afternoon, smoke began to rise from the valley floor. The Indians had set fire to the grass, a tactic sometimes used to mask a large movement.

  About seven o’clock, most of the besieged Seventh Cavalry stood and watched as an immense cavalcade of people and horses began to move leisurely from the village up the valley, toward the Bighorn Mountains to the south. Men, women, and children were mounted, with travoises carrying equipment, provisions, and the occasional wounded warrior. A number of the women sang — some of the songs celebrating the great victory, others mourning the dead. The horse herd contained at least 20,000 ponies. Several of the soldiers later estimated that there were about 3,000 warriors and at least 7,000 people in all. Godfrey thought the column at least three miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, and densely packed. The procession continued for several hours before it passed from sight. The warriors remaining across the river, now clearly identified as a flank guard for the village, stayed until nearly dark, then rode after their people. />
  As the majestic cavalcade made its way south, Reno turned to Moylan and said, “For God’s sake, Moylan, look what we have been standing off.”52 The men on the hill breathed a sigh of relief, and more than one uttered a fervent “Thank God,” then they gave the departing Indians a full-throated three cheers.

  Some had grave doubts that the Indians were gone for good. After all, Benteen’s false “pre” was fresh in some of their minds. Maybe they were short on ammunition and were only moving their village before making one last attack. Maybe it was just a classic Indian ruse on a huge scale — they planned to ambush the command when it moved out. And maybe, just maybe, Custer had met up with Terry and had approached near enough to chase the Indians from the neighborhood.

  No one knew for sure. But just in case, Reno decided to relocate the command to a position closer to the river for better access to it. Most of the men were eager to leave the overwhelming stench of the dead men and the fifty dead horse and mule carcasses festering in the hot sun. The move was conducted over the next few hours. New rifle pits were dug and barricades erected. Canteens and camp kettles were filled and the stock watered. Dead comrades were buried. Over the previous twenty-four hours, the regiment had suffered seventy casualties. To make matters worse, their ammunition was dangerously low.53 The next charge might be the last.

  Later that night, just before midnight, Gerard and Billy Jackson came through the lines. About three the next morning, Private Thomas O’Neill, followed closely by Lieutenant DeRudio, called out to the sentries and scampered into the position, to the delight of their comrades. All four had spent the previous thirty-some hours hiding in the timber and brush along the river and had narrowly escaped death several times. DeRudio immediately began regaling his fellow officers with his hair-raising adventures. Benteen and French, neither of them admirers of “Count No-Account,” as Benteen labeled him, walked away in disgust. DeRudio said that he had returned to the timber to rescue his troop’s colors. Some saw his claim as a weak attempt to explain his decision to hide like a coward instead of engaging the enemy.

  The surviving horses and mules were led down to the river to be watered for the first time in thirty hours, then allowed to graze. When that was finished, company cooks did the best they could to rustle up a meal for the troops. Then pickets were thrown out, and most of the men lay down to sleep. Without the ominous sounds of the celebrating Indian camp, their rest was somewhat easier. “We lay in the trenches with the Sky for a Covering and Slept Soundly until Morning,” remembered Private Thomas Coleman.54 But the mass grave into which they had placed their dead comrades was a grim reminder of the uncertainty of their situation. No one knew what the next day would bring.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Rescue

  And Now comes the most hartrendering tale of all. . . . Oh what a slaughter.

  PRIVATE THOMAS COLEMAN

  After Custer had led the Seventh Cavalry up the Rosebud on the afternoon of June 22, Captain Grant Marsh cast off and guided the Far West up the Yellowstone. On board were General Terry, Colonel Gibbon, Major Brisbin, and some of Terry’s staff. On the way upstream, as the paddle steamer churned against the strong current, Gibbon came down with a severe gastrointestinal ailment. By the time the boat reached the confluence of the Bighorn early in the morning of the 24th to begin ferrying the column across the Yellowstone, his condition had deteriorated. He was in great pain and unable to leave his bed. Terry placed Brisbin in command of Gibbon’s troops.

  For a variety of reasons, most of which reflected poor planning, the ferry operation did not begin until noon. Save for a single infantry company left at a base camp on the north bank, the entire command — four companies of cavalry, five infantry troops, and the artillery detachment — was ferried across the river by 4:00 p.m. With them went mules carrying rations for six days.1 Clearly, the column was not expected to roam far from its Yellowstone base camp, which would be supplied by wagon trains from Fort Ellis almost two hundred miles to the west.

  Terry’s column, about four hundred men strong, began to ascend the Bighorn an hour later. Four miles upriver, they turned into the valley of Tullock’s Creek, the tributary that ran due south and roughly parallel to the Bighorn. An hour later, they stopped for the day. Terry and Brisbin soon rode into camp; Gibbon remained on the boat, still incapacitated.

  Terry expected George Herendeen to arrive at any hour, the frontiersman having specifically been sent with Custer to return with news of developments. There was also the chance that the Indians were camped along the stream. Lieutenant James Bradley’s Crow scouts were sent up the valley fifteen or twenty miles to reconnoiter for both Herendeen and the hostiles. They returned around sunset without having seen either, or even any sign of a recent trail.

  Terry became anxious.2 Custer had been on the march almost three full days, and ever since the war, Custer on an enemy’s trail had been known to be “like a hound on a rabbit,” as one of Gibbon’s officers put it.3

  Terry had told Custer that he would have Gibbon’s column at the mouth of the Little Bighorn on the morning of the 26th, and that point was some forty miles away.4 The next day, the 25th, the command broke camp early and began marching upstream. They had made only two miles before Terry turned the command west, up a dry creek bed that ascended the divide between the valleys. Terry was acting on the counsel of Brisbin and another officer, who were in turn heeding the advice of citizen scout Muggins Taylor, filling in less than adequately for Mitch Boyer and the injured Tom Leforge. Taylor had lived near the frontier for many years, but mostly in small towns. He was not a frontiersman and was not familiar with the country he was now guiding the column through. (Indeed, the next day he would nearly get the command lost. Only the objections of an officer who had been through the area recently prevented it.)5 The level plateau Taylor believed would be found crossing the divide was nowhere to be seen, and the terrain soon deteriorated into “a labyrinth of bald hills and deep precipitous ravines,” in the words of Lieutenant Bradley, “entirely destitute of water. . . . A worse route could not have been chosen.”6 Bradley and his scouts, ranging several miles ahead of the column, had not been consulted on the change in direction. The rough country, combined with the suffocating heat and choking alkaline dust, quickly fatigued both infantrymen and cavalry mounts and made it almost impossible to retain the Gatling gun battalion. When Bradley’s Crow scouts were finally reunited with the command, they adjusted the direction of march, but the improvement was minimal, and soon infantrymen began to fall out and collapse, some of them fainting.7 They staggered into the valley of the Bighorn about 3:00 p.m. and after a two-hour rest marched on. The command stopped for the day at 7:00 p.m., after what Terry’s infantry commander, Captain Henry Freeman, later described as “the hardest marching I ever made.”8

  The exhausted foot soldiers could go no farther; they would remain in camp until morning. But Terry had not forgotten his promise to Custer.9 He asked Brisbin if the cavalry, even now preparing its dinner, could ride on that evening. Brisbin replied that it could. The call to boots and saddles was sounded, then to horse, and on the troopers rode, through a dark night marked by occasional showers and gusty winds. At one point, the Gatling battery was lost, then found a mile or so from the column — but only after repeated trumpet calls were sounded. A company of cavalry also got lost for a while.10

  After several hours of slow progress, the head of the column found itself perched on the brink of a narrow precipice. On each side lay a deep, black chasm. Somewhere far below, a river roared through a canyon. The tired, wet command came to a screeching halt. The officers sat their mounts for several minutes, at a loss as to what to do. Finally, Bradley suggested to Terry that they call up an old Crow named Little Face, who had roamed the area as a boy a half century earlier and claimed that he knew every foot of it. Little Face was summoned. He said that he could find a way out, and a good campsite, and led off as if it were a bright sunny day. Soon enough he brought them to an inviting valle
y, where they halted around midnight, unsaddled, and dropped to the ground for a few hours’ rest.11 They had somehow made twelve more miles and were only about a mile and a half from the mouth of the Little Bighorn, which flowed into the Bighorn some forty miles south of the Yellowstone. Whether that satisfied Terry’s obligation to Custer or not, it was as close as they could get before dawn.

  The next morning, the Crow scouts were sent out. A few hours later, they came upon three of Custer’s Crows — White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, and Hairy Moccasin — who after leaving Reno’s command on the hill had worked their way east and then north of the Sioux encampment. When the three told their tribesmen that a legion of Sioux had defeated all but a small portion of Custer’s command, and that those survivors had been surrounded and were still besieged, Bradley’s Crows began a series of doleful cries and wailings. The interpreter explained that they were mourning for the dead.

  Bradley and his soldiers were willing to accept that something dreadful had happened but thought the Crows were exaggerating. Custer and the Fighting Seventh badly whipped — an entire regiment almost wiped out? It was not possible.

  Bradley reported the Crows’ story to Terry, two miles on the back trail. The General was now accompanied by a shaky John Gibbon, recently arrived from the Far West, which was slowly making its way up the Bighorn over shallow rapids and through dangerous quagmires. Surrounded by several of the other officers, they listened to Bradley’s report. Most of the men refused to believe the story, some even accusing the Crows of cowardice in fleeing the field before the battle was over.