24. This account of the movements and growth of the hunting bands is based on Gray, Centennial Campaign, chaps. 26, 27, 28, and Marquis, Wooden Leg, 155–202. The account of the Battle of the Rosebud is based on Utley, The Lance and the Shield, 128–42; Vestal, Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux, 177–90; and Marquis, Wooden Leg, 193–204. (back to text)
25. Box 105, Notebook 5, p. 9, Campbell Collection. (back to text)
26. Utley, The Lance and the Shield, 138. (back to text)
27. Finerty, Warpath and Bivouac, 86. Mirrors were also used in other battles, including the Little Bighorn eight days later. One Sioux account of that battle states: “They were signaling from the camp with looking glasses when the sun was getting low in the afternoon, to the warriors” (DeMallie, The Sixth Grandfather, 195). (back to text)
28. Marquis, Wooden Leg, 200. (back to text)
29. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 312. (back to text)
30. Grinnell, The Fighting Cheyennes, 336, 338. (back to text)
31. Mails, The Mystic Warriors of the Plains, 218. (back to text)
32. Hammer, Custer in ’76, 205. (back to text)
33. Evans, 101. (back to text)
34. Ibid., 320. (back to text)
35. Ibid., 321. (back to text)
36. Crook, quoted ibid., 100. (back to text)
37. Sheridan, quoted in Sarf, The Little Bighorn Campaign, 115. (back to text)
38. Finerty, 93; Evans, 101. (back to text)
39. Bourke, 286. (back to text)
40. Ibid., 331. (back to text)
41. Ibid., 322–23, 333. (back to text)
42. Crook to Sheridan, July 25, 1876, RG 393, Part I, Orders, Letters Sent, Endorsements and Memorandums, Black Hills and Yellowstone Expedition, May 27, 1876, to October 24, 1876, National Archives. (back to text)
43. Schmitt, General George Crook, 195–96. (back to text)
44. Utley, The Lance and the Shield, 141. (back to text)
45. Hammer, Custer in ’76, 205. (back to text)
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FRUITS OF INSUBORDINATION
Epigraph: New York Herald, July 11, 1876, quoted in Graham, The Custer Myth, 234–35. Though the story for the Herald was unsigned, it is commonly believed to have been written by Custer on June 21, 1876.
Sources for information regarding Reno’s scout are scant, chiefly due to the fact that five of the six companies with his wing and all of their officers perished with Custer at the Little Bighorn. One of those officers, Lieutenant James Sturgis, was detailed to keep the itinerary, and his notes were lost. As far as is known, Reno never wrote of the scout or gave any account of it that was recorded. The two primary sources for the scout are a diary kept by Dr. James DeWolf and a diary kept by Sergeant James Hill of B Company. Secondary sources consulted for this chapter include Heski, “Another Look at the Reno Scout”; Stewart, “The Reno Scout”; Gray, Centennial Campaign; Stewart, Custer’s Luck; and Willert, Little Big Horn Diary.
1. LeForge, Memoirs of a White Crow Indian, 212–13. (back to text)
2. Ibid., 222. (back to text)
3. Willert, Little Big Horn Diary, 104–5. (back to text)
4. Libby, The Arikara Narrative of Custer’s Campaign, 74. (back to text)
5. New York Herald, July 11, 1876, quoted in Wengert, The Custer Despatches, 51. (back to text)
6. Custer, Boots and Saddles, 267. (back to text)
7. Sarf, The Little Bighorn Campaign, 135. (back to text)
8. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 128. (back to text)
9. Joseph White Cow Bull interview, McCracken Research Library. (back to text)
10. Stewart, Custer’s Luck, 105. (back to text)
11. Biographical information concerning Mitch Boyer is from Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign. (back to text)
12. Gibbon, “General Gibbon’s Comments on Custer’s Orders,” 4; Camp IU Notes, 494. (back to text)
13. Camp IU Notes, 135. (back to text)
14. Helena Herald, July 15, 1876, quoted in Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 396. (back to text)
15. Stewart, Custer’s Luck, 226. (back to text)
16. Nichols, Reno Court of Inquiry, 41. (back to text)
17. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 127. (back to text)
18. Ibid., 226. (back to text)
19. Carroll, Camp Talk, 14. (back to text)
20. Willert, Little Big Horn Diary, 118. (back to text)
21. Ibid., 189; Hardorff, The Custer Battle Casualties, 61. (back to text)
22. Libby, 73–74. Through Gerard, Reno told one Arikara, High Bear, that he couldn’t accompany the expedition because his horse wasn’t healthy enough. High Bear disagreed and said so; Reno told High Bear that he was a fool if he didn’t agree with Reno. High Bear suggested a fight to decide who would go. Reno threatened to shoot him, and High Bear started toward him with a knife. Bloody Knife jumped between them and asked Reno to let High Bear go for his sake. Reno wisely consented. (back to text)
23. Camp IU Notes, 33. (back to text)
24. Camp BYU Notes, Reel 5, 389. (back to text)
25. Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 191–92. (back to text)
26. A trooper on the scout, Peter Thompson, wrote an account several years later in which he claimed: “Our scout which was Mich Burey was of the opinion that we could overtake the Indians in a day’s march” (Brown and Willard, The Black Hills Trails, 142). Another trooper claimed that “the night Reno turned back, Mitch told Reno he could take him to the Sioux village in two hours’ time. Reno said he did not wish to see it” (Liddic and Harbaugh, Camp on Custer, 83). And in a letter from Custer to his wife, Libbie, dated June 21, 1876, and quoted in Wagner, Old Neutriment, 193–94, Custer wrote: “The scouts report that they could have overtaken the village in one and a half days.” (back to text)
27. Libby, 70. (back to text)
28. “Statement of Francis Johnson Kennedy,” in Liddic and Harbaugh, Camp on Custer. (back to text)
29. Liddic, I Buried Custer, 13. (back to text)
30. Willis Carland to W. A. Falconer, October 27, 1930, Camp BYU Collection. (back to text)
31. Godfrey, “Custer’s Last Battle,” 11. (back to text)
32. Merington, The Custer Story, 307. (back to text)
33. Forrest, Witnesses at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, 47. (back to text)
34. Camp IU Notes, 623. This was gleaned by Camp from the band director’s widow, Mrs. Felix Vinatieri. (back to text)
35. Lubetkin, “Strike Up ‘Garryowen,’” 10–11. (back to text)
36. Hardorff, Camp, Custer, and the Little Bighorn, 37. (back to text)
37. Custer, Boots and Saddles, 273. (back to text)
38. Ibid., 274. (back to text)
39. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 136. (back to text)
40. Hunt, I Fought with Custer, 64. (back to text)
41. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 137. Some postbattle corroboration that Terry considered Reno’s actions insubordinate appeared in a story published in the Chicago Times, September 16, 1876. When reporter Charles S. Diehl asked about Reno’s disobedience on the reconnaissance, Terry answered, “That is a matter of record” (Knight, Following the Indian Wars, 288). (back to text)
42. Magnussen, Peter Thompson’s Narrative, 78. (back to text)
43. New York Herald, July 11, 1876, quoted in Graham, The Custer Myth, 234–35. In a letter to Custer, Libbie mentioned the fact that he had been sending dispatches to the Herald: “I do hope and trust that your communications for the Herald & Galaxy were all right” (Libbie Custer to George A. Custer, June 21, 1876, Merington Papers). (back to text)
44. Custer, Boots and Saddles, 275. (back to text)
45. Willert, Little Big Horn Diary, 183. (back to text)
46. Gray, Arikara Scouts with Custer, 18, 20. (back to text)
CHAPTER NINE: THE SEVENTH RIDES OUT
Epigraph: Wallace to his father, June 18, 1876, quoted in New York Herald, July 10, 1876.
1. Thoug
h several participant accounts do not mention Brisbin as being present at the conference, at least two men — Lieutenant John F. McBlain, with the Montana column (McBlain, “With Gibbon on the Sioux Campaign of 1876,” 142), and scout George Herendeen (Hammer, Custer in ’76, 221) — place him there. Lieutenant Edward Godfrey mentions that Brisbin was on the boat (Godfrey, Field Diary, 8), and Brisbin himself, in a letter to Godfrey, wrote, “I was on the boat, the steamer ‘Far West,’ the night of the 21st, when the conference took place between Gibbon, Custer and Terry . . . and I heard what passed. . . . Terry had a map. . . . Being somewhat near-sighted, as you know, Terry asked me to mark the line of march, and I did so with a blue pencil” (Carroll, The Two Battles of the Little Big Horn, 141–42). (back to text)
2. “The maps that we had were what was known as the Reynolds-Maynardier [sic] Map made 1859 and 1860.” Edward Godfrey to Charles Francis Bates, March 19, 1926, Ghent Papers. (back to text)
3. Carroll, “Diary,” 233; Gibbon, “General Gibbon’s Comments on Custer’s Orders,” 4; Colonel Robert P. Hughes, “The Campaign Against the Sioux in 1876,” in Graham, The Story of the Little Big Horn, 214. In a story published in the November 8, 1884, Los Angeles Times, Brisbin wrote: “The Indians had left the Rosebud and gone no one knew exactly where, but we had a pretty good idea, through our Crow scouts. The Sioux were on the big bend of the Little Horn.” See also Noyes, “A Dispatch from the Battlefield,” 28, n. 11, for further evidence that Terry believed the Indians to be at the head-waters of either the Little Bighorn or the Rosebud. (back to text)
4. Several contemporary statements support the fact that Terry’s force of four hundred men was assigned this duty — to support Custer’s attack and act as a blocking force to any Indians that attempted to flee north. See Noyes, “A Dispatch from the Battlefield,” 28, n. 13. For further evidence that there was no plan of simultaneous attack, see Walter, “Terry and Custer: Was There a Plan?” (back to text)
5. Graham, The Custer Myth, 261. Though there is no contemporary evidence of this date, several accounts written only days after the battle mention it. There seems little doubt that the plan called for Custer to rendezvous with Gibbon and Terry near the mouth of the Little Bighorn, quite possibly on the 26th. In a report written on July 2, Terry wrote: “I send in another dispatch a copy of my written orders to Custer, but these were supplemented by the distinct understanding that Gibbon could not get to the Little Big Horn before the evening of the 26th” (Graham, The Custer Myth, 216). In a letter to General Crook, written on July 9, Terry said: “Custer had been informed that Gibbon’s column would reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn on the evening of 26th ultimo” (Overfield, The Little Big Horn, 1876, 57). William White, a soldier with Gibbon, later wrote, “It was understood generally we were trying to reach the mouth of the Little Bighorn. There, it was said, Custer was to meet us the next day, the 26th” (Marquis, Custer, Cavalry and Crows, 64). Matthew Carroll, Gibbon’s wagon master, wrote in his diary on June 26 that Custer “was to meet Terry at the mouth of the Little Big Horn to-day” (Carroll, “Diary,” 234). One diarist, Captain Henry Freeman with Gibbon’s column, referred to a meeting of the two columns “on the 26th, or [2]7th at latest” (Freeman, “Diary”). Dr. Paulding wrote that “Custer . . . pushed his command ahead, notwithstanding unmistakable directions that he was to await our co-operation & that we could not be near that spot before the 27th” and also that “he was to meet our column at the mouth of the Little Horn on the 27th” (Hudnutt, “New Light on the Little Big Horn,” 357, 350). A cavalry officer with Gibbon’s column, Lieutenant John McBlain, wrote in a June 1896 Cavalry Journal article, “Our commander had vouched for our being at the ‘big bend’ of the Little Big Horn on the 27th,” and forty-four years later, a trooper with Custer, William Slaper, wrote, “It was given out that we were to meet General Terry in the neighborhood of the Big Horn River, with the balance of his command on the morning of June 27th. . . . It seemed to be the general understanding among the men that Custer and Terry were understood to have agreed to meet somewhere in the valley of the Little Big Horn on June 27th” (Brininstool, Troopers with Custer, 45–46). Clearly, there was no general agreement on which day the two columns would meet, though the 26th seems probable. See also Evans, Custer’s Last Fight, 129–33, and Darling, A Sad and Terrible Blunder, 66–67. (back to text)
6. Terry to Sheridan, dispatch, June 21, 1876, quoted in Gray, Centennial Campaign, 140. Terry later claimed that much of the new plan was his idea, which he suggested in the conference. See Gibbon, “General Gibbon’s Comments on Custer’s Orders.” (back to text)
7. Gibbon, “Hunting Sitting Bull,” 691. This is a variation on Sherman’s definition of military glory, “dying on the field of battle, and having your name spelled wrong in the newspaper.” (back to text)
8. Noyes, In the Land of the Chinook, 108. (back to text)
9. Graham, The Custer Myth, 261. (back to text)
10. Ibid. The possibility exists that Kellogg may have received his information from Custer and consequently reported it erroneously. But contemporary accounts almost unanimously support this version of Terry’s plans, despite his written letter of instructions tendered to Custer the next morning. For instance: Captain H. B. Freeman of the 7th Infantry with Gibbon told his friend Anson Mills that “he was perfectly sure that both Terry and Custer understood that it was expected for Custer to surprise and attack the enemy wherever found” (Anson Mills to E. S. Godfrey, August 30, 1918, quoted in O’Neil, Custer Chronicles, vol. 1, 32). See also Walter, “Terry and Custer.” (back to text)
11. Gibbon, “Last Summer’s Expedition Against the Sioux,” 22. (back to text)
12. New York Herald, July 11, 1876, quoted in Graham, The Custer Myth, 237. For evidence that at least one of Custer’s close subordinates — Captain George Yates — also believed that Custer’s orders from Terry constituted “a carte blanche letter of instructions to act on his own initiative and in his own discretion,” see Carroll, A Very Real Salmagundi, 52. (back to text)
13. Krause and Olson, Prelude to Glory, 268. (back to text)
14. Noyes, “The Guns ‘Long Hair’ Left Behind,” 6. (back to text)
15. McClernand, “With the Indian and the Buffalo in Montana,” 16. (back to text)
16. Readers familiar with the story will notice that I have made no mention of the infamous affidavit signed by Custer’s cook, Mary Adams, in which she claimed to have heard Terry give Custer supplemental “orders” in person. John Manion, in his excellent book General Terry’s Last Statement to Custer, makes a convincing case for the existence of the affidavit and Mary Adams’s presence on the expedition. Nevertheless, to my mind, there are too many unanswered questions surrounding the affidavit to accept it as factual. See also Francis Taunton’s excellent “The Mystery of Miss Adams.” (back to text)
17. Big Horn Yellowstone Journal 2, no. 4 (Autumn 1993): 17; Carroll, The Two Battles of the Little Big Horn, 175; Urwin, Custer and His Times, Book 3, 187, 199. (back to text)
18. Godfrey, Custer’s Last Battle, 14. (back to text)
19. Merington, The Custer Story, 309. (back to text)
20. Hammer, Custer in ’76, 247. (back to text)
21. Wagner, Old Neutriment, 137. (back to text)
22. Fougera, With Custer’s Cavalry, 277. (back to text)
23. Broome, “In Memory of Lt. James Sturgis,” 21. (back to text)
24. New York Herald, July 26, 1876, quoted in Wengert, The Custer Despatches, 55. In a letter written to Keogh’s sister Margaret on July 15, 1876, Nowlan claimed that he and Keogh had exchanged wills before Keogh rode with the Seventh (Museum of the American West). (back to text)
25. Camp IU Notes, Box 2, Folder 10. (back to text)
26. Johnson, “The Seventh’s Quartermaster,” 16. (back to text)
27. Camp IU Notes, 606. (back to text)
28. Willis Carland to W. A. Falconer, October 27, 1930, Camp BYU Collection; Carland to William Ghent, February
2, 1934, Edward S. Godfrey Papers. (back to text)
29. Hammer, Custer in ’76, 245. (back to text)
30. Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1884. (back to text)
31. Nichols, Reno Court of Inquiry, 127. (back to text)
32. Merington, The Custer Story, 306–7. (back to text)
33. For a comparison of the orders to Reno and Custer, see Evans, 453–55. (back to text)
34. Hammer, Custer in ’76, 262. (back to text)
35. Merington, The Custer Story, 307–8. The full text of Terry’s orders to Custer reads as follows: (back to text)
“The Brigadier-General Commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since. It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so, the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn towards the Little Horn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn towards the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank.
“The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course its further movement must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible. The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock’s Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon’s Column, with information of the results of your examination. The lower part of the creek will be examined by a detachment from Colonel Gibbon’s command.
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