Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1887 — WHERE CUSTER FELL [ARTICLE]

WHERE CUSTER FELL

4iie Scene of-the Terribly Disastrous Fight of the Little Big Horn. Story of the Fight as Told by Chief Gall and His Indians—Sitting Bull Not There. I have just returned from the field "where Custer fell, writes J. M. T., in the New York H’or/d. There can hardly be a sadder, lonelier, or more dreary-looking spot in all the United States. A worn and weather-beaten monument crowns the highest point of the battle-field. The shaft is rapidly disintegrating under the combined influences of burning sun, driving rains, winter storms and withering winds. This part of the valley of the Little Horn River, which was the scene of the disaster of June 25, 1876, is fourteen miles above Fort Custer, on the right and left banks of the clear Lesser Horn, as it winds down through the valley from the Big Horn range. It was a hap-hazard selection for a battle-ground, and slightly more favorable to the soldiers than to the red men, otherwise, instead of Maj. Reno and his handful of men escaping after a terribly close conflict, in which defeat meant annihilation and nothing else, not one man would have been left alive to tell the terrible story of that dreadful June day. I have had exceptional opportunities for arriving at the truth concerning the massacre, and lam convinced that neither the reds nor the whites knew what they were about when the battle was begun. General Custer knew that a large and powerful Indian village was over in the Little Horn Valley somewhere, and he determined, with rare pluck though •extreme rashness, to attack that village in his usual pell-mell style, depending upon dash and discipline to •carry him through in spite of the force of numbers opposed to him. Custer made his first mistake when he divided his forces. With less than 240 men he attempted to do what would have required four or five regiments united and in mass. Even with all his force together and making a Swoop down upon the great village the chances were a hundred to one that he would be whipped anyhow, and badly, too. The Indian camp was on the left •side of the Little Horn River, extending up and down the stream, in a lovely, fertile bottom, covered with xach herbage and luxuriant grasses, and occupying an area fully three miles in length by half a mile in width. When one considers the size of this •camp, close packed with lodges, tepees and wickiups, he can form some idea rs the population it contained. It must be remembered, too, that every red--Bkin in a tribe —bucks, squaws, boys, maidens, and all except the papooses —does his or her level best at fighting when attacked by the enemy. So it was with Sitting Bull’s village in the Little Horn Valley. When the brave cavalry leader swept down on the India s with his usual dash and elan, he was not checked by bullets or arrows; no want of courage caused him to pause or falter, but simply mass of numbers got in his way, beat him back step by ••tep, notwithstanding the leaden hail poured into the savages from the cavalry carbines, and finally overpowered and killed every white man after the ammunition of the latter had been exkausted. Custer’s men fought all they could, fired shot shot with telling effect, but all to no purpose. Indians who were in that fight have -told me some strange stories. Sitting Bull was not in the fight at all. Gall was the big chief and generalissimo of the day, and while he was leading the bucks and directing the engagement •old Tonka-te-Tonka (Sitting Bull) was back in his medicine lodge making medicine. As the Indians won and Sitting Bull made the medicine he, of course, got all the credit for the victory. One of the Indians says that the shells got stuck in the white men’s carbines, and when those weapons were thus rendered useless as firearms the poor fellows, pressed to the wall and overpowered ten to one, clubbed their guns and fought desperately, with •death staring them in the face, until the last doomed man fell in his tracks. When the ammunition was exhausted the Indians walked up, knooked them down with clubs and butchered them with hatchets. Gall told me that the main object of his young men was |to •stampede the horses, which carried the in which each soldier had stored his ammunition. The troopers had, perhaps, fifty rounds apiece on their persons, but the main supply was in the saddle-bags, being entirely too heavy to carry ■on the body. In all, the soldiers were supplied with about 200 rounds per man for the fight. When the cavalrymen were dismounted to fight on foot ■one soldier was detailed to hold every •eight horses. Gall says he quickly saw the advantage to be gained could the horses laden with ammunition be stampeded, so he devised a plan to that •end. He sent a score or two of young bucks up a ravine to the rear, and ■these embroyo warriors, unmindful of flying lead and the danger of the job, suddenly rose up with yells and shouts just in front of the horses, swung their blankets wildly in the air, and every -steed in the outfit broke loose from the holders and scampered down the rapine toward the Little Horn, where they were gathered in by the squaws .and old men, on the wait for just what had occurred. Many of the Indians were armed with cavalry carbines and United States muskets, so this very -ammunition was turned against Custer •and his men, and no doubt had very

much to do with deciding the fortunes of the day. From all that can be gathered by questioning Curley, the Crow scout, and the only living survivor of those who marched with Custer, and also from the narrative of Gall, who has since visited the spot and told the story of the day on the ground where he made it, it appears that there were between 6,000 and 7,000 Indians in the village at the time Custer descended upon it, and that the attack was not so much of a surprise to the red men as has generally been supposed. Gall says that he saw the soldiers early in the morning crossing the divide, and noted carefully that the white men divided themselves into three divisions. When Custer’s command swept off to the right they lost sight of the force temporarily, keeping their eyes on Rena, who came directly down to the river, seeking a ford to cross over and fight. Reno did cross over, paused a minute to rest and tighten girths, remounted all his men, and rode up alongside some ash timber a mile and a half, when he suddenly came in sight of the village. When the soldiers saw all these Indians the bugles sounded “charge,” the soldiers came rushing like the wind upon their women and children and killed many of them, but the braves rallied in great force, turned on the troopers, and chased them back to the river, into which everybody tumbled and scrambled up to the top of a steep hill opposite. When they had Reno on the hill, the bucks in great numbers tried to drive them off; but, not succeeding, the women, old men and some bucks were left to guard them while the others recrossed the stream and hurried down to the other end of the village, where the cry had been raised that more soldiers were coming. Of course this was Custer’s outfit, and we have no tale of that terrible affair except what the Indians tell us.

From all that can be gathered, it seems that Custer must have come down as far as the river with his troopers, although Gall says he never got within half a mile of the stream; hut the footprints of the cavalry horses led in a broad and well-defined trail clear down to the river, notwithstanding Gall’s statement to the contrary. Gall went with me, placed his foot on a certain spot, fully one-half a mile from the river, and said flatly and positively that the white soldiers got no nearer the river than that point, and were then first met by his braves and fought back step by step to the ridge where all finally perished. When asked how these footprints came on the bank, the chief explained that they were made by white soldiers on horseback who had attempted to escape from the field by going down a ravine and then crossing the river. These were met by some bucks on the other side, who turned them up stream again, and, after racing parallel to the village for nearly three-quarters of a mile, were finally crowded into the water, and they recrossed the river once more. They came out just where all the cavalry tracks appeared, and, after running half a mile farther, were finally caught and knocked on the head with stone clubs. The chief, who was undoubtedly the leader of the red forces on that day, further says that only for-ty-three Indians were killed in all, although a great many afterward “fell over and died.” This phrase, I think, refers to the wounded who died of their injuries. This seems a very small percentage of casualties among the red men, when it is considered that 240 white bodies were found on the field, although more than 240 men yielded up their lives on Custer’s field, not counting the killed and wounded of Reno’s and Benteen’s commands. History has been corrected somewhat since that dark and bloody page was recorded, and not the least important is that the Indians outnumbered fully five to one all the white men in the country, including the different commands of Custer, Benteen, Reno, as well as Gen. Terry’s and Gen. Gibbon’s commands, then at the fork of the two Horn Rivers, on the way up to effect a junction with the Seventh Cavalry. Had they only known it the savages could have swept everything before them, as they were in superior force, armed with magazine rifles and fighting for their lives, although asTa rule our North American aborigines have a wholesome dread of artillery, of which Gen. Terry had one or two pieces along. Another correction should be made in the case of Gen. Caster himself. He did not wear long, golden hair, as has been generally supposed, but had it clipped short before he left h:s post to take the field. He was also scalped, like all the rest, but he beiDg slightly bald on the crown of his head, a scalplock was cut from further back. The brave man died game, so every redskin admits, and set an example for courage and bravery which was followed by every soldier in his battalion. Many of the white men were sadly mutilated.