Custer wounds and mutilations

[woody]

Hello everyone,

It’s often cited that Custer’s mutilations were covered up so as to not upset Libby further. However, in Gordon Harpers book he sites as many as 30 first hand accounts of Custer’s body from troopers and officers on the battle site and they all provide roughly the same description, chest and head wound, no mention of ear dowels or penis arrows!

So my question is this, how did they all have roughly the same description? Getting a lot of people to stick to the same narrative is immensely difficult.

Also, why didn’t the wife of Tom Custer and close relative of Libby receive the same treatment? Seems odd to spare the details on George but openly talk about the terrible state of Tom.

All thoughts welcome,

Please be nice to me and don’t judge my lack of knowledge too harshly:-)

Thanks

[johnson1941]

Real quick as I am off to work...let's start with Kanipe...via Camp and Hammer...

Knipe's Account of Custer's Dead.
On open of 27th perhaps 3 or 4 o'clock.
Capt Benteen and his company were saddling up to go over to the battlefield,
and as I had been with him throughout Reno's siege I asked permission to
accompany him, to see if I could locate the dead of my own troop C. He
answered by saying that I could if I had a horse. Upon my giving an affirmative
reply he said, "Yes come along with us. " I fell in behind and went along with
him. We went down to Dry Creek, on about the same route which I now believe
Custer followed, and then down Dry Creek nearly to the ford of the river.
From here went direct to the battlefield, and the first dead soldier we found
was Serg. Finley of my own company at point marked ( ). His body was
stuck full of arrows. The dead lay plainly in sight all being stripped of
clothing and we passed on toward - (Calhoun) finding Serg. Finckle on the
way between Finley and Calhoun. Turning back to the left at Calhoun I passed
along in the direction of where the monument now stands and about 2/3 way to
where Keogh lay I recognized the horse of 1st Serg. Bobo of my own co. The
horse had evidently been ridden along the ridge close to the gully, for he had
slidden down the bank, into the gully, and died there. When I came to the
pile of men lying around Capt Keogh I recognized Serg. Edward Bobo. While
Benteen's men were in ranks as they passed around I was free to go by myself.

Arriving at end of the ridge I recognized the bodies of Genl. Custer, Boston Custer,
Cook, Lt. Smith and others, but did not see Tom Custer, my own captain. As I
had him particularly in mind I cannot understand how I came to overlook
him but the bodies were badly bloated after lying two days in the hot sun and
in some cases identification was difficult or impossible. I next went along the
line of dead bodies toward the river, and riding along the edge of the deep gully
about 2000 feet from where the monument now stands, I counted 28 bodies in
this gulch. The only one I thought I recognized at the time was Mitch Bouyer.
I am not positive about this, as I did not go down in the gulch for closer
inspection. I recall that, as the matter ran through my mind at the time, I was
then well enough satisfied that the corpse was that of Bouyer. Having seen these
bodies in the gulch I am at a loss to understand the absence of markers there.

I have heard and read much about the mutilation and scalping of the men on
the Custer battlefield. I cannot recall seeing a single body that was scalped, and
I do not think, as a general thing that the bodies were mutilated any more than
was necessary to cause death wherever.: life stilllingered with the wounded.
What seemed to be a common method of doing this was to chop open the head
across the forehead or across the eyes.

[noggy]

Dec 4, 2023 4:55:34 GMT -6 woody said:

Hello everyone,

It’s often cited that Custer’s mutilations were covered up so as to not upset Libby further. However, in Gordon Harpers book he sites as many as 30 first hand accounts of Custer’s body from troopers and officers on the battle site and they all provide roughly the same description, chest and head wound, no mention of ear dowels or penis arrows!

So my question is this, how did they all have roughly the same description? Getting a lot of people to stick to the same narrative is immensely difficult.

Also, why didn’t the wife of Tom Custer and close relative of Libby receive the same treatment? Seems odd to spare the details on George but openly talk about the terrible state of Tom.

All thoughts welcome,

Please be nice to me and don’t judge my lack of knowledge too harshly:-)

Thanks

Hello and welcome

This is a good question. There can be many suggestions or theories, but if we'll ever find out which one is the big one (as in "the truth") is another question (no pun intended).

Tom Custer wasn't married, I believe, but the point still stands. Calhoun etc we know what happened to. But I'm not sure how soon after the battle details about individual person's mutilations started showing up in media or being published. It would at first have been pretty general descriptions, not so much "S had this and this done tom him while Y had such and such done". 

I see the NPS handbook just states: "It is known that General Custer's body, though stripped of clothing, was neither scalped nor mutilated." Imo it is not known at all, apart from the scalping which I have never seen claimed. So if I were to attempt answering your question, it would be a brianstormy rambling:

A reason for not going into details about at least the arrow thing wold be, apart from ofc sparing Libbie C such things, the fact that writing about genitalia and stuff would be hard for many of that era. The "Victorian sensibilities" would kick in there, and while newspapers had no problems about writing about scalping and removal of limbs etc, I think anything deemed sexual would be too much. Many soldiers would probably also have a hard time writing or even talking about such things.  I'm sure in general many of the men who later saw the battlefield held back in their descriptions or could not bring themselves to go into details about what they actually saw, which I can understand and which still is a thing for veterans today, who can have  hard time with what they see. For many, talking about killing or seeing friends killed or wounded is too much, so talking about horrible mutilated comrades is not something everyone would or could speak openly about, then or now. Also, to see the arrow or the ears, you'd have to be pretty close to the corpse and I'm pretty sure someone removed the arrow really quickly if it was there. It would have been a really degrading state for a commanding officer and "superstar" to be in. Can't see they would let it be stuck inside his body while burying him, either. So I'd guess i these things happened, my guess is that the arrow wasn't lodged in him for long after the body was discovered, therefor not seen by many and many of those who saw it did not talk of it, and not many were close enough to actually see his ears.

This is ofc if it happened. I also have seen claims that part of finger was cut off.

All the best,
Noggy

[woody]

Dec 10, 2023 3:23:08 GMT -6 noggy said:

Dec 4, 2023 4:55:34 GMT -6 woody said:

Hello everyone,

It’s often cited that Custer’s mutilations were covered up so as to not upset Libby further. However, in Gordon Harpers book he sites as many as 30 first hand accounts of Custer’s body from troopers and officers on the battle site and they all provide roughly the same description, chest and head wound, no mention of ear dowels or penis arrows!

So my question is this, how did they all have roughly the same description? Getting a lot of people to stick to the same narrative is immensely difficult.

Also, why didn’t the wife of Tom Custer and close relative of Libby receive the same treatment? Seems odd to spare the details on George but openly talk about the terrible state of Tom.

All thoughts welcome,

Please be nice to me and don’t judge my lack of knowledge too harshly:-)

Thanks

Hello and welcome

This is a good question. There can be many suggestions or theories, but if we'll ever find out which one is the big one (as in "the truth") is another question (no pun intended).

Tom Custer wasn't married, I believe, but the point still stands. Calhoun etc we know what happened to. But I'm not sure how soon after the battle details about individual person's mutilations started showing up in media or being published. It would at first have been pretty general descriptions, not so much "S had this and this done tom him while Y had such and such done". 

I see the NPS handbook just states: "It is known that General Custer's body, though stripped of clothing, was neither scalped nor mutilated." Imo it is not known at all, apart from the scalping which I have never seen claimed. So if I were to attempt answering your question, it would be a brianstormy rambling:

A reason for not going into details about at least the arrow thing wold be, apart from ofc sparing Libbie C such things, the fact that writing about genitalia and stuff would be hard for many of that era. The "Victorian sensibilities" would kick in there, and while newspapers had no problems about writing about scalping and removal of limbs etc, I think anything deemed sexual would be too much. Many soldiers would probably also have a hard time writing or even talking about such things.  I'm sure in general many of the men who later saw the battlefield held back in their descriptions or could not bring themselves to go into details about what they actually saw, which I can understand and which still is a thing for veterans today, who can have  hard time with what they see. For many, talking about killing or seeing friends killed or wounded is too much, so talking about horrible mutilated comrades is not something everyone would or could speak openly about, then or now. Also, to see the arrow or the ears, you'd have to be pretty close to the corpse and I'm pretty sure someone removed the arrow really quickly if it was there. It would have been a really degrading state for a commanding officer and "superstar" to be in. Can't see they would let it be stuck inside his body while burying him, either. So I'd guess i these things happened, my guess is that the arrow wasn't lodged in him for long after the body was discovered, therefor not seen by many and many of those who saw it did not talk of it, and not many were close enough to actually see his ears.

This is ofc if it happened. I also have seen claims that part of finger was cut off.

All the best,
Noggy

Thanks so much for your detailed response. Some excellent points and new lenses to view things through.

[shan]

Noggy, I think you covered this issue very well in your post. White culture, primarily white Christian culture at the time found it very difficult to talk about the body at all, let alone discuss mutilations in any great detail.

As an example, if we look at the litrature of the time ~ and I'm aware that most of the men were probably illiterate to the extent that they could hardly read ~~ in which case they'd have been unaware of what I'm about to mention ~ but if you take Dickens for instance, or Jane Austen or George Elliot, people who were widely read in their time, you'll find that no one: as far as I can tell, ever has a desperate need to go to the toilet, or indeed break wind, let alone have any kind of sexual feelings. So in that sense, it's almost as if they're a different breed to us: people who never experience the sorts of things we do, whereas we, especially since the late 60's, have gone the other way in the sense that all we want to talk about is the body and its various secretions.

As for the indians themselves, well, they picked up on this very quickly, for after having learnt how the white world felt about any kind of mutilation, they then went out of their way to deny that it ever happened, or if it did, then it was a rare case of some poor Squaw extracting revenge. In short, we have to remember that it was a very different world back then, so I expect most of the men averted their eyes if at all possible, and indeed, rarely talked about it afterwards, even amongst themselves.

So, to sum up, if Custers mutilations ever happened, and I can't see any reason why not ~~ after all, to the majortity of Indians he was just one of hundreds of dead enemies, then I think it likely that any one of several officers probably removed any offending evidence, after which, they almost certainly agreed to stick to a code of silence.

Shan

[woody]

Thanks Noggy and Shan for your thoughtful responses. It’s great to develop a more nuanced perception of the era and battle, it goes a long way towards helping me to understand the situation more clearly.

I just finished ‘I fought with Custer’ and towards the end it talks about first hand accounts from the apparent first 3 Cheyenne’s to count coup on Custers dead body. These accounts came in 1891 I believe, and each of them stated that there were no mutilations on Custer.

So, based on the above from Noggy and Shan I deduct that….

*these accounts could have simply been false and based on white testimonies that the Cheyenne had heard, and wanted to place themselves close to Custer as it makes a good story
*the stories were true but they omitted the mutilations as to not offend
*the stories were true but then mutilations were carried out later by others
* their stories were true
* the translations were botched and the accounts were documented incorrectly
* the individual conducting the interviews made it all up
* a combination of the above


Mysteries!

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

Hi woody and welcome.

There are lots of reasons and lots of interpretation which is the strength and value of precious open society, its freedoms and thinking for ourselves with out overt suppression.

An aspect of the 19th Century values which the troopslived with, is the shoddy burials which I imagine fostered a degree of guilt which quietly festered as the the post battle bruhaover decent burials spread through military, politics and the press. The burials were symbolic under revolting circumstances and the pressure to get away from there and 'campaign on'. Besides Libbie Custer's wellbeing as mother of the regiment left in deep mourning with her family decimated, this applied equally to all widows and lady friends sharing barracks at FAL, so people were naturally caustious and frugal with detailed niceties. Sgt. Kanipe is a point in case with his subsequent marriage to his friend Bobo's wife.

In truth, the cursory burials were a great improvement on battlefield policing during preceding millenia where the dead were mostly left to rot and cleared by loved one amongst camp followers, and then anyone working the land if that was so. Crassus had an army of seven legions destroyed by the Parthians in Turkey during Julius Caesar's fun and games at Rome. This was a roman army, in southeast Turkey, fighting an Iranian dynasty with whom they held treaties of friendship and tribute. No one buried their dead which numbered upwards of 30,000. Same story with Tuetoburg Forest a half century later when two legions were utterly destroyed with wounded and prisoners nailed to trees. At least those of Crassus's men dropping sword were spared. Into a life of slavery in China of all places.

With 7th Cavalry's wounded, there was an organised extermination once women and children arrived for trophies and this was usually done as for the slaughter of any meat. An axe blow to forehead. There are a number of accounts of stunned and possum men coming to life and being despatched in short order. They are enemy and hated - there was no quarter. Whilst this was broadly understood in white culture, it was simply addressed as 'Keep the last bullet for yourself' and wife. Our entire history really examples the kind blessings of cruelty.

[noggy]

Dec 11, 2023 0:15:46 GMT -6 woody said:

So, based on the above from Noggy and Shan I deduct that….

*these accounts could have simply been false and based on white testimonies that the Cheyenne had heard, and wanted to place themselves close to Custer as it makes a good story
*the stories were true but they omitted the mutilations as to not offend
*the stories were true but then mutilations were carried out later by others
* their stories were true
* the translations were botched and the accounts were documented incorrectly
* the individual conducting the interviews made it all up
* a combination of the above


Mysteries!

+ Some others, probably

All the best,
Noggy

[woody]

More great insights, a really informative unpacking of ‘they covered it up to spare Libby’s feelings’

I wonder if there are any oral histories still remaining within the families of the troopers, handed down from generation to generation. presumably behind closed doors they’d tell their wives, brothers etc…

Perhaps these stories die out after a generation or two, my grandad would talk to me about the war and I’ve passed on these stories to my daughter, but times are so different now and It all seems like such a long time ago to her that I suspect these stories will be lost with the next generation!

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

The classic family tale was left by Goes Ahead with his partner Pretty Shield.

[noggy]

Dec 11, 2023 15:38:08 GMT -6 woody said:

I wonder if there are any oral histories still remaining within the families of the troopers, handed down from generation to generation. presumably behind closed doors they’d tell their wives, brothers etc…

Perhaps these stories die out after a generation or two, my grandad would talk to me about the war and I’ve passed on these stories to my daughter, but times are so different now and It all seems like such a long time ago to her that I suspect these stories will be lost with the next generation!

I doubt details like this can last, at least not in our culture, unless they are written down. It's more common that when one oldtimer tells his son about his buddy "Frank Frankson" being killed in a particular way, his son will later his son how his father saw "a friend" get killed and so on. The details will disappear. Oral traditions in NA culture is much stronger. They were not used to write down things, so remebering their family members and teaching their children was done by re-telling stuff. Many...not sure how to phrase this, but let ut call them indigenous cultures rely on storytelling and passing on history orally, and believe in many cases that remembering their forfathers is important also when it comes to the afterlife. We also tend to have an interest in say family trees an such, but there is a huge gap in cultures here, especially today where we can just download or save whatever and then just forget about it until we get curious again.

I had a point in here somewhere, but kinda went on a rant instead

All the best,
Noggy

[shan]

Noggy, given that English isn't your first lanquage, you manage very well, so don't worry about wandering off on a rant, and that comes from someone who isabout to do just that.

I am now very old and come an Irish family on both sides in which oral culture was very strong, and what interests me on thinking back on it now, is the way that small things were remembered and retold as if they were incidents in some great battle. For instance, my great granfather on my fathers side was a man who was reknown for always eating his meat raw, no matter what kind of meat it was, he hadto eat it raw. This would be told and retold of an evening when we were all sat around the fire, and was the cause of much laughter. He was also a man who liked to take a twenty mile walk every evening after he'd finished work, a walk in which he would stop off at several bars or watering holes for just the one pint but a great del of talk. I followed his route many many years after he had died, and can confirm that thos watering holes were often five miles apart.

The reason I'm recounting this tale is because it shows that an oral culture has a great eye for detail, which is something we also see in those ledger drawings which were made by the plains Indians in particular during the period between 1860's to the 1900's. In fact I'd trust what we see in those drawing s far more than some of the things the Indians said after the Custer battle.

So there we are, I've had my rant and I feel better for it.

Shan








that was knowto

[woody]

There is definitely a lot of knowledge and wisdom held in oral histories and there is something charming and warming about it. Most families have some level of this, stories that are told and retold time and time again when the family is together, you grow up hearing these stories and laugh and cry along with everyone else, becomes part of your makeup, it’s what in a way binds a family, it’s that common thread. Hope I articulated myself well enough there, if I didn’t I think that people will instinctively know what I’m jabbering on about if it applies to them and their families.

As historical reference an issue must be that it’s very difficult to determine how a story has changed throughout the years, what’s been lost or added for dramatic flair!

I’m getting sentimental now thinking about my grandparents and parents and the stories they’d share about times and people past!

Apologies if necessary, as this thread is well and truly off topic now:-) !

[noggy]

Dec 12, 2023 11:30:09 GMT -6 shan said:

Noggy, given that English isn't your first lanquage, you manage very well, so don't worry about wandering off on a rant, and that comes from someone who isabout to do just that.

I am now very old and come an Irish family on both sides in which oral culture was very strong, and what interests me on thinking back on it now, is the way that small things were remembered and retold as if they were incidents in some great battle. For instance, my great granfather on my fathers side was a man who was reknown for always eating his meat raw, no matter what kind of meat it was, he hadto eat it raw. This would be told and retold of an evening when we were all sat around the fire, and was the cause of much laughter. He was also a man who liked to take a twenty mile walk every evening after he'd finished work, a walk in which he would stop off at several bars or watering holes for just the one pint but a great del of talk. I followed his route many many years after he had died, and can confirm that thos watering holes were often five miles apart.

The reason I'm recounting this tale is because it shows that an oral culture has a great eye for detail, which is something we also see in those ledger drawings which were made by the plains Indians in particular during the period between 1860's to the 1900's. In fact I'd trust what we see in those drawing s far more than some of the things the Indians said after the Custer battle.

So there we are, I've had my rant and I feel better for it.

Shan

Thank you but I disagree, too many words and what I actually was trying to say was as simple as I think our society and especially my generation is....forgetting how to remember. I feel old but am probably somewhat younger than you (41), but I can  use an example from my own life:


I have never een on Facebook. Most of my friends, the majority being around my age, are/have been. As I understand it, you can get reminders of your friends'  birthdays there. One semi-frustrated friend of mine once complained that it was hard remembering my birthday since I wasn't on FB. I said well, I manage to remember yours and the other guys's birthdays. He asked how I managed, and I couldn't anser anything but "I can remember stuff". Back in my childhood and even early teens, I wrote down in a little book every score of my favorite football team (with goal scorers), so to this day I can recite most of Man Uniteds results from 1990-99 ish, but for the last 10 years I'll struggle more. Haha...maybe because its been terrible watching them for the most parts.

I love the NA drawings. But even there I think we must remmber that some things can just be cultural and not factual; Red Horse's paintings had troopers with sabers. That is an artistic freedom, and probably the sabers were symbolic of white troopers. But they weren't used at the LBH, so I still use a grain of salt even when watching them.

Noggy

[johnson1941]

contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/p15999coll31/id/24922

Link to some Kanipe correspondence with WM Camp, re: the dead, burial, bodies, etc.







contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/p15999coll31/id/24930

And an offer from a Weston to gather squaw(s) - Thunder Hawks Squaw - who was/were there "at the end hacking, carving, mutilating and torturing"...