I had earlier found this and posted it at AAO but thought that all of you may not have had a chance to read it. "It" is an interview with Capt. French post-LBH. Nothing earth-shattering but interesting.
Best of wishes,
Billy
Ft. Leavenworth Daily Standard
Vol. X No. 2,825
April 18, 1882
Captain French
Some time last September the writer, while in conversation with the late Capt. Thos. H. French of the 7th cavalry, asked him if there ever had been a really correct report published regarding the Custer massacre, in detail. “No,” he said. “There are many inaccuracies. If you will listen I will tell you how it was. No, better yet, I will write what I know of it for you if you will send it to the Chicago Times.” He seated himself at a desk in the Continental hotel and wrote the following:
SKETCH OF THE BATTLE
On the morning of the 25th of June, 1876, after riding hard all night, Gen. Custer came up to me and touched me on the side, saying: “Get up quick; we’ll make a ten strike this day. Thousands of ponies on the hills.” I answered: “All right.” Before the attack was made he distributed the command into three battalions. Bentien [sic] commanded the first one; Reno the second. I had the front of the last mentioned one.
It was either Lieut. Wallace or Varnum, I don’t recollect which one, said to me, “There they are; you attack and we will follow.”
These three companies opened the fight. After about half an hour Major Reno fell - not back - but in an opposite direction. Presently the three other companies, Weir’s, Godfrey’s and Bentien’s [sic] came up. Reno tried to go ahead, but it was not possible, and to have any one living. I spoke to Reno, asking what in God damnation has become of the troops. He simply replied, “I don’t know.”
We stayed in a hollow between the bluffs during that day – or rather the remainder of it – and on the following day. Then Gen. Terry, that splendid soldier, came up, and I learned that all of the five companies had been killed.
I did not believe it at first. There had been already enough lost.
But their bodies were there.
The only living object was old “Commanche,” Keogh’s horse. The old beast is now one of the sacred individuals of the regiment. Rain-in-the-Face did not cut out Tom Custer’s heart.
An Indian don’t [sic] need to cut into a man’s bowels to get at his heart.
That Rain-in-the-Face was a rascally scamp is known. I was one of a party who took him from among his own men, and made him a prisoner. Yates, Tom Custer and Harrington were the others. They are now dead. But Harrington’s body was not found.
Gen. Custer, when I last saw him, was seated on two dead men, and was leaning backward against a dead horse. He was shot in the head and in the breast. He was not at all mutilated.
In spite of everything which has been said of Major Reno, I now say this, “that he was a brave man.”
He had no more chance in that fight than a flea in a tar barrel would have.
Mark Kellogg, correspondent of the N.Y. Herald, was killed, but strangely enough he was not at all cut to pieces. He was dead, and not further interfered with.
Lieut. Reilly, of the Kansas troops, was not disfigured. His arms were crossed over his face and that was all.
The trail was as plain as the nose on a man’s face.
I saw Keogh the night before the combat, and he asked me what I thought of it. I told him that it would be a bad time: that if he had not made his will, it was about time to do so. I have heard that he did make his will and sent it back by a scout.
Reno had been up the valley, and had seen the trail, which was many miles in breadth.
[Transcriber’s Note: The following paragraph is as published although it is disjointed, as if part of it were missing. I suspect the latter part of the paragraph is talking about Terry's post-LBH meeting with Crook's forces.]
After burying the dead people, we crossed the river, which, by courtesy, may be called a river, the mirage was deceptive. It looked as though there were as many millions of warriors as could be counted, were coming. Reno formed his line and we moved forward to engage. To the very agreeable surprise of many, myself among them, the enemies were found to be not an enemy, but Ball’s and Wheelan’s troops of the Second cavalry.
Benteen and Varnam [sic] were wounded, but not seriously."
