Was Custer mutilated?

[michigander]

Here we are at the same point: Custer is the only soldier that was found on the hill but said to be death otherwhere; the only man that was found with shellcases under the body but was told to have never shot.
I think there is nothing to elaborate in order to say that he was a brave soldier that fought there bravely till the end. This was the case. Had he fought 5 minuts or 10 hours, his overwhelmed fight was heroic. As the fight of his comrades. As other fights of the history. The point is that Custer made of this kind of braveness his leitmotiv all life long. This must be remembered when we try to re-build the real scenario of this battle.

[markland]

I found this in the Brooklyn Eagle, January 27, 1895 in an article about Troop A, NY National Guard and its commander, Captain Charles F. Roe, who was in the 2d Cav. during the Great Sioux War and according to the paper was one of the first to see GAC's body.

"The captain [1] says that the generally accepted idea that Custer wore long hair is erroneous. His hair was worn short, and when he was found dead he had a bullet hole through his head and another through his lungs. He was stripped, as were all the other men, and most of the bodies were horribly mutilated. Custer and a few of his men were found behind a semi-circle of horses which they evidently had shot to form a breast work. There were 276 men and officers killed in the fight. There were also fifty-three men in Reno's command wounded, all of part of the same regiment to which Captain Roe belonged [2]. The captain assisted in the transportation of these wounded men to the steamer on the Big Horn river. This was done by means of rude litters made by skinning the dead horses and lashing the hides between long poles and fastening these like shafts to mules before and behind, thus making as comfortable a bed for the sufferers as the means at hand would allow. They traveled by night and reached the river at the end of the second night. In the following year Captain Roe was of the party that visited the scene of the massacre and gathered the remains of the men who fell, and prepared the grounds for the foundation of the monument the government afterward erected on the spot. The last resting place of each man was marked with a stake, which was afterward permanently marked with a granite stone. This marking of the ground gives a very good idea of the progress of the battle."

[1] At the time of the LBH, Roe was a second lieutenant.
[2] Per Heitman, Roe served his first four months after graduation from West Point with the 1st Cav. and then transferred to the 2d Cav. with which he remained until his resignation as a first lieutenant on January 31, 1888.

[crzhrs]

Roe states that most of the bodies were horribly mutilated. However, he says nothing about the condition of Custer other than the wounds.

His numbers for the dead on LSH appear to be much higher than most.

So I guess that report still adds to the unknowns

[markland]

crzhrs said:

Roe states that most of the bodies were horribly mutilated. However, he says nothing about the condition of Custer other than the wounds.

His numbers for the dead on LSH appear to be much higher than most.

So I guess that report still adds to the unknowns

I noticed the number of dead but attribute that to either the reporter making a mistake or a mistake in the typesetting. Regarding the failure to mention specifically whether GAC was mutilated, I am inclined to suspect that his silence speaks volumes.


Billy

[crzhrs]

Drat those typos . . . being in the publishing/printing business I know what harm a typo can do.

If it came from a newspaper, they are notorious for typos, especially with daily deadlines, but if it was in a magazine with more time, one would think to double check numbers and other figures, especially for the dead.

[markland]

It came from a newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle. It is on-line and can be found at:

www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/

Best of wishes,

Billy

[crzhrs]

Billy:

I misinterpreted Roe's statement about the dead, which he stated 276. I read it too quickly and by-passed the "There were 276 men and officers killed in the fight " as the number killed WITH Custer. I mistook the 53 wounded WITH Reno as HIS dead. So the total of 276 may be closer to the dead of ALL troops in the fight.

A suggestion to all of us who are trying to read all the posts quickly . . . slow down and read carefully so we don't miss what is actually being posted.

[Melani]

jim said:

For what it's worth, In an interview on January 20, 1876, with his friend Col. Charles F. Bates, then Lt. Godfrey disclosed that "Custer's genitals had been mutilated by an arrow which had been forced up his peni$. Startling as this revelation may be, no particular significance should be attached to this type of mutilation since it appears to have been common practice among the Indians" - page 21 of "The Custer Battle Casualties - Burials, Exhumations, and Reinterments", by Richard G. Hardorff

Speaking of typos, I think Jim must have the date of the interview wrong, since the battle had not yet taken place.

[Jim]

Melani,

My mistake, it was from a letter from John M. Carroll to Richard Hardorff on January 20, 1976, in reference to Godfrey's interview with Charles F. Bates, which is located in the Melvin J. Nichols Collection, catalog 23, Frontier America Corporation.