Custer's Personal Battle Flag

Libbie made him a new personal HQ flag in 1865. Shes writes.... "red and blue silk with white crossed sabres on both sides, and edged with heavy white cord." Reedstrom says the same one was carried at the LBH. The photo shown of it is courtesy of Frost.

All of which doesn't really answer your question, but there you go.

Grahsm was the source for the Regimental standard being left with the packs, and it has been widely repeated that that was the case. Graham later admitted that he was simply guessing. It is now believed that the Regimental standard was lost in the battle. The big argument nowadays seems to be what color it was - blue or yellow.

Gordie

Gordie ~

So what's the provenance on the flag from Frost's collection? This is the one, made by Libbie and flown at Appomattox. Some say it was at the LBH, but I've never read any details of how it was recovered, if indeed it was. BTW, sold for a mere $896,250 in 2007.

Don't remind me of how much it cost - I am still living on franks and beans.

As to the provenance of Frost's flag, I will respond as President of The Ignorance And Apathy Association - "I don't know, and I don't care."

Custer had two flag bearers with him that June day - Jack and Bobbie [cue the Twilight Zone theme]. I might be the first to note the "paranormal connection" here. In any event, one might well wonder what the hell the bearers were bearing, if the one flag was at FAL, and the other was with the packs, and will we now force all the artists who have done a rendering of the battle scene(s) to go back and paint over the flags? Are you following this, Michael?

It reminds me of Monty Python - with King Arthur being followed by the dude knocking the coconut shells together while Arthur pretended to be riding a horse. Can't you just see Custer ordering "Uncase the colors!!" and Jack [or Bobbie] saying "They's back with the packs. Capn Dentine has a "pre." "Well then, raise high the Custer Battle Flag!!!" "It air back to the fort, Genril." "Can't anyone be trusted?!?!?!?!? Trumpeter, did you happen to bring your trumpet along?" "Yes, Sir. But I forgots the mouthpiece." "Well, wave the $%#^ thing over your head, and let's pretend it's a GD battle flag and CHARGE!!!!!"

Gordie

Photograph of 7th Cavalry Gudion recaptured by Crook at www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/slimbuttes.html
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Wait. Isn't this described, as it resides in the museum, as Keogh's company guidon or the like? Didn't each company have a guidon?

Golden at age 17 or whatever would be unlikely to have had a clue, and in any case lied so much in later years he, like many of us, could not give two points of distinction between a 'flag' and a 'guidon' not derived from a Google search. Is a piece of colored cloth a mile and a half away a 'flag' or a mere 'guidon?'

This is the sort of trivial connundrum that bedevils LBH to no possible informed outcome, although it does speak to the near religious need for authenticated relics from the holy hand of Custer, odd in itself.

The photos there imply that Stanley Morrow took those pictures at Slim Buttes, but was this possible?

First, did Morrow actually accompany Crook's column on its "starvation march?"

Second, don't those mules and that pony look too "fat" to be part of Crook's column by the Slim Buttes time frame?

Third, Slim Buttes was a quick, in and out, affair, under a lot of pressure from surrounding Warriors. Was there really time to set up and take pictures like this, before Crook's harrassed retreat to Deadwood?

Suspicious...perhaps the photos are actually from the camp Crook's force stayed in for the month following that battle, in the Black Hills area.

Clair