Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1877 — BLEACHING BONES. [ARTICLE]

BLEACHING BONES.

i Sickening Picture of the Scene ot the Custer Massacre. I [From the St. Paul Pioneer-Press.] i Mr. Frank M. Fleming, of Minneapolis, who left here last spring to assist in building one of the new military posts on the Yellowstone liver, returned homo a few days since bringing some very interesting particulars in regard to the work of construction and the result of his observations at the scene of the Custer massacre on the Rosebud. The post upon which Mr. Fleming . was employed during the summer is located at the mouth of the Little Big Horn, which is only some eighteen miles ! distant 'from the spot where Cnster and his gallant comrades met their terrible fate. Upon their first arrival at the site 1 of the new fort the civilian mechanics 1 had occasion to complain of the meager i allowance of provisions issued from the commissary department merely for the purpose of swelling profits in some direction. This fraud and dereliction was 1 Anally brought to the attention of the i commanding officer, Col. Buell, aud, . after one or two unsuccessful efforts on his part, the citizens gained their point and obtained the right aud full ration : which the Government and the commandant intended they should have. , Since then Mr. Fleming states that the mechanics from Minneapolis and St. 1 Paul have been well supplied and are ■ now working contentedly. The Big Horn post is rapidly approaching completion, is of sufficient capacity to accomomdate a formidable force and strong enough to resist any attack which Sitting Bull, Joseph, or any other savage warrior may make upon it. The second ' post is about 100 miles .distant from the Custer battle-ground. Shortly before I Mr. Fleming's departure home he visited the scene of the Custer massacre, and his I description of it is painfully, interesting, i He said that, from the sail traces found, i Custer must have struck the center of the Indian camp, leaving the right of it, which was in a timbered and circular ravine, to swing against his right flank and rear, mid shoot down officers and men as fast as they retreated for the highlands, where ttieir dead and mutilated bodies were subsequently found. He ! is disposed to believe that the command j was butchered and annihilated in this i way, without inflicting any serious damage upon the Indians, as the whites must have been almost completely at their mercy. ■ The bones of the dead horses are still loose upon the desolate hills. Owing i to the necessarily hurried burial of the soldiers, the bodies were but imperfectly covered with earth, audsince the funeral rites were performed the coyotes have removed the thin covering and torn the limbs from the bodies, leaving the fleshless bones exposed on the ground. Mr. Fleming says the field is strewed with feet, legs, hands, and arms, which had been wrenched from the shallow graves by the coyotes, the nationality of their owners being shown by an occasional shred of the army blue. Feet still covered by the cavalry boot and with the flesh gnawed clean from the exposed parts are found thickly strewn over the suuguinary field —sickening mementoes of that last fatal charge on the Rosebud.