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Post by herosrest on Jan 16, 2024 8:56:23 GMT -6
Quite the spectacle are these play offs. Steelers nearly made a classic come-back.
I'm looking through various of the ways in which stories of events morphed and were re-incorporated into later accounts of events and ran across the blurb below which got me thinking about ducks. They play in Oregon, you know.
Chesapeake Ducks Killed by Poisoning
Dead ducks in considerable numbers at the head of Chesapeake Bay, par- ticularly near Spesutie Island, Maryland, caused much speculation during December and January as to the cause , and resulted in an investigation by the Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture. The theory first advanced was that concussions from heavy artillery in the vicinity of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds were killing the birds, but from the investigation it is found that all the dead ducks examined had eaten phosphorus and died from poisoning.
The phosphorus was obtained by the ducks while feeding in a wild-celery bed of small area, where smoke projectiles or grenades containing that chemical had been dropped during experimental firings from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The number of ducks reported killed in this way was somewhat exaggerated, as is usual in such disasters, but it probably ' totaled at least 500 birds in the recent poisonings and may have considerably exceeded that number.
When the results of the investigation were reported to the War Department the officials promptly adopted measures to prevent a recurrence of the trouble in accordance with the recommendations of the investigator. At the time the firings were conducted it was not realized that destruction of wild birds might result, but now that the danger is known officials of the Proving Ground have arranged to modify their operations so as to cause no further mortality among waterfowl.
So far as possible devices will be employed to frighten the birds from the wild - celery beds, where particles of phosphorus may still remain undissipated, and officials have agreed to limit the firing of similar projectiles to deeper water or land areas. Possibly some further deaths may result from poisoning in the limited area where the projectiles were dropped, but it is hoped that the poison will be fully dissipated before the birds are permitted to resort there again, undisturbed by the frightening devices.
Editorial, page 36 Hunter v.48 1924 Jan-Jun
PART I
Amongst tripartite articles titled 'With Reno at the Little Big Horn The Thrilling Escape of Lieut. Chas. C. De Rudio and Sergt. Thomas O'Neill, Seventh Cavalry, in Custer's Last Fight' I have found much to ponder and wonder about. We know point blank from DeRudio that Brisbin embroidered and flourished the accounts of the battle attributed to DeRudio, in 1876 - 1879, which calls into question how it came to pass that Custer wasn't where De Rudio stated or was if it was slightly later in the day, given of course that the action in the was somewhat brief. That said, and having verified now in the Supreme Court, that individual recognition of human figures at 500 yards by naked human eye, is impossible; things are progressing to the jumble of study about this phase of events as time has unfolded.
PART I by E. A. BRININSTCOL ,
THAT the reader may fully understand the situation, let it be understood that when Gen. Custer's scouts reported the discovery of the immense Indian village strung along the Little Big Horn River, in Montana Territory, June 25, 1876, the Seventh Cavalry was some 12 or 15 miles from the battlefield. At this point Gen. Custer divided the regiment into three battalions. He ordered Capt. F. W. Benteen, with three companies, (including Capt. Thos. McDougal in charge of the packtrain, carrying all the reserve ammunition and other supplie, off to the left, with instructions to "pitch into anything you come across." Major Marcus A. Reno, with three companies, was to move forward and attack the upper end of the Indian village, in which he was promised the support of the Custer column.
After Reno had left Custer - or rather, had started on ahead - the latter, with his five companies, followed along behind until the rugged formation of the ground on the east side of the river forced him toward the right, and he therefore left Reno, with the apparent intention of attacking the Indian camp at its lower end some four miles down stream. Reno was thus thrown upon his own resources, and received no support whatever, from either Custer or Benteen, in his attack on the village.
However, he obeyed his orders to cross the river and attack the upper end of the great camp, but meeting with far greater opposition than was supposed to exist, Reno in order to save his command, ordered a retreat to the high bluffs on the opposite side of the stream, after doing some hard fighting in the stand of timber. He had discovered that the Indians were getting in his rear and that he was nearly surrounded. Owing to the dense dust raised by the Indian ponies, as well as to the smoke, noise and general confusion, the order to retreat was not generally understood, no bugle calls being sounded. This retreat was made in a somewhat disorderly but most desperate manner, and in the sudden dash of the troops, Lieut. Charles C. De Rudio and about a dozen troopers were left behind, not being able to find their horses. Doubtless the horse-holders, who remained in the timber when the skirmishline was formed, either lost control of the animals or turned them loose in order to make their own escape, when the retreat order was given.
In any event, these men were unhorsed and obliged to take to the brush to escape the Indians. They were thus left in a most desperate plight. The majority, however, successfully eluded discovery and managed to rejoin Reno late that night. But Lieut. De Rudio, Sergt. O'Neill, Billy Jackson, (a half-breed scout), and Fred Girard, an interpreter, were not so fortunate. These four remained together at the start, but eventually separated under most thrilling circumstances, and for more than thirty-six hours De Rudio and O'Neill were kept busy dodging about from point to point to elude capture. Finally, on the night of June 26th, they managed to get across the river, after some miraculous escapes. Here they wandered about over bluffs and through ravines, for several hours before they were able to locate Reno's entrenched position. About 2 o'clock on the morning of June 27 they heard the distant bray of a mule, and shortly thereafter were welcomed inside Reno's lines. One might wonder why Reno would be calling out from the ridge top, but of course this was Brininstool's story.
The account continues: 'After serving out his enlistment, Sergt. O'Neill removed to Washington, D.C. where he was appointed a captain of the park police. During that time, the following account of the experiences of Lieut. De Rudio and himself were jotted down in an old note book, from which the writer has drawn the facts given herewith:
"We marched until late on the evening of June 23d, then went into camp for the night. The following day we began the march at 4am. continuing up the Rose- bud, and made camp late that evening.
A minor difficulty now presents itself, and I must investigate whether O'Neill was a Captain of Park Police, and if his notebook was ever with EAB, and possibly listed in his collections of papers. EAB certainly helped keep the battle in focus for subsequent generations but it seems to prudent to understand his thrust of interpretation and poetic licence. O'Neil's notebook......... hmmmm........
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Post by herosrest on Jan 18, 2024 12:53:37 GMT -6
There seems to be a preponderance of wilfulness that things happened in the way which you assemble them. That is basically that DeRudio 'saw' Custer on the bluffs. Gall saw Custer on the bluffs but he did not know Custer. We can assume that Gall, assumed correctly that he saw Custer because there is evidence to support it in other interviews he gave. DeRudio, did not. It's straightforward in seriously tedious fashion. DeRudio saw figures on the bluffs at a specific place and time. He did not see Custer and had absolutely no way of knowing what he said about it, was correct or 'wash your mouth out' drivel. You do not know what DeRudio saw beyonf seeing figures on the bluff at a time related to his specified activity in the timber. You could not, and will not, be able to do what DeRudio said he did. No one ever will be able to, or could have done - ever. Human eyesight precludes it. It is impossible. DeRudio offered the Court some flavour of rubbish and it was written into record and now stands judged. Why believe that DeRudio did something which is impossible? Anysways. I've looked up the guy who lived with Gall and spoke to him almost daily, and put together his account of the battle as told by the Sioux who fought it. It's rather tedious stuff which explains bits and bobs that most strands of excessive formalism are forced to regurgitate or leave for back yard fowl to peck over. For vears after the Indians had laid down their arms it was talked about around the camp-fires of the bands that had nothing left of the old life but memory of the day when the power of the Sioux nation arrayed its great strength in successful opposition to the march of the white man.
The Indian village was strung along the west bank of the Little Big Horn for a distance of between three and four miles, reckoning from the camp of the Blackfeet Sioux at the upper end of the village, where Reno made his attack, to the outermost tepees of the Cheyennes, extending to a point just opposite to, or perhaps a little below, the hill upon which Custer made his stand. That the camp was not pitched in accordance with the tribal custom when on the war path or in a country in which an attack might be anticipated, was evidenced by the fact that the village had been laid out without regard to the rule which gave the Hunkpapas their hereditary privilege of camping on the outer edge and holding the place giving access to the village. The Blackfeet band, which was not numerously represented, had, as I have said, the upper end of the village. Next below them the Hunkpapas were located, and they were in great strength. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull said there were four hundred lodges of them, but in this she was obviously mistaken. Next them were the Minniconjous; then the Oglalas; then, some distance back from the river, the Brules; the Sans Arcs camped just below on the river, and the Cheyennes held the place at the lower end of the encampment. Out to the west and southwest an immense herd of ponies grazed, for the hostiles were well mounted then, The river could be forded at both the upper and lower ends of the camp, and was not difficult at any other point except that the banks were soft and not easily scaled. A dismounted man might cross in many places. After the commencement of the fight, Gall followed Reno across at the upper end of the village. Crazy Horse with the Cheyennes and most of the Sioux forded below. The women crossed where they pleased, and took a hand while the battle was in progress by stampeding the horses.
The morning of the battle the Indians knew where Custer was and what his strength was. They knew that there was only one column within striking distance, and that they had the soldiers greatly out numbered; and strong in numbers, and with the assurance given them by Sitting Bull, they prepared themselves to meet the attack. It had been decided the previous night that, if the troops attacked the village, the Indians would fight, but that they would not go far from their camp to intercept the soldiers. There was much excitement in camp on the morning of the beautiful day when Custer led his men into the jaws of death, and every preparation for a hurried flitting had been made by the women in case the fight had gone against the Indians. No tepees were struck, nor were the ponies, other than those used as mounts by the Indians, brought in; but the camp equipage had been bundled up, a precaution indicating some fear of the result; this, however, would be done by the women in the face of any important event, even though the men were quite indifferent in their confidence.
The location of the Hunkpapa band, with the few Blackfeet tepees at that end of the village which lay up the river, was due to the fact that Gall assumed that if an attack was made it would be at that point. The chief would choose for himself the most exposed place. But when the Sioux first saw the column advancing, it was evident to them that Custer intended striking the lower end of the village. They were ignorant of the fact that a considerable portion of the command had been detached, and that Custer had only five troops with him on the ridge. The Indians have always maintained that they were ignorant of the approach of Reno until he was within so short a distance that, if he had rushed his troops into the upper end of the village, he could not have failed of throwing the encampment into disorder and doing much damage before he could have been repulsed. This statement is in contravention of the theory of the military authorities, or some of them, but it is undoubtedly true. There was no organized opposition to Reno's advance until he was so close that he might have been among the tepees had he charged as ordered by Custer. Reno was under cover from the time he left Custer until after he had crossed the river, and the great mass of the Indians were congregated at the lower end of the village near the Cheyenne camp, where they expected the approaching column to attack.
Soon after detaching Reno's battalion, Custer reached the eastern end of the long, high ridge, which was in full view of the Indians for a distance of quite six miles. When Reno crossed the Little Big Horn and formed on the side of the river occupied by the Indian encampment, he was nearly two miles from the nearest tepees. His course lay straight across the bottom, and was protected from the sight of the people in the village by the fringe of timber just outside the Blackfeet tepees. He advanced without hindrance and with some speed to the timber, or very close to it, without seeing any considerable number of Indians.
Some straggling Indians reconnoitring the outskirts of the village had seen Reno's column and signaled the camp that soldiers were approaching. The Indians of the main camp supposed that the signs made that soldiers were coming had reference to the Custer column, which the warriors at the lower end of the camp had been watching for some time, and no attention was paid to this signaling until some young men rode into the village and announced the approach of another body of troops. When the position was made clear, and a body of warriors had ridden pellmell through the camp from the lower end of the village, a distance of fully three miles, Reno had halted at the low bench bordering a second elevation of the valley, dismounted his command, and begun firing at the scattered Indians. The rattling of bullets through the tepee poles of the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet was the first warning the Indians really had of Reno's approach. That was the psychological moment. If Reno had charged the village then he might have de stroyed a considerable portion of it. There was little hindrance to his advance, but he sat supine until the Indians led by Gall appeared before him in considerable force. The Ree scouts held the left of the Reno command. At them Gall delivered a charge, and they turned and fled, not stopping altogether until they were comfortably quartered at the supply camp on the Yellowstone, fully one hundred miles from the battle field. Reno moved his command over to the right, abandoning the forward movement, took a position in a fringe of timber, and waited -- for what ?
If Reno had known it, his sudden attack had struck something very like terror to the people in the village, particularly the upper end of the camp ; and by the same token, his first shots, ineffective as they were, riddled the tepee poles of one of the lodges of the great man of the camp and eliminated him as a factor in the day's proceedings. For a long time after the fight it was supposed that Sitting Bull had had some part in directing it or giving the fighting men the moral support of his presence. As a matter of fact Sitting Bull headed a stampede, which might have become very general if Reno had followed up his advantage.
Sitting Bull had two tepees, containing his family and effects, in the Hunkpapa camp. All the previous evening he had been making medicine and had suc ceeded in convincing the war-chiefs and warriors that they were due to win a great fight, and he was in great feather the previous night. That morning, when the troops were found to be approaching, Sitting Bull betook himself to his tepee. He had with him two wives and several children and a great deal of house hold wealth for a nomad — for he had been in constant receipt of presents for many months from the people coming from the several Sioux agencies to join him. These household impedimenta were evidence of his state, but could be discarded in case of a sudden flight.
I have contended always that Sitting Bull was a physical coward. I know it from personal knowledge, also from various incidents related of him, and from the attitude of contempt held toward him by the warchiefs. But his medicine was great.
That morning he had informed the people that he would remain in his camp and make medicine. There were very few, if any, men in that portion of the camp with him when Reno's bullets rattled through the tepee poles. The surprise created a panic in the heart, never very valorous, of Sitting Bull. He explained afterwards that his capture would mean the loss of his medicine to the Sioux, and he did not want to take any chances when the soldiers rushed into the camp, as he expected they would when the firing began. His ponies were close at hand, and the medicine man got his women and children together and made straight for the hills to the southwest. In the hurry of the flitting one of his twin boys was lost, but that did not halt the doughty medicine-maker. He heard behind him the practically continuous gunfire, and kept on going. He marched for eight or ten miles without stopping, and was still going when couriers overtook him and announced the annihilation of the Custer command. It was late in the afternoon before he returned to the village, and he then arrogantly claimed all the honor for the victory gained, accounting for his absence from the field during the engagement with the troops by announcing that he had been in the hills overlooking the battlefield, engaged in propitiating the evil spirits and invoking the gods of war; and, as I was told by Gall and other prominent chiefs of the Sioux, a majority of these over-credulous people actually believed him, and those lacking sufficient faith to accept his statements absolutely, had no desire to investigate or license to question his assertions.
While Sitting Bull was leaving the camp, Gall was collecting a force to attack Reno. Warriors were riding up through the camp; and the women were making all preparations to leave. The utmost confusion prevailed. Reno, with his troops dismounted in the fringe of timber, suffered no injury at the hands of the Indians, or practically none. How long he remained there is a question. The Indians were not clear about it at all, and the military not very much clearer. Reno seems to have been inspired to get a position back across the river by the fact that a trooper was shot close beside him. It does not appear that he ordered a retreat then, but simply headed one and made with all speed for the Little Big Horn, which he fortunately struck in a fordable place. Of this movement more hereafter will be said, but the helter-skelter nature of it was revealed in a single incident.
The trooper who had been shot close to where Reno was standing was mortally hurt. Dr. Porter, a contract surgeon, went to the assistance of the man. He saw that the wound must result fatally, and he gave the man a narcotic and made him as comfortable as possible. He had paid no attention to what was going on around him, and when he looked up from the sheltered place where the man was lying, the troops were gone and the doctor saw mounted Indians rushing past him after the fleeing troops. Porter was not very well mounted, as he thought, having left his own horse at the supply-camp, and having been given a mount from among the condemned cavalry horses, by the quartermaster. He mounted his horse, drove the spurs into the animal, lay low on his neck, dashed like mad through Indians and troopers, reaching the river with the first of the outfit, and got safely across. Of the three doctors with the command Porter was the only one not killed.
This command made a desperate ride at the bluff on the east side of the river and attained its summit through a ravine. Soon after reaching a position on the hill, Reno was joined by Benteen, whose detour to the southwest had been ineffective and who had not yet been under fire. Some officers wanted to take their troops out to where firing was heard, and where Custer was undoubtedly engaged, but Reno held the hill. It may have been too late when Benteen came up to do Custer any good, for the last order sent by Custer, written by his adjutant, Lieutenant Cook, directed Benteen to bring up the packs at once. Custer had undoubtedly seen the greater portion of the village when he issued the order. He sent it to Benteen, thinking that he still had an independent command, and that Reno was attacking the upper end of the village. Cook wrote: "Benteen, come on. Big Village. Be quick. Bring packs. P. S. Bring packs." The insistence of the order to bring packs was caused by the necessity for having the ammunition-mules. Moreover Custer had seen enough of the village to know that he would need Benteen's force. But Benteen had joined Reno. If both forces had been moved out — but that is speculation and to be avoided. The military experts have been all over that field. As it was, the larger half of the entire regiment remained on the hill, by no means out of danger, but certainly not where Custer expected it would be, while the commanding officer and the smaller moiety of the command were being, or had been, done to death.
When Reno left the column with his battalion and advanced to the crossing of the river, Custer went on along the trail for a short distance, then turned slightly to the right and struck the ridge. What he saw or heard there doubtless convinced him that he should proceed on and attack the village lower down. That he intended from the beginning of this march along the ridge to go directly to the lower end of the village, is demonstrated by the fact that he never swerved from this course. His movements and the obstacles he encountered up to the end are known only on the relation of the Indians who were opposing him. The things that were done on the battlefield, after the fight, made the affair a delicate subject for the Indians to discuss. They talked to me more freely and frequently than to any other white man whom I know, but it was not easy to hold them to a description of what transpired. For many years they had the impression that they were being examined for the purpose of singling out men for punishment. Gall, who was not concerned in the atrocities that made the battlefield the horror that it was, was diffident in talking of the matter. In spite of his self-possession and courage, he was shy of the subject, except in talking of the affair broadly. He and the other men of his class knew that the amnesty promised at their surrendering in small parties covered all the events of the battle, but they did not go into details in talking of the affair. It is probable that a man like Gall, acting under the tremendous excitement into which an Indian would certainly work himself during a fight, would not be observing the movements of the enemy in the hurry of getting his warriors into position to intercept the advancing column. The last march and stand of Custer is therefore gathered from many sources and was told piecemeal.
When the general saw the village first, he saw only a part of it. Even before he had his first view of it, Iron Cedar had carried the word to Gall, who was pursuing Reno, that the larger force was approaching the lower end of the village and he was needed there. It was about this time that Custer's last order was issued and given to a trumpeter to be carried to Benteen. This probably occurred at about one o'clock — reckoning with the Indian's idea of time and comparing it with the statement that the message reached Benteen after he joined Reno at 2.30. The Indians with Gall knew nothing of Benteen's command.
The position of Custer was not a commanding one. He was on the second ridge from the river; closer to the stream there was another ridge, somewhat lower, broken in spots, but interfering with a full view of the village. Custer must have been convinced that the village was clustered well around that portion which he saw, the lower end, and that Reno would make good his order to charge and thus throw the village into confusion ; but he must have seen that no attempt was yet being made by the Indians to get away, and that out to the south and west the herd of ponies grazed undisturbed.
It was soon after Custer had left Reno that the Indians first caught sight of his column. He struck the ridge at a distance of about six miles from the lower end of the village, and was never out of sight of the Indians during the whole of the march to the end. Gall had all of his warriors massed at the lower end of the village, near the Cheyenne camp. The entire camp was engaged in watching the advance. Custer probably took the ridge as a means of announcing his coming and to divert attention from the attack of Reno. I have frequently traveled over the trail of Custer's march from the mouth of the Rosebud to the Little Big Horn battlefield, and am quite familiar wTith the country through which it passes, the distance being about one hundred miles, and have gone over the battlefield many times. The broken ground be tween the ridge and the river hid, as I have said, a great portion of the village. While the general and his squadron were as obvious to the Indians as though their band was in the lead playing Garryowen, -- the battle-song of the Seventh Cavalry, - - Reno's ap proach was entirely hidden. He could be discovered only when he was close enough to attack, and it is probably quite true that, as Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull says in her narration, the first knowledge the Indians had of the approach of Reno was when his rifle-shots rattled through the tepee poles of the Blackfeet. This exhibition of his column to the gaze of the Indians may have been an afterthought on the part of General Custer, for it does not appear that he expected Reno to strike the village as soon as he did. He probably meant, when he sent word to Reno to charge the village and the whole outfit would support him, that he would strike the other end at the same time. Im mediately after sending the order he appeared on the ridge, expecting that Reno would ride into and through the practically unprotected upper end of the encampment, throwing the Indians into a panic, which would permit him to cross and attack from the lower end.
Gall divined what the plan was instantly when Reno began firing, before he was within striking distance. The Indians' ponies were in the best condition, and Gall took a considerable number of warriors through the village to the upper end, when word had been brought to him of the approach of another enemy. Crazy Horse and the great mass of the Indians were left near the Cheyenne camp. When Gall reached the upper end of the village, Reno had come to a pause. The few Indians who had opposed had practically stopped him. Gall's people turned his left flank, and instead of closing up and charging, Reno fell back to the fringe of timber, where he was practically out of the way of harm, and stood still. Gall told me that he was in a hurry to get back to the lower ford, but saw no way of pressing the fighting with Reno, considering his force, and that he would have been compelled to send for a larger force if Reno had not played his cards for him by starting the retreat to the river. Gall turned this retreat into a rout, doing what execution he could, and the cavalry went across the river under a fire that killed many without harming the enemy. Lieutenant Mclntosh was killed at some distance from the river, in the retreat; Lieutenant Hodgson, who was wounded while crossing the river, saved himself from death at the time by clinging to the stirrup of a trooper, and reached shore only to be killed by an Indian bullet. Dr. De Wolf was killed while trying to climb a bluff near the river. Twenty-nine enlisted men were killed. No sooner was Reno's command driven across the river than Gall practically withdrew all of his people and rode at speed down through the village again. Some Indians remained to harass stragglers from the Reno command, but the principal body withdrew at once and spread the news through the village that the soldiers attacking at the upper end had all been killed. This is credited by some of the people to this day, who believe that Reno's command, holding the hill that night and the next day, was altogether another body of troops.
Gall said that when he reached the lower end of the village Custer was still some distance off; that his force was advancing irregularly, but the men did not straggle far. Perhaps Custer had come to understand the situation, that Reno had been repulsed or had retreated, in which event he undoubtedly looked for support from him from the rear. Possibly he believed at this time that Reno had made good his instructions and was charging the other end of the village. There is no doubt that he had observed much confusion in that part of the village into which he had been able to look. Assuredly he had heard the firing and had been speculating on the outcome. Whatever his attitude of mind, he did not waver in his advance. While his column was still silhouetted against the sky line of the ridge, Crazy Horse with the Cheyennes crossed the river, and, under cover of the inner ridge, made their way into the ravine to the north and west of the ridge upon which Custer was advancing. Gall threw many of his people across the river, the Hunkpapas, Minniconjous, Oglalas, Sans Arcs, and Brules crossing in a swarm, some being sheltered from the sight of Custer by the lower ridge, others making their way around the ravine. They were all hidden from the view of the command. Holding steadily to what appeared to be his original plan of attack, Custer swung his troops to the left from the ridge, and turned down to the river. As the men rode down into the bottom, the Indians saw that they were apprehensive, but they did not falter and they were well down to the stream before the Sioux showed themselves on that shore. Of course, the lower end of the village had been in sight occasionally for some time, but it was unlikely that Custer could have known that the Indians had crossed the river to meet him.
With the first shot that was fired the truth undoubtedly dawned upon Custer and his people that they had met a formidable force. The Indians rose up in front of them, and in very considerable numbers, and went directly to the attack. The soldiers retreated instantly; the ridge behind and to the right of the troops - the extension of the elevation they had left to go into the bottoms — might afford the men a chance to defend themselves. The order to fall back was evidently given without hesitation, though it was apparent to the Indians that Custer was surprised, or as nearly taken by surprise as so alert an officer could be in going into that exposed position. The movement to the rear was executed with such precipitation as would be likely in a body confronted by an enemy showing great strength.
It may be as well to say here, that the military experts who have builded a strategical structure on the foundation afforded by the graves that mark the Custer battlefield, are wrong in their deductions when they give with elaboration the movements ordered by Custer after the first attack. There was no time for orders. Gall, Crow King, Black Moon, Crow, Bear's Cap, No Neck, and Kill Eagle — all of whom were in positions to see the entire field covered by Custer 's force, and who corroborated each other unboastingly — have told me that from the time of the first attack until the last man of Custer's command died on the battlefield, not more time elapsed than would be necessary to walk from the spot where the conversation was held — at the Standing Rock agency office — to Antelope Creek, a mile distant. It might have been a half-hour altogether. Within that period all the defense possible was made, including the movement from the bottom to the height, which was much less than a mile.
In ordering the troops to fall back Custer did that which Gall had anticipated. While a considerable body of Indians followed and harassed the men in this movement, another even larger body was sent around the ravine to the rear of the position aimed at by Custer; and when the cavalrymen had attained the position from which the commander evidently thought he might hold the Indians, in the ultimate hope of succor from Reno or Benteen, the elevation was surrounded to the west and north, while a considerable mass of the Sioux were advancing on what might be called the front of Custer's position.
In this retreat from the river, which has not been figured upon by the military writers, except in denial, a dozen or more troopers were killed; their bodies were found at intervals along the line of the backward movement, as indicated by the marble slabs which mark the spot where each dead trooper was found.
When Custer reached the elevation, Keogh's and Calhoun's troops were halted and dismounted by command, or by the necessities of the action, and the horses left in the ravine. This gave these troops the left of the force when Custer had proceeded along the ridge and turned to face the Indians in sight on the ground covered in the retreat. Between Custer and Keogh, Smith's troop was extended in skirmish formation, a fact evidenced by the disposition of the bodies. Captain Tom Custer's and Captain Yates's troops, who fell in the group with General Custer, were farther along toward where the ridge ran out in a declivity which could not be easily negotiated by horsemen, and which made the command comparatively safe from attack from that direction. This, then, was the position at the finish. The line was not a lengthy one, and the men were thickest at about the point where Custer fell. While the troops were getting into this position, they were fighting continuously, but the onslaught of the Indians did not take on its deathly and irresistible form until Gall, in carrying his men around the ravine to the north and east of the position, struck the cavalry horses — probably those held by the men of Keogh's and Calhoun's commands. The shouting and shooting incident to the stampeding of the horses was the signal for the attack on the troops from three sides of the ridge.
The Indians rose up out of the ravine and rode at the devoted column. At this time Custer was well out to the right of the command. In his death he was surrounded by three people of his house, and two relations by marriage. When he died, and at what period of the fight, is not known. Whether or not he saw his brother, Captain Tom Custer, die first will never be known. He might have known that his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Calhoun, had been killed at once in Gall's wild charge after the horses were stampeded. But the General, Tom and Boston, his brothers, "Artie Ried," his nephew, Captain Yates, Lieutenant Cook, his adjutant, Captain Lord, of the medical corps, Lieutenant Reilly, Kellogg, of the "New York Herald," and many others, died very close together.
The Indians made no special attack on Custer or the people with him; they had not identified the general. They knew him as Long Hair, this being the distinguishing personal mark of the man in the eyes of the Sioux. At the time of the battle he wore his hair short, and there was nothing about him to distinguish him from the other officers, so far as the Indians were concerned.
The stand of the troopers was of the briefest duration. When Gall gave the signal, the Indians rose up out of the ravines: the Cheyennes, led by Crazy Horse, the Hunkpapas, the Blackfeet, — the latter few in numbers, -- the Minniconjous, with Lame Deer and Hump in the van, the Oglalas, with Big Road, the Sans Arcs and the Brules; they came straight at the ridge, riding fiercely and swiftly, stayed by nothing, a red tide of death; and almost without pause they rode over the field, and the desperate shooting of the white men did not halt them for a moment. When the tide had passed, Custer and his men were reckoned with the dead. There was neither time nor opportunity for defense; personal gallantry and the desperate occasion may have given birth to heroes in that moment, but they died in the instant of their birth, and Custer's last stand was a bloody page in history.
Out to the north and east three men had sought safety only to be shot down. The rest of the command, with the exception of Sergeant Butler, whose body was found at some distance over toward Reno Hill, died as they stood. Butler may have been engaged in trying to communicate with Reno, or he may have been trying to get through the line of red braves. About his body were many empty cartridge shells, showing that he made a gallant defense at the last.
The Indians participating in that affair have always asserted, and still maintain with decided positiveness, that the fight was of short duration and the Indian loss insignificant; that the attack of the overwhelming number of Indians — enthused by their easy victory over Reno — was of such whirlwind force that the small groups of soldiers did not check the rush of their wild charge. The Indians claim that many of the soldiers were killed without being shot, some who were mounted being pulled off their horses and clubbed to death with stone-headed war-clubs, which most of the Indians carried in addition to their Winchesters. They also claim that the soldiers might as well have had their pockets full of stones to throw at the Indians in defending themselves, as the carbines and revolvers with which they were armed, they having no opportunity to use their firearms after the first volley; and this statement of the Indians would appear to be borne out, in part at least, by the fact that some of the dead, when found by the burial detachment, were without gunshot wounds, and others with only slight flesh wounds, but all with their skulls broken in by blows inflicted with some blunt instrument.
Gall told me that he would have gone at once to the attack of Reno when the fight on Custer Hill was over, if he could have controlled his warriors. As well try to stem the flood of the mighty Mississippi, he said, as to hold the wildly excited hundreds who dashed about on the ridge among the bodies of the slain. Some scores of horses that had lately been ridden by the white men, the most valuable booty for an Indian, were galloping about the country. These were spoil for the warriors, and they turned their attention at once to their capture. As the men left the field, the women and boys came on. The women carried stone clubs, little hatchets and knives ; the Sioux had no tom ahawks. The ferocity with which they attacked the bodies of the dead makes a horrid detail of the affair that has been told more than once. Even the Indian boys rode or walked about over the field, shooting into the bodies of the slain - which would account for the firing heard continuously by the soldiers on Reno Hill long after all resistance had ceased on the part of Custer's people. The head men sought for Custer's body. They knew him only by his long hair, and they could find no body that might possibly be identified in that way.
Custer wore his campaign dress of buckskin, and the usual insignia of his rank were missing. They found a man dressed in buckskin, and in the pockets of the blouse they found parchment maps, from which they concluded that the body was that of the officer in command; and their respect for the chief -- always marked with the Sioux — impelled them to hold the body inviolate. The body was that of Custer, and it was not mutilated. The Indians insisted, in conversation with me, that many of the bodies were not mutilated; that the wounds found were inflicted in the heat of battle. But they all knew that Custer and Keogh escaped the general fate of the fallen. Keogh escaped mutilation because he wore about his neck an Agnus Dei, an emblem of faith frequently worn by Catholics. In stripping the body the Indians found the Agnus Dei, and, regarding it as powerful medicine, they refrained from desecrating the body of the man who wore it. The uniforms were all stripped from the soldiers, and besides the booty taken in the form of arms and clothing, much money was got. The soldiers had been paid just before starting on the fatal expedition, and all, or nearly all, had money. Many of the Indians did not know the value of the currency, but it was soon appropriated by those who knew its purchasing power.
As soon as possible after the fight, Gall led his people away from the field and rode up the river to the position which had been held in absolute safety by Reno, while Custer's command was being wiped out of existence. I have been assured by many credible people among the Sioux that for at least an hour there was not an Indian left in front of Reno's position; that he might have marched out uninterrupted.
Benteen joined Reno about or just about 2.30, no doubt. The military writers have covered the events that took place within Reno's lines that afternoon, and the Indians as a whole could know nothing of what was going on there for some time, for they withdrew to go after what they considered bigger game, the cavalry horses. Gall seemed to have no apprehension of a renewal of the attack on the upper end of the village. He had no very well-defined idea what had become of the force he had repulsed and driven across the Little Big Horn, except that it was on the hill. He knew positively that no part of this force had joined the troops he attacked on the ridge. He might have anticipated that this force would advance to the attack after the Custer command had been annihilated. In any event, he was anxious to get his people up to the attack and meet the other command. He and the other Indians knew that the command which had been repulsed and driven to the hill had been badly whipped; the Indians in the village believed that the troops had been destroyed utterly. Gall hurried, with all the men he could control, from the Custer field of carnage to finish his awful work of destruction, believing that the annihilation of the troops on Reno Hill would be an easy task. From the time the Indians disappeared from in front of the Reno position until they returned in force, an hour and a half or two hours had elapsed. During that time, or almost all of it, the troops on the hill could hear firing: first the firing incident to the engagement between the Indians and Custer, and later the straggling shooting of the dead by Indians and boys on the field. The officers with Reno were anxious to get out and see what had become of Custer. They were not careful about talking of the necessity for doing something. Captain Weir and Lieutenant Edgerly of "D" troop, the latter now a brigadier general, had made an attempt to get out nearer to the position they supposed was held by Custer, but they were repulsed.
Custer's force was destroyed about three o'clock. It was after four when Gall got his warriors started up the river to attack the Reno position, and it was nearly five when Major Reno ordered his force to move down toward the Custer position. They had not gone far when the Sioux came up to the attack. The troops had attained the high bluffs down the river from the original position when the Indians came into collision with them. French's and Weir's troops stood the brunt of the attack; Godfrey had got into action. They all supposed it was the intention to occupy and control the heights, when they received word to fall back. The main command was already in retreat to the old position. The advanced troops got away with difficulty and the Indians occupied the heights. Gall, seeing that the troops were wholly on the hill, sent his Indians around to the rear and surrounded the command. All of the high points were occupied by the Indians and the command seemed to be doomed. There were Indians everywhere and they had secured a number of commanding positions from which they might — if they could have been held to the work — have destroyed Reno's force.
But after seven o'clock the warriors began to leave. They were excited with the bloody work of the afternoon. They wanted to have a part in the carousing that would take place in the village. The event was too big an affair for an Indian to forego his share in the general rejoicing for the mere sake of getting more scalps. By dark, only the more persistent of the Sioux were left in the positions they had taken. Reno's outfit might have moved out without interference, but it might not have found so easily defensible a position after moving. Moreover, there was the doubt as to what had become of Custer. The Indians thought that the white men on the hill knew that the other command had been destroyed. They did not then and do not yet understand why Reno took to the hill in the first place or remained there so long afterwards. Gall said frankly that, if Reno had persisted in his attack upon the upper end of the village in the morning, without dismounting his men, the event might have been different. If his attack, which was sudden, had been persevering, it would have kept the Indians busy trying to hold him in check, and Custer could then have attacked the lower end of the camp with only half the Indians to oppose him; the village would have been thrown into confusion, and the outcome of the affair doubtful.
While the troops on the hill lay expecting the worst, not knowing what had become of their commander and ignorant of the strength of the dusky foes with whom they peopled the adjacent heights, the Indians were, as told me by the leaders, holding high carnival in the village. Throughout the length of the encamp ment fires had been built; each band had its own dance, but the warriors did not remain in their own bands, --they fraternized with others, going from dance to dance, recounting their exploits, and being hailed in proportion to the prominence they had won in the battle. They were drunken with blood and elated beyond any sort of limit. The shouts and
Gall had sent out scouts, and the report had been brought in that the walking soldiers were coming. The report spread something very like consternation in the Indian camp, and preparations were made for getting away. The infantry inspired much more awe in the Sioux than the cavalry did, and neither Sitting Bull nor Gall nor any of the war-chiefs were inclined to give battle to the united forces they knew to be in the field. On and about the ridge where Custer made his last stand, two hundred and twelve of the flower of the Seventh Cavalry lay dead and unburied. Altogether two hundred and sixty-five of the original men of the command were killed; fifty-two were wounded. The Indians lost twenty-two dead and many -- how many no man knows -- wounded. The dead and wounded were all carried away, with the exception of one Indian who fell into the hands of Benteen's men, being killed in an impudent attempt to count a coup on a soldier who had been shot almost within the cavalry's lines.
And this is the story of the battle of the Little Big Horn. For many moons the story of that day, re counted by the warriors who had a part in it, bolstered the fading hopes of the Indians, who in scattered and starving bands sought to avoid the inevitable capitu-
On Inauguration Day, March 4, 1905 I was in Washington and viewed the great parade from a position close to that occupied by a squadron of the Seventh Cavalry. When the Indian cadets from Carlisle marched past the position of the Seventh, the school band struck up the stirring strain of Garryowen, the tune played by Custer's old band when the Seventh went into battle. Among the Carlisle students were boys whose fathers had been in the forefront of the red swarm that came up out of the ravine and overwhelmed Custer that day in June of the centennial year. I thought of Custer's command, of the peaceful country about the Crow agency, and the line of railroad that stands a monument to the indisputable domination of the white man, and I was profoundly impressed by a sense of the fact that the men, red and white, who made history in the days when there was a frontier in this country had given way to another and happier people, living in better and happier times.
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