Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — CUSTER’S LAST FIGHT. [ARTICLE]

CUSTER’S LAST FIGHT.

His Force Overwhelmed By Sitting Bull’s Braves. On June 25 Custer struck Sitting Bull’s main trail and eagerly pursued it across the divide into the Little Big Horn valley. Expecting battle, he detached Major Reno with seven of his twelve companies to cross the Little Big Horn, descend it, and strike the foe from the west; but Reno was soon attacked and held ot bay, being besieged in all more than twenty-four hours. Meantime, suddenly coming upon the lower end of the Indians’ immense camp, the gallant Custer and his braves, without an instant’s hesitation, advanced into the jaws of death. Balaklava was pastime to this, for here not one “rode back.” “All that was left of them,” after a few minutes, was some 200 mostly unrecognizable corpses. Finding himself outnumbered twelve or more to one—the Indians mustered at least 2,500 warriors, beside a caravan of boys and squaws—Custer had dismounted hi 3 heroes, who, planting themselves mainly on two hills some way apart, the advance one held by Custer, the other by Captains Keogh and Calhoun, prepared to sell their lives dearly. By waving jplankets and uttering their hellish yells they stampeded many of the cavalry hor-ses, jvhicli carried off precious ammunition in their saddle bags. Lining up just behind a ridge they would rise quickly, fire„at the spiders, £nd drop, exposing themselves little, bur drawing Custer’s fire, so causing additional loss of sorely needed bullets. The whites’ ammunition spent, the dismounted savages rose, fired, and whooped like the demons they were,

while the mounted ones, lashing their ponies, charged with infinite venom, overwhelming Calhoon and Keogh, and lastly Ouster himself. Indian boys then pranced over the fields on ponies, scalping and reshooting the dead and dying. At the barial many a stark visage wore a look of horror.