The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  One Bull told of where he and Sitting Bull watched the battle with the noncombatants, in box 105, notebook 19, WCC; he also described how Sitting Bull was dressed during the battle: “buckskin clothes, no war bonnet, shirt was green quill work on buckskin, not painted and human hair hung from sleeves, wore one feather on head, no war paint,” in box 104, folder 6, WCC. According to Utley in The Lance and the Shield, Sitting Bull’s “willful and deliberate ways [as a boy] earned him the nickname Hunkesni, or ‘Slow,’ ” p. 6. Two Moons claimed that as Custer and the Left Wing and the survivors of the Right Wing gathered around Last Stand Hill “not a shot was fired,” in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 111; he also told of seeing the soldier in buckskin stagger from the northern ridge toward Last Stand Hill, p. 113. Fox believed that the remnants of both F and E companies redeployed at Last Stand Hill “to intercept right-wing survivors,” in Archaeology, History and Custer’s Last Battle, p. 192. Kate Bighead told of how there were “hundreds of warriors for every white soldier left alive” on Last Stand Hill, in Hutton’s The Custer Reader, p. 370.

  Two Moons described how the horses of the Gray Horse Troop were “turned loose by the soldiers and they fled toward the river,” in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 111. Standing Bear told of how the warriors shouted, “They are gone!” when the horses were released, then repeated the exclamation when the troopers followed, in DeMallie, The Sixth Grandfather, p. 186. Red Horse recounted how the group of soldiers and the group of warriors “stood for one moment facing each other,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 60. Iron Hawk told how he beat the soldier to death because “the women and children had run away scared,” in DeMallie, The Sixth Grandfather, pp. 191–92. Moylan testified that they found “20 odd bodies of E Company” in Deep Ravine: “The marks were plain where they went down and where they tried to scramble up the other side, but these marks only extended half way up the bank,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 76. Fox cites Bourke’s reference to the seven skulls in Deep Ravine, in Archaeology, pp. 213–14. Gray writes about the discovery of what appear to be the bones of Mitch Boyer, in Custer’s Last Campaign, pp. 398–99; he also cites Boyer’s claim that the Sioux “can’t get even now,” from the July 15, 1876, Helena Herald, p. 396. Godfrey wrote, “I firmly believe [the E Company men found in Deep Ravine] belonged to Lieutenant Sturgis’ Platoon and had been ordered to locate a ford for crossing the river,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 95. In addition to citing Godfrey’s belief that it was Sturgis who led E Company toward the river, Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard cite Godfrey’s account of finding “several headless bodies” in the Indian encampment not far from the river; they also cite Private George Glenn’s claim that one of the severed heads found in the village was that of Sturgis, in Where Custer Fell, p. 112.

  On what was found on June 27 on Last Stand Hill and the wounds on Custer’s body, see Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, pp. 15–31. Yellow Nose’s account of his encounter with the “striking and gallant” officer whom he took to be Custer is in “Yellow Nose Tells of Custer’s Last Stand,” pp. 41–42, and in Hardorff’s Indian Views, pp. 103–5. As Hardorff argues in a footnote, Yellow Nose’s opponent was almost certainly not Custer but his brother Tom; see also George Grinnell’s comments in Hardorff’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 58. On the mutilations to Tom’s body (Sergeant Ryan wrote that Tom’s head “was smashed as flat as the palm of one’s hand”), see Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, pp. 24–25. White Bull claimed that the Lakota sometimes mutilated the body of an enemy “because [the] man was brave,” in box 105, notebook 24, WCC.

  Edgerly wrote that Boston Custer and Autie Reed were found “about a hundred yards from the general’s body,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 220. Frost cites the Oct. 28, 1868, letter in which Custer asked Libbie about the possibility of adopting Autie Reed, in General Custer’s Libbie, p. 178. Big Beaver, who was seventeen at the time of the battle, reported that “a soldier got up and mounted his horse and rode as fast as he could towards the east. . . . Two Cheyenne Indians cut him off and killed him,” in Hardorff’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 149; others claimed the soldier committed suicide, while Moses Flying Hawk reported that instead of killing himself, the lone rider “was beating his horse with his revolver” when it went off accidentally, in Ricker’s Voices of the American West, vol. 1, p. 446. Walt Cross argues that forensic analysis of a skull taken from a remote portion of the battlefield indicates that it was Henry Harrington’s, in Custer’s Lost Officer, pp. 199–233.

  Wooden Leg claimed that the warriors’ mad scramble for Last Stand Hill “looked like thousands of dogs . . . mixed together in a fight,” in Marquis, Wooden Leg, p. 237; Wooden Leg also told how the warriors exclaimed, “I got a good gun,” etc., p. 264. Brave Bear spoke of the “fussing and quarreling” over spoils, in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 80. Wooden Leg told of how he scalped Cooke’s face of one of its long sideburns and how the women “used sheathknives and hatchets,” in Marquis, Wooden Leg, pp. 240, 263. On Sand Creek, see Jerome Greene’s Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1876–9, pp. 3–5, and Gregory Michno’s Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, pp. 157–59. Julia Face told of seeing the naked skin of the dead soldiers shining in the sun, in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 190. One Bull recounted how Sitting Bull “told Indians not to take spoils or be condemned by God, but Indians took saddles, etc. and Sitting Bull said because of it they will starve at [the] white man’s door, they will be scattered and be crushed by troops,” in box 104, folder 6, WCC; elsewhere White Bull remembered, “After the battle Sitting Bull told the Indians to leave things alone that belong to the soldiers but they did not obey. Sitting Bull said, ‘For failure on your part to obey, henceforth you shall always covet white people’s belongings,’ ” box 110, folder 8, WCC.

  Beaver Heart claimed that Custer bragged, “When we get to the village I’m going to find the Sioux girl with the most elk teeth,” in John Stands in Timber’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 199. Kate Bighead recounted how the two southern Cheyenne women punctured Custer’s eardrums with an awl, in Hutton’s The Custer Reader, p. 376. Hardorff writes, “In an interview with his friend Colonel Charles F. Bates, General Godfrey disclosed that Custer’s genitals had been mutilated by an arrow which had been forced up his penis,” in The Custer Battle Casualties, p. 21; see also Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, II, pp. 20–21. Sergeant Ryan wrote, “At the foot of [the] knoll, we dug a grave about 18 inches deep, and laid the body of the General in it. We then took the body of Tom, and laid him beside the General. Then we wrapped the two bodies in canvas and blankets, and lay them side by side. . . . We took a blanket [basket?] from an Indian travois, turned it upside down, put it over the grave, and laid a row of stones around the edge to keep the wolves from digging them up,” in Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, p. 25. Herendeen, who accompanied the soldiers assigned to retrieve the officers’ remains the following year, claimed that “out of the grave where Custer was buried, not more than a double handful of small bones were picked up. The body had been dragged out and torn to pieces by coyotes and the bones scattered about,” in Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, p. 45.

  Chapter 16: The River of Nightmares

  In a July 4, 1876, letter to Sheridan, Reno claimed that if Gibbon and Terry had attacked instead of bivouacked on the evening of June 26, the outcome of the battle might have been entirely different: “Had [Gibbon] done so the destruction of [the Indians] was certain and the expedition would not have been a failure. But the truth is he was scared . . . [;] he was stampeded beyond any thing you ever heard of. When we commenced to fall back to the boat at the mouth of ‘Big Horn’ I thought that all right but we did not stop until we put the Yellowstone between us and Custer’s battleground. We could have stayed [on the LBH] as long as there was anything to eat, not to take the offensive perhaps but could have remained in their country in spite of them and not have come skulking back here like a whipped dog with his tail between his legs,”
in Sheridan Collection, LOC, cited in Nichols’s In Custer’s Shadow, p. 218. As Nichols points out, “Reno’s letter . . . was a serious breach of military protocol—the letter should have been sent to Terry. Perhaps Reno thought . . . a letter to Terry would not be well received and Sheridan would not have the benefit of Reno’s opinion as to why the battle went so poorly,” p. 236. Given Reno’s conduct in the battle, it’s quite incredible that he dared question the bravery of another officer.

  Peter Thompson described his dizzying ride on the night of June 28 in his Account, p. 52. In a July 8, 1876, letter to his mother, Dr. Paulding wrote, “We had a hard job carrying off the wounded . . . , carrying them in hand litters. This was slow and exhausting, and the next day . . . Doan of the Second went to work and made mule litters from timber frames with thongs of raw hide cut from some of the wounded horses we found in the camp & among the timber & which we killed & skinned for the purpose,” in “A Surgeon at the Little Big Horn,” edited by Thomas Buecker, p. 143. Private Adams’s account of finding Comanche is in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 121–22; see also Elizabeth Lawrence’s His Very Silence Speaks, pp. 74–81. My account of Curley’s appearance on the Far West is based on Hanson’s The Conquest of the Missouri, pp. 247–80. Curley told Walter Camp that by repeating “Absaroka” (which means “Crow”) to Marsh and the others on the Far West, “He meant that he was a Crow and that the other scouts had run away and [the] soldiers [had been] killed,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 169. Hanson details how Marsh turned the riverboat into a hospital ship, p. 290; he also describes the column’s approach at night and how Marsh constructed a stall for Comanche, pp. 293, 295. McDougall told Camp that “on the night march to the steamer Mike Madden was dumped out of the litter and fell into a cactus bush,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 73. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations describing the Far West’s voyage to Fort Lincoln are from Hanson, pp. 295–314. Wilson told how the riverboat pinwheeled down the Bighorn in his official report, in General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn: The Federal View, edited by John Carroll, p. 67. James Sipes, a barber aboard the Far West, described how the lower deck was protected with “sacks of grain and four-foot cordwood stood on end” and how the pilot house was armored with boiler plate. He also described how the vessel struck a large cottonwood and “split her bow open,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 240.

  Private William Nugent’s claim that Terry delayed the departure of the Far West so that he had the time to draft “a report that would suit the occasion” is in L. G. Walker’s Dr. Henry R. Porter, pp. 59–60. In the confidential July 2, 1876, dispatch to Sheridan, Terry wrote, “I do not tell you this to cast any reflection upon Custer. For whatever errors he may have committed he has paid the penalty and you cannot regret his loss more than I do, but I feel that our plan must have been successful had it been carried out, and I desire you to know the facts,” in The Little Big Horn 1876: The Official Communications, edited by Lloyd Overfield, p. 37. M. E. Terry wrote of how the Far West bounced off the riverbanks, “throwing the men to the deck like tenpins,” in an article that appeared in the Pioneer Press in 1878 and was reprinted in Hiram Chittenden’s History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, pp. 388–90. Mark Twain described “that solid world of darkness” aboard a riverboat at night in Life on the Mississippi, p. 70; he also told of how “on very dark nights, pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilothouse stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the skylights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat,” p. 65. On Reno’s purchase of whiskey during the summer of 1876, see Evan Connell’s Son of the Morning Star, p. 51, and James Donovan’s A Terrible Glory, pp. 328–29, in which Donovan also cites evidence of French’s opium use. Benteen wrote of how he challenged Weir to a duel in a Mar. 19, 1892, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 219. Lieutenant E. A. Garlington was assigned to the Seventh soon after the battle and described Weir’s sad and drunken behavior as the regiment waited on the Yellowstone, in The Lieutenant E. A. Garlington Narrative, Part I, edited by John Carroll, p. 15. Godfrey recounted Weir’s reaction to seeing the naked bodies of the dead, “Oh, how white they look!” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 346. On the circumstances of Weir’s death, see Nichols, Men with Custer, p. 350. According to an article in the December 16, 1876, Army and Navy Journal, Weir died “of congestion of the brain.”

  My account of the Fourth of July celebration in Philadelphia is based on William Randel’s Centennial: American Life in 1876, p. 300. Sipes told Camp how the soldiers at the Powder River “gave up the idea” of a Fourth of July celebration when they heard about Custer’s defeat, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 241. John Gray described the measures taken against the Lakota on the reservations in the wake of the battle in Centennial Campaign, pp. 255–69. The rumor that Sitting Bull was a student of Napoleon’s military tactics appeared in the July 29, 1876, Army and Navy Journal; the claim that he was really a West Point graduate named “Bison” McLean appeared in the Sept. 2, 1876, Army and Navy Journal. My description of Sitting Bull’s meeting with Nelson Miles is based on Utley’s Lance and Shield, which cites Miles’s Oct. 25, 1876, letter to his wife, pp. 171–73. Sitting Bull’s comparison of Custer to “a sheaf of corn with all the ears fallen around him” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 73. Grant Marsh’s passage up the Missouri with Sitting Bull is described by Hanson, pp. 415–17. Sitting Bull’s frustration over his treatment by McLaughlin (“Why does he keep trying to humble me?”) is in Vestal’s New Sources of Indian History, p. 310. McLaughlin described Sitting Bull as “crafty, avaricious, mendacious, and ambitious,” in My Friend, the Indian, p. 180. Sitting Bull claimed McLaughlin “had it in for me” after he refused to rejoin Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, in Vestal, New Sources, p. 310. On the movement to “Kill the Indian, and save the man,” see Jeffrey Ostler’s The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism, pp. 149–68. Sitting Bull’s views on the potential uses of white culture are in Vestal, New Sources, pp. 273–74, as are his comparison of McLaughlin to a “jealous woman,” p. 310, and his comparison of reservation life to a game of whipping tops, p. 280. One Bull’s account of what the meadowlark told Sitting Bull is in box 104, folder 21, WCC. One Bull said the incident occurred soon after Sitting Bull’s return from Fort Randall; according to Ernie LaPointe it was in August of 1890, in Sitting Bull, p. 93.

  In Centennial Campaign, John Gray described the Far West’s stop at Fort Buford, p. 54, where Peter Thompson claimed Marsh picked up some ice; Thompson also related how “wood and bacon were fed to the hungry furnaces,” p. 54. Magnussen, in his edition of Thompson’s Account, writes in a note, “[T]his must have been sides of bacon which spoiled in the hot weather and would produce great heat for the boilers,” p. 290. Thompson described the mysterious leave-taking of the Indian scout in his Account, pp. 54–55, in which he also told of Bennett’s death. My account of Sitting Bull’s death draws from the testimony in Vestal, New Sources, pp. 1–117; in John Carroll’s The Arrest and Killing of Sitting Bull: A Documentary, pp. 68–97; and in William Coleman’s Voices of Wounded Knee, pp. 176–224. See also Jeffrey Ostler’s The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism, pp. 313–37. In “ ‘These Have No Ears,’ ” Raymond DeMallie cites One Bull’s and his wife’s accounts of how Bull Head struck Sitting Bull on the back three times, saying, “You have no ears,” p. 534. “[T]here had been no trouble between Sitting Bull and Bull Head before settling at the agency,” DeMallie writes; “adherence to different strategies to reach the same result—accommodation with the white people—led to an irrevocable breach between them.” Louise Cheney tells the story of how C. A. Lounsberry and others transmitted the story of the battle to the East Coast in “The Lounsberry Scoop,” pp. 91–95. As Sandy Barnard points out in I Go with Custer, the telegraph operator John Carnahan later claimed that Lounsberry greatly exaggerated his role in the scoop, pp. 1
57–59.

  Jeffrey Ostler’s The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism contains a provocative account of the Ghost Dance and the massacre at Wounded Knee, pp. 338–60. Joseph Horn Cloud told an interpreter that “Capt. Wallace sent Joseph to tell the women to saddle up,” in Ricker, Voices of the American West, vol. 1, pp. 200–201. Dewey Beard’s memory of how the officers of the Seventh “tortured us by gun point” is in William Coleman’s Voices of Wounded Knee, p. 275, as is Beard’s account of seeing his “friends sinking about me,” p. 303. Philip Wells claimed Wallace was killed by a bullet to the forehead; other accounts said he’d been smashed with a war club; both may have been true; see William Coleman, Voices, p. 304; Will Cressey’s account of the smoke-shrouded Indian camp looking like a “sunken Vesuvius” is also in Voices, p. 305. Godfrey’s testimony about hunting down the Lakota women and children is in his Tragedy at White Horse Creek: Edward S. Godfrey’s Unpublished Account of an Incident Near Wounded Knee, pp. 3–6, cited in William Coleman, Voices, pp. 330–33. Elizabeth Lawrence chronicles Comanche’s last days in His Very Silence Speaks, pp. 108–9.