Post by fred on Jan 5, 2011 9:02:37 GMT -6
Some parameters: Yellow is a direct quote, either from the source or the individual. Italics within brackets [ ] are my own personal comments.
SGT DANIEL A. KANIPE
(C)
Last Updated: 28Jul10
1903—Published in the magazine of the Historical Society of Montana; written by Kanipe. Windolph, Charles; Hunt, Frazier and Robert, I Fought With Custer, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1947 (1987).
1. By the time the Custer command had reached the top of the bluffs, they were charging at full speed. [82]
2. At the sight of the village men began to cheer and some horses became so excited the men couldn’t hold them in ranks. [82]
3. Custer said, “Hold your horses in, boys, there are plenty of them down there for us all.” [82]
4. Kanipe said TWC gave him the order for the packs. He also told Kanipe that if he saw Benteen to tell him to hurry. [82]
5. When he first saw Benteen’s command, they were watering their horses. [82]
1908—Walter Camp interview conducted: 16 and 17Jun1908. Hammer, Kenneth, ed., Custer in ’76.
1. SGT Curtiss went back for hardtack box about 8 AM, 25Jun76. [91]
2. Claims Custer returned from his reconnoitering between 10 AM and 11 AM to where the regiment was waiting. [91 – 92]
3. Kanipe also says Custer divided the regiment at this time, prior to crossing the divide. [92]
4. As the regiment crossed the divide some men began throwing away small sacks of oats. [92, FN 2]
5. Kanipe wrote in a letter to Camp, dated 20Jul1908 at Marion, NC, that Custer turned a sharp right after seeing 50 to 100 Indians on the bluff. Claims Custer never left the command, but rode right in front the whole distance until Kanipe was ordered back. “[W]hen the command got up on the bluff where the Indians were supposed to have been seen we could see across the valley, see Reno, and his 3 companies, about 35 Indian scouts, going right to the Indian camps. We could see the Indian camp, plainly.” [92] [Kanipe also stated in the letter that Custer never went to the ford (A), which was about ½ mile from where Custer veered to the right.]
6. Did not believe Custer ordered the Rees at the “lone tepee” to dismount because they would not go ahead and fight the Sioux. [92, FN 4]
7. Said Custer and Reno rode together for a little while. [In a footnote, Camp writes that Herendeen claimed “Custer delivered orders to Reno direct when he told him to charge the village,” and that this agrees with what Kanipe said. {92, FN 5}]
8. Reno forded the LBH about noon. [92]
9. Kanipe says he spotted Indians on the bluffs “some distance beyond where Reno later fortified.” [92] In another footnote, Camp says Kanipe saw 60 to 75 Indians on the hill. Camp writes, “Naturally he would not wish to attack the camp without driving these Indians in.” [93, FN 6] [Once again, this interjects Camp’s opinion into the narrative.]
10. These Indians were about ¾ to 1 mile away. [97]
11. Camp thinks these Indians signaled or sent word to Gall that soldiers were also on the bluffs.
12. Godfrey apparently spoke of this “signaling,” as well. [97]
13. Camp hypothesizes that this signaling came before Reno began firing as the commands were abreast of one another, Custer’s in full view of both Reno’s men and the Indian village.
a. This led Camp to believe, “Custer’s approach came to Gall while Custer was still a considerable distance south of a point opposite from the Indian camp.” [97]
b. Kanipe was emphatic that Custer was as far west on the bluffs as to be able to see Reno’s men and the village all the while.
c. This would preclude theories of Custer moving north some distance inland and out of sight. This was Godfrey’s theory.
d. “Kanipe says that Custer was trotting and galloping along with companies in column of twos, all five companies abreast, the men cheering and eager for a fight and that after the highest point on the bluffs was reached, the men, through their eagerness, broke into something like disorder…” [97]
e. “If this was the case Gall certainly must have known of the presence of Custer’s command before he (Gall) was well engaged with Reno.” [97]
14. Kanipe’s orders were to McDougall, with an aside that if he were to chance upon Benteen he was to tell Benteen to hurry. As for the packs, if any got loose, McDougall was to cut them unless they were ammunition packs. [93] [There is no mention in Camp of any instructions to Kanipe to tell McDougall to cut cross-country and not follow Custer’s trail. This cross-country jaunt is mentioned in Stewart’s Custer’s Luck, p. 338, and cites both Kanipe and Kuhlman. Both McDougall and Mathey denied Kanipe ever reached them or gave them any instructions from Custer. The fact the packs continued straight on, following the trail, is probably evidence that McDougall and Mathey were correct and that Kanipe simply ran into Benteen, then cooled his heels rather than risk going back to the packs.]
15. Edgerly said Kanipe met Benteen east of the watering place; Kanipe said it was west. The packs were two miles east of Benteen. [93]
16. Kanipe also said he met Benteen a little west of the “burning tepee.” [93]
17. In a letter dated 9Oct1910 at Bristol, PA, Kanipe wrote to Camp that when he met Benteen, the captain had just left the watering place, but when he first saw Benteen (it had to be from a distance) his command was watering, and it was about 1 mile from where he met McDougall. [93] “I was not in sight of McDougall when I met Benteen; it was just after he crossed the Dry Creek and if you remember that there is a little valley up that Dry Creek. Benteen was closer to McDougall when he was at the water hole than he was when he met me I would say one-half mile further from him.” [93, FN 9]
18. On the way to McDougall, Kanipe claims to have passed a small party of Rees—half-dozen or more—with ponies, less than 200 yards away. “They passed to my right and went on ahead. When I turned to my right to go to Benteen they gained on me… Soon after this I saw Benteen coming and turned right and went over that way waving my hat. Benteen and his command then turned to his right and came over to meet me.” [93, FN 10] Camp writes that he had trouble reconciling the timing of this event with the retreat of the Rees and Kanipe’s running into them.
19. Camp writes in another footnote that Kanipe met Benteen about 1 mile west of the lone tepee. [93, FN 11]
20. Kanipe met the head of the pack train about at the “lone tepee.” [93]
21. Packs were strung out about 1 mile and Kanipe met McDougall about ½ mile east of the “lone tepee.” [93]
22. When Kanipe got back to the north branch of Reno (Benteen) Creek, “he saw Benteen over south at main Benteen Creek [Reno Creek] and he waved his hat and Benteen turned to the right (north) and came over that way and Kanipe turned to right and passed Benteen….” [93, FN 11]
23. Kanipe claims to have ridden back at the head of the pack train, bringing it to Reno. [94]
a. No mention here of meeting LT Hare on his way to get ammo from the packs.
b. Says the whole command began to move north at about 2:30 PM. [94]
c. Kanipe claimed the Indians charged Reno—off of Weir Peaks—at about 3 PM. [94] [This differs from Godfrey’s account and Camp noted it.]
24. Indian camp began moving around sundown of 26Jun76, but the firing continued until dark.
25. Kanipe said that Custer’s men went at a trot and a gallop all the way up the bluffs and when they saw Reno’s command charging, Custer’s men began yelling, urging their horses on at a breakneck speed, in a wild run. Many men actually got ahead of Custer and this was when he said, “Hold your horses, boys; there are Indians enough down there for all of us.” [94]
26. Camp says Cooke sent Goldin to Reno before Kanipe left for McDougall, though he makes no citation. [95]
27. “Asked Knipe if ridge where monument now is was so level and wide… Says no, say was narrower and Custer laid on very peak of it.” [95, FN 15]
28. Once beyond Custer hill and moving along the SSL, Kanipe said, “I next went along the line of dead bodies toward the river, and riding along the edge of the deep gully about 2,000 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… Having seen those bodies in the gulch I am at a loss to understand the absence of markers there.” [95 – 96, FN 15]
29. Kanipe said there were only 3 tepees remaining in the village and they were piled full of dead Indians, wrapped in buffalo skins.
30. Estimated at least 60 dead Indians found this way [Camp]. [96] “There were three tepees full of dead Indians in the village. I did not count them, but I estimate there was something like 65 or 70 dead Indians in these three tepees. They were already tied up in buffalo robes, ready for burial.” [96, FN 17, Kanipe’s own words in a letter to Camp, 20Jul1908]
My Impressions:
• Custer’s route along bluffs
• Ford A time
• Indians on the bluffs
• Kanipe’s “message”
• Kanipe meeting Benteen
• Kanipe meeting Rees
• Kanipe meeting packs
• Benteen near Ford A
• Kanipe leading packs to Reno Hill: no mention of meeting LT Hare; rather suspicious.
• Custer’s speed of advance
• Goldin’s message to Reno
• Custer Hill configuration
• Deep Ravine bodies
• Mitch Boyer’s location
• Number of dead hostiles
1908 – 1923—Walter Camp letters and interviews. Hardorff, Richard G., ed., On the Little Bighorn With Walter Camp, El Segundo, CA: Upton & Sons Publishers, 2002. A series of letters between Camp and Kanipe.
1. [July 20, 1908, Kanipe to Camp] Kanipe told Camp there was a single tepee at the lone tepee site and it contained one dead warrior. Custer ordered the tepee set on fire. [6]
2. Custer told his adjutant to have Reno cross the creek and come alongside of them. [7]
3. They rode together—at a slow gallop—for several hundred yards. [7]
4. Kanipe then says Custer saw 50 to 100 Indians on the bluffs to the right and turned to pursue them. They increased their speed. Custer never left his command, always riding right in front of the troops. [7] [Here’s the old 50 – 100 Indians business again, only now it is Custer who spotted them, not Kanipe. He still doesn’t tell us where they went.]
5. From atop the bluffs, they could see Reno and his troops as well as the Indian camp. [7]
6. Kanipe estimated the distance from the LBH River to where Custer turned right as about ½ mile. [7]
7. There were hardly any horses around where Custer lay. He was lying across 2 or 3 soldiers, his back barely touching the ground. Custer had been stripped of his clothes. There was no “fortification out of their horses.” [8]
8. Custer was shot in the left breast, near his heart, a single shot. [8]
9. Sergeants Finley and Finckle were badly mutilated; Bobo was not. [8]
10. Kanipe saw no decapitation. [8]
11. He claimed there were 3 tepees full of dead Indians, some 65 – 70, he thought. [8] [In a footnote, Hardorff claims this number is incorrect, that the real number was only 16, and that total Indian dead was something less than 40. I disagree.]
12. An I Company sergeant was lying in the village, his horse nearby. [8] [This is almost certainly incorrect.]
13. [August 4, 1908, Kanipe to Camp] In this letter, Kanipe identifies the I Company trooper found in the village as SGT Bustard. [11] [Bustard’s body was properly identified by LT Edgerly as being near Keogh’s. This was corroborated by SGT Flannagan {D}, and further corroborated by James Rooney {I} who said the body in the village was that of PVT William A. Brown {F}. {13, FN 2}]
14. Kanipe claimed the troops on Reno Hill saw Indians riding around with flags on poles, not knowing these were Custer’s guidons, his personal flag, and the regimental colors. [12] [He specifically mentioned the regimental colors.]
15. The officers in Custer’s five companies wore shirts without their shoulder straps. They wore the uniforms of regular soldiers. Kanipe said, “… [T]he officers who were killed, or most all of them, wore regular soldier’s uniform and I don’t think that any of the officers had shoulder straps on any of their blouses. As to the wool hats I will say that ‘C’ Troop and ‘E’ and ‘L’ all wore white hats. The other companies of the Regiment wore black hats.” [12]
16. [June 6, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp let Kanipe know that Varnum spoke highly of him. [81]
17. Camp wrote that Varnum said it was a mistake to say all the scouts ran away before the valley fight began. [82]
18. Camp tells of interviewing one of Varnum’s Dakota scouts—Ring Cloud (probably Whole Buffalo)—and that he told Camp “that less than half of the Rees started for the Powder River before Reno’s fight in the valley began….” [82]
19. These Rees were probably the ones Kanipe saw when he was on his way to the packs. [82]
20. The remainder of the Rees “went into the edge of the timber when Reno’s men began the fight on the skirmish line, and that the fight lasted no time at all.” [82]
21. Camp mentioned that he had discussed the Peter Thompson story with Varnum and Varnum could not understand the part about Thompson seeing Custer at the ford or Billy Jackson’s stirrup having been shot away by GAC. [84]
22. [June 22, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp tells Kanipe that some of the Sioux ponies were as much as five miles away and only a third of the warriors had their horses by the time Reno attacked. By the time Custer showed up, most of the ponies had been brought in. [87]
23. “The Indians all tell me that Custer and his men were over across from the village a considerable time threatening to attack, the soldiers occasionally shooting over into the village, but that the soldiers did not at any time attempt to ford the river and come over.” [87]
24. [November 13, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp writes that he had spoken to George Herendeen and Herendeen said the body of PVT Nathan Short was reported to have been found by the Crow scouts, not by Crook’s troopers. [93]
25. The body was found pinned beneath his horse near the Rosebud and down by the Yellowstone. [93]
26. The man had a light-colored hat, with crossed sabers and the number 7 drawn in with pen. [93 – 94]
27. [November 22, 1909, Kanipe to Camp] Kanipe verified that Short marked his equipment that way and that it was unusual, because most troopers marked their equipment on the inside. [95]
28. [April 24, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp wrote that Mathey told him Hare met the pack train “on a little hill.” [108]
29. Because Mathey saw men on the hill and couldn’t tell whether they were Indians or white men, “he halted the head of the pack train and waited for the remainder to come up before going ahead. He [Mathey] says he halted right on a little hill that commanded the ground for quite a little distance around…. [W]hile the packs were halted at this little hill, Lieut. Hare rode up and said that the Indians were ‘whipping hell out of the soldiers.’” [108]
30. Camp compliments Kanipe on the accuracy of his stories, especially compare to those of the 8 officers and 32 enlisted men he had interviewed. [109] [Amazing, especially when compared to W. A. Graham’s comments, below.]
31. [September 28, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp describes his version of the Custer fight. [110] [Camp believed in what Richard Fox called the “fatalistic” theory of the battle, where Custer was driven back from Ford B, all 5 companies fought as a whole, things were all mixed up, and the Indian charge broke the command in two right about where Keogh died.]
32. Camp states that the distance between Ford A and the lone tepee was exactly 3 miles. [111] [This is incorrect.]
33. The morass where Benteen watered was 1 mile east of the lone tepee, 4 miles east of the LBH. [111] [Also wrong.]
34. [November 8, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp wrote Kanipe that he had found former sergeant, Richard Hanley. Hanley told him that Brennan, Thompson, and Fitzgerald were not with the packs. He could not remember Watson. [112]
35. Camp told Kanipe the story of his having met former private, Jacob Adams, and Adams’ story that when “the pack train reached a point about a mile east of the river a horseman was seen approaching…. At first it could not be determined whether he was a white man or an Indian. Adams went ahead to see who he was and found him to be a white man about 40 or 45 years old, sandy hair, with goatee and mustache. He was a thick-set man….” [112]
36. Mathey remembered a half-breed—and maybe one or two others—joined the pack train when they were about a mile from the river. [112 – 113]
37. [January 22, 1911, Camp to Kanipe] Camp asked Kanipe if he knew what the shouting and shooting was all about as Custer’s men rode down Reno Creek. Kanipe didn’t know. [114]
38. [March 27, 1911, Camp to Kanipe] Camp tells Kanipe of meeting Alfred Dale, a hospital steward with Terry’s HQ, and Dale remembered hearing the report of a dead man and horse found just west of the Rosebud. This was in August 1876. Dale did not see the remains. [116]
39. Apparently there were two incidents of reported carcasses, the man and horse found west of the Rosebud, and a horse with carbine found to the east of the creek. [117]
40. [February 25, 1917, Camp to Kanipe] Nothing of significance.
41. [April 4, 1923, Camp to Kanipe] A year earlier, there was a ceremony in Washington, D. C., for the burial of the Unknown Soldier. Godfrey and several other LBH vets attended and Godfrey held a dinner afterwards. Peter Thompson told his story and Godfrey and the others refused to believe it and Thompson took offense and left. [166]
42. Camp alluded to Godfrey’s having seen Thompson coming “up the slope from the river bottom, leading his horse, but did not see Watson with him.” [166]
43. Camp wrote that he had met William Slaper (M) who told him “he remembers distinctly that on the evening of June 25, 1876, Watson came in with the rear guard, under McDougall, leading his horse, and explained that his horse had played out some distance back… and that he had waited until the rear guard came along and then walked with it, leading his played-out horse. Slaper says Watson never at that time, or any other time, told him of being with Thompson….” [166 – 167] [Kanipe never replied.]
Undated—Camp’s notes. Hardorff, Richard G., ed., On the Little Bighorn With Walter Camp.
1. Kanipe said Custer traveled with the companies five abreast, all the way from the divide. The order—left to right—was E, F, L, I, C. [176] [This can also be used to show that E and F were one battalion, C, I, and L another.]
2. “Was C Company in Yates’ or Keogh’s squadron? Knipe says it was in Keogh’s squadron.” [177]
3. Knipe had told Camp that when the command went to Weir Peaks, he rode with H Company “and saw Thompson’s horse standing near head of hollow down which Custer marched.” [177]
1924—Graham, W. A., COL, The Custer Myth. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA: 1953 (2000). From the Greensboro, NC, Daily Record, April 27, 1924. Graham made a note regarding the inaccuracies in Kanipe’s story: “The many inaccuracies in Sgt. Kanipe’s story are characteristic of the accounts of most of the enlisted survivors recounted during the ’20s.” [250]
1. It was Kanipe’s opinion that if Custer had taken the Gatling guns and the Rodman gun there would have been no massacre. [248] [Typical second – guessing.]
2. On the evening of June 22, Custer issued orders for no more bugle calls, fires only large enough to make coffee, and commands were to be given by signs. [248]
3. Apparently, SGT Finley (C) kept the scalp they found in the sundance camp belonging to one of Gibbon’s men. He had it in one of his saddlebags when he was killed. Kanipe said Finley was the oldest line sergeant in C Company. [248]
4. Kanipe said the Crows, sent out to scout on June 24, arrived back in the camp at 10 PM. “It was just good dark. You know that you can see to read at 9 o’clock in the summer time in that country.” [248] [This is a tacit admission that the command was probably still on HQ/St. Paul time, otherwise, why wouldn’t you be able to read at the same time in St. Paul? It seems to indicate their watches were still set ahead. Besides, in the northern climes, it gets darker earlier than in the south, even at the beginning of summer.]
5. They got orders to move and they “marched all night,” until Custer put them into a ravine to camp. They had been “riding at a hard trot and a gallop.” [248]
6. In a typical factual error, Kanipe says, “Quartermaster Sergeant Hearst lost some hard bread from the packs… General Custer ordered the sergeant to go back and get the bread.” [248] [First of all, the sergeant was Curtiss, he was not a QM SGT, and Custer didn’t know about the incident until it was all over.]
7. Kanipe says he “could tell that the plan was to strike the Indian camp at three places.” [248] [More guessing.]
8. “We went at a gallop.” [248] [This obviously refers to the move down Reno Creek.]
9. Kanipe now says they made their way “to a crossing and found a vacated Indian camp on the other side. The fires were not all out. There was a dead Indian in one of the tepees that was still standing. General Custer ordered the tepee fired.” [248 – 249] [It is not sure here whether Kanipe meant the LBH crossing—Ford A—or just some dry stream crossing. What is significant is that he remembers the tepee near “a crossing.”]
10. Kanipe then tells the story of spotting the Indians on the top of the bluffs, telling 1SG Bobo. [This is probably more Kanipe fantasy.] He does, however, say that when this occurred Custer’s command was “within a quarter of a mile of the junction of Benteen’s creek [Reno Creek] with the LBH….” [249] [Again, a significant observation. While I wouldn’t use it as the definitive source for Custer getting that close to Ford A, the statement can be used as confirmation.]
11. Custer’s command [for the second time in this account, Kanipe omits Company L when he talks about the battalion] headed up the range of bluffs. They rode hard. [249]
12. The men yelled and they “galloped along to the far end of the bluffs….” [249]
13. Kanipe said SGT Finckle—riding hard next to Kanipe and Tom Custer—told him his horse couldn’t make it, but Kanipe told him he could do it. Apparently, Finckle dropped back a bit. [249] [I wonder if this was a seed planted in Kanipe’s mind for his “packs” message.]
14. This is when Tom Custer supposedly told Kanipe to give the message to CPT McDougall. [249] [Much of Kanipe’s story sounds too fishy. He seems to be a little too close to the action, while 1SG Bobo and LT Harrington are never mentioned.]
15. Kanipe says this was his good fortune [obviously!] and that if Finckle hadn’t have dropped off, that Finckle would have been sent back instead. [249] [Very convenient! In trying to debunk some of Theodore Goldin’s claims, Graham wrote TMP Martini asking him about Goldin’s story of bringing a message from Custer/Cooke to Reno. Martini denied ever knowing the man and claiming that he was the only messenger that day. The letter Martini wrote to Graham—dated April 12, 1922—could also be used to impugn the story of Kanipe that he too was sent back with a message to the packs. {268}]
16. “I remember the last words that I heard General Custer say; the men were on the hill, we all gave them three cheers riding at a full gallop, some of them couldn’t hold their horses, galloping past General Custer. He shouted at them, ‘Boys, hold your horses, there are plenty of them down there for us all.’” [249] [This is an indication that Kanipe went a fairly long distance with Custer’s command, probably leaving shortly before they halted so Custer could overlook the fight below. This could be used for determining some of the Benteen timing.]
17. Kanipe now contends that he gave the orders to McDougall first, then rode on to Benteen, “as I had been told to take them to him, also.” [249] [Suddenly, a new Kanipe twist of the old story: McDougall first, then Benteen, instead of the other way around. Plus, now he tells us he was also told to give the orders to Benteen, something that never appeared in the first telling of this tale.]
18. The Indian camp moved late in the evening of the 26th. [250]
19. Terry and Gibbon arrived around 10 AM of the 27th. [250]
20. SGT Finley had 12 arrows in him and lay by his horse. [250]
21. All the men [Kanipe saw] were completely naked. [250]
22. GAC lay across a couple men; TWC was near him. Kanipe also said LT Calhoun was nearby, but this is completely false. [250]
23. Kanipe felt there were “fully 4,000 Indians besides the squaws… between 12,000 and 15,000 Indians in all.” [250]
24. Kanipe said there were three tepees standing in the abandoned village “with 75 (sic)” Indians in them. [250] [More Kanipe fantasy.]
From Graham, COL W. A., The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custerania, The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA, 1953, pp. 247 – 250.
THE STORY OF SERGEANT KANIPE, ONE OF CUSTER’S LAST MESSENGERS
On May 17 we were sent out on what was to prove to be the disastrous expedition. We started to the Yellowstone River. We marched 12 miles to the Big Heart river and made camp. We stayed there a while looking around. About June 10 we went on up to the Powder River. Six companies of the 12 were sent out on a scouting party. Leaving the wagon train at the Powder river and taking 10 days rations on pack mules, we went up the Powder river for two days, then turned across towards the Tongue river and it was on the Rosebud river that we found the Indian trail.
It was about sundown then, so we made a little coffee, then marched up the trail all night. In the morning we made coffee, and hit out up the trail again, marching up it until 12 o'clock. General Reno who was in command of this detachment, found that his 10 – day rations were running low, so we turned back down the Rosebud river and at the junction of it and the Yellowstone we met the other six companies of the regiment, under General Custer.
General Terry, department commander, was there. General Custer was under arrest. It was said, because of his attitude against the post traders who had been allowed the concessions at the different posts and which were done away with after the airing of scandals concerning post traderships during President Grant’s administration.
Why, those fellows had things so that you couldn't buy anything at the posts without getting it from them. Liquor was 25 cents a glass and the glasses was mostly glass—mighty little whisky. Custer set a maximum price and it caused his arrest. But all the high army officers were with him and he was given a command at the place I spoke of. On July 22 Custer’s outfit drew 15 days’ rations off the steamboat Far West that was in the river. There were two Rodman guns, two Gatling guns in a battery with Custer. He thought that he could get along without them, and he turned them over to General Gibbon, who carried them across the river.
There’s where he made a mistake, as we see it now, because if he had had one of those Rodman guns and had fired it one time those Indians wouldn’t have stopped running yet—no siree, would still be running. And if we’d had one of the Gatling guns there would have been a lot more survivors than me. In fact there would never have been any Custer massacre.
On June 22 we broke camp and started out, marching all day. That evening Custer issued orders that there would be no more bugle calls and only fire enough to make coffee and that commands would be given by signs. On the morning of June 23 we started out. We marched until nearly night, then camped and continued on next morning, June 24. That day we came to a place where the Indians had had a sun dance, and had staged a war dance, too. They had built brush sheds out of the cottonwood trees, and the ground was patted down smooth and hard, where they had been dancing about on it.
Six Crow Indian scouts that were with our regiment had come on ahead and they had found the scalp of a white man. That was from the head of a soldier with Gibbon’s command. Well, sir, when those Indians, they hated the Sioux, the ones we were hunting, anyway, found this scalp hanging on a willow twig they sure had a fit.
Just cut up in general and yelled and hollered and danced about. What did they want? Why, if they had had a Sioux there then it would have been a bad day for him, they were that mad. They brought the scalp back to General Custer, who passed it around to the men, after looking at it. Sergeant Finley, who was the oldest line sergeant in my company, had it in his saddle pockets when he was massacred. We marched all day June 24. Indian scouts that had been sent ahead returned that night about 10 o’clock. It was just good dark. You know that you can see to read at 9 o’clock in the summer time in that country.
We got orders that night to saddle and pack up. We marched all night, coming close to the junction of the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn River. So General Custer took the regiment into a ravine that looked as though we could keep concealed there as long as we wanted to. But, in coming in, as we were riding at a hard trot and a gallop, Quartermaster Sergeant Hearst lost some hard bread from the packs of some of the pack train. Learning this, General Custer ordered the sergeant to go back and get the bread.
But when the sergeant reached the point where the bread had dropped out, there were two Indians helping themselves to it. They ran at the approach of the soldiers. Coming back to camp this incident was reported to General Custer and he ordered us to saddle up.
I reasoned it out that he had planned to surprise the Indians the next morning, but as they already knew that we were there, he was going to do it now. We marched up the divide and halted. General Custer took the chief trumpeter and two scouts and was gone two hours.
When he came back he divided the regiment into three detachments. He gave Major Reno three troops, “A,” “M,” and “G”; Captain Benteen, three troops, “H,” “K” and “D,” and gave Captain McDougall charge of the pack train with Troop “B.” He then took for himself Troops “C,” “E,” “I,” and “F.” Leaving that place we went out this way. Major Reno was to the left and abreast with General Custer and Captain Benteen to the left of Major Reno. You could tell that the plan was to strike the Indian camp at three places. Captain McDougall was to bring the pack train on up the main Indian trail. We went at a gallop. Turning down what is now Benteen’s creek, we made our way to a crossing and found a vacated Indian camp on the other side. The fires were not all out. There was a dead Indian in one of the tepees that was still standing. General Custer ordered the tepee fired. Major Reno came in sight and he was signaled to cross Benteen creek and did so. General Custer, with three companies, pushed down the creek.
When we reached within a quarter of a mile of the junction of Benteen’s creek with the Little Big Horn I sighted Indians on the top of the range of bluffs over the Little Big Horn river. I said to First Sergeant Bobo, “There are the Indians.”
General Custer threw up his head about that time and we—Troops “C,” “E,” “I,” and “F”—headed for the range of bluffs where we had seen the Indians. Tom Custer, brother of the general, was captain of my troop, “C.” We rode hard, but when we reached the top the Indians were gone.
However, we could see the tepees for miles. The Crow Indian scouts with our outfit wanted to slip down and get a few ponies. Some of them did slip down, but they got shot for their pains. Chief Scout Mitch Buie (Mitch Boyer or Bouyer), Curley, a Crow, and “Bloody Knife” Reeve stayed up on the bluffs with us.
Well, sir, when the men of those four troops saw the Indian camp down in the valley they began to holler and yell, and we galloped along to the far end of the bluffs, where we could swoop down on the camp * * * * (four words illegible).
I was riding close to Sergeant Finkle. We were both close to CPT Tom Custer. Finkle hollered at me that he couldn’t make it, his horse was giving out. I answered back: “Come on Finkle, if you can.” He dropped back a bit.
Just then the captain told me to go back and find McDougall and the pack train and deliver to them orders that had just been issued by General Custer.
“Tell McDougall,” he said, “to bring the pack train straight across to high ground—if packs get loose don’t stop to fix them, cut them off. Come quick. Big Indian camp.”
I went back. I thought then that was tough luck, but it proved to be my salvation. If Sergeant Finkle had not dropped back a few minutes before he would have got the orders—and I would not be telling this story.
Away off in the distance, the dust rolling up like a little cloud, I saw the pack train. I went toward that. My company and the others went on down toward the Indian camp. I remember the last words that I heard General Custer say; the men were on the hill, we all gave them three cheers riding at a full gallop, some of them couldn't hold their horses, galloping past General Custer. He shouted at them, “Boys, hold your horses, there are plenty of them down there for us all.” They rode on. I rode back.
Reaching the pack train, I gave Captain McDougall the orders sent him, and went on toward Captain Benteen as I had been told to take them to him, also. McDougall and his outfit rode on to the top of the hill and reinforced Major Reno as he retired from the bottom of the bluffs.
The Indians were following close at their heels, shooting and yelling, and men were dropping here and there. They, the Indians, would hop on them and scalp them before we could rescue them. Dr. DeWolf was killed just as he reached the top of the hill. If he had gotten a few feet further he would have been saved.
As I went back after Captain Benteen I saw some Indians running along. I thought they were hostile Indians and got ready to give them a few rounds before they got me, but they were scouts that were making their get away from the big battle that was going on. They had come from Major Reno’s command and they were that scared that they did not stop until they reached the Powder River.
Delivering the orders to Captain Benteen, I rode back to the top of the ridge with the battalion and there we joined the others under Major Reno and McDougall. The Indians were between this outfit and General Custer, so I could not join my company.
Major Reno started to march out on the range of bluffs there and attack the Indians, but they came at us and we retired, and formed skirmish lines. But, before we could do that we lost several men and they were scalped before we could get to them. They shot at us all day then at night they powwowed until daylight on the 26th. Then they started out again shooting and charging. We killed a many a one, just how many I do not know.
We were cut off from water, and there were 68 wounded men in camp. A wounded man wants water bad, and it was pitiful to hear their groans as they called for it and we couldn’t get it. Some fellows tried to go for it but got shot and had no such luck as bringing any for the wounded.
I remember the first shot that was fired in that two-day battle. It went right under my horse’s belly and lodged in the bank. There were 14 men and two officers, Lieutenant Harrington and Lieutenant Sturgis, that never were found. It was said that the Indians cut off their heads and dragged them around as they pow-wowed during the night.
There were 56 men in our outfit killed on the hill by the Indians.
Well, they kept up the shooting all through the day of the 26th, until late in the evening we could see the camp begin to move. The warriors kept shooting at us and the squaws were getting the camp moved. On the morning of the 27th there was not an Indian in sight.
We got water and made coffee and relieved the suffering of the wounded as best we could. About 10 o’clock General Gibbon and his command arrived. General Terry, department commander, came with him. When General Terry came up lusty cheers (greeted him). He cried like a baby. Then he told us that he had seen 200 men in the valley below and we knew that General Custer and the four companies had been wiped out. We had thought that maybe he had been corralled as we were.
Late on the afternoon of the 27th, Captain Benteen went to the battlefield, and I was allowed to go with him, and look about wherever I wanted to.
I looked over the dead and recognized here and there a buddy and a sergeant that I knew. I recognized Sergeants Finkle and Finley. Sergeant Finley lay at his horse’s (Carlo) head. He had 12 arrows through him. They had been lying there for two days in the sun, bloody and the wounded mutilated. You could tell what men had been wounded because the little Indians and the squaws would always, after taking the clothes off the men, shoot them full of arrows or chop them in the faces with tomahawks. They never hurt a dead man, just these that were wounded.
In all this pile of men, not a one had a stitch of clothes on. The Indians had taken it all. They must have gotten about $25,000 in money off of them, too, for we had just been paid at Powder river camp before we left on the campaign and there had been nothing to spend a cent for.
I saw where the last ones fell, they were in a little heap. General Custer lay across a couple of men, the small of his back only, touching the ground. The dead were thick around him. He had been shot through the heart. My captain, Tom Custer, a brother of the general, was near this last bunch, as was his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Calhoun, who was in command of “H” [sic] troop.
In that battle there were fully 4,000 Indians besides the squaws, making a total of between 12,000 and 15,000 Indians in all.
And on the whole field where Custer and those four companies were wiped out not a living being was left to tell the tale. One horse survived—his name was Comanche—when he was found he had seven bullet wounds. He was Captain Keo's (Keogh’s) horse.
Well, there were a good many dead Indians. We found three tepees standing with 75 Indians in them, and there is no telling how many more were carried away when they moved camp. I thought that I would cut one of them out of the blankets and buffalo robes that he was wrapped in. When I did I found that he had a string of scalps as long as your arm and among those were four women’s, with hair as long as my arm, two of them having red hair. It was a sight. I dropped them—didn’t want them.
They buried the dead and then began to carry the wounded, including the horse Comanche, to the Far West steamboat which had come up the river as far as it could. It then backed down to the Yellowstone River.
Most of the wounded got well. Old Comanche did and there was an order from general headquarters that this (only) survivor, in fact, of Custer’s battle was to have a box stall the rest of his life. One man out of the 7th Cavalry Band was assigned to look after him and on dress parade old Comanche would be led at the head of the regiment, draped in black.
What became of the Indians? Why they went on. My regiment did not try to hunt them, we were all shot to pieces.
Okay... that is all I have. I am going to post it on both boards because I only think that is the right thing to do.
I hope this helps someone... anyone.
Best wishes,
Fred.
SGT DANIEL A. KANIPE
(C)
Last Updated: 28Jul10
1903—Published in the magazine of the Historical Society of Montana; written by Kanipe. Windolph, Charles; Hunt, Frazier and Robert, I Fought With Custer, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1947 (1987).
1. By the time the Custer command had reached the top of the bluffs, they were charging at full speed. [82]
2. At the sight of the village men began to cheer and some horses became so excited the men couldn’t hold them in ranks. [82]
3. Custer said, “Hold your horses in, boys, there are plenty of them down there for us all.” [82]
4. Kanipe said TWC gave him the order for the packs. He also told Kanipe that if he saw Benteen to tell him to hurry. [82]
5. When he first saw Benteen’s command, they were watering their horses. [82]
1908—Walter Camp interview conducted: 16 and 17Jun1908. Hammer, Kenneth, ed., Custer in ’76.
1. SGT Curtiss went back for hardtack box about 8 AM, 25Jun76. [91]
2. Claims Custer returned from his reconnoitering between 10 AM and 11 AM to where the regiment was waiting. [91 – 92]
3. Kanipe also says Custer divided the regiment at this time, prior to crossing the divide. [92]
4. As the regiment crossed the divide some men began throwing away small sacks of oats. [92, FN 2]
5. Kanipe wrote in a letter to Camp, dated 20Jul1908 at Marion, NC, that Custer turned a sharp right after seeing 50 to 100 Indians on the bluff. Claims Custer never left the command, but rode right in front the whole distance until Kanipe was ordered back. “[W]hen the command got up on the bluff where the Indians were supposed to have been seen we could see across the valley, see Reno, and his 3 companies, about 35 Indian scouts, going right to the Indian camps. We could see the Indian camp, plainly.” [92] [Kanipe also stated in the letter that Custer never went to the ford (A), which was about ½ mile from where Custer veered to the right.]
6. Did not believe Custer ordered the Rees at the “lone tepee” to dismount because they would not go ahead and fight the Sioux. [92, FN 4]
7. Said Custer and Reno rode together for a little while. [In a footnote, Camp writes that Herendeen claimed “Custer delivered orders to Reno direct when he told him to charge the village,” and that this agrees with what Kanipe said. {92, FN 5}]
8. Reno forded the LBH about noon. [92]
9. Kanipe says he spotted Indians on the bluffs “some distance beyond where Reno later fortified.” [92] In another footnote, Camp says Kanipe saw 60 to 75 Indians on the hill. Camp writes, “Naturally he would not wish to attack the camp without driving these Indians in.” [93, FN 6] [Once again, this interjects Camp’s opinion into the narrative.]
10. These Indians were about ¾ to 1 mile away. [97]
11. Camp thinks these Indians signaled or sent word to Gall that soldiers were also on the bluffs.
12. Godfrey apparently spoke of this “signaling,” as well. [97]
13. Camp hypothesizes that this signaling came before Reno began firing as the commands were abreast of one another, Custer’s in full view of both Reno’s men and the Indian village.
a. This led Camp to believe, “Custer’s approach came to Gall while Custer was still a considerable distance south of a point opposite from the Indian camp.” [97]
b. Kanipe was emphatic that Custer was as far west on the bluffs as to be able to see Reno’s men and the village all the while.
c. This would preclude theories of Custer moving north some distance inland and out of sight. This was Godfrey’s theory.
d. “Kanipe says that Custer was trotting and galloping along with companies in column of twos, all five companies abreast, the men cheering and eager for a fight and that after the highest point on the bluffs was reached, the men, through their eagerness, broke into something like disorder…” [97]
e. “If this was the case Gall certainly must have known of the presence of Custer’s command before he (Gall) was well engaged with Reno.” [97]
14. Kanipe’s orders were to McDougall, with an aside that if he were to chance upon Benteen he was to tell Benteen to hurry. As for the packs, if any got loose, McDougall was to cut them unless they were ammunition packs. [93] [There is no mention in Camp of any instructions to Kanipe to tell McDougall to cut cross-country and not follow Custer’s trail. This cross-country jaunt is mentioned in Stewart’s Custer’s Luck, p. 338, and cites both Kanipe and Kuhlman. Both McDougall and Mathey denied Kanipe ever reached them or gave them any instructions from Custer. The fact the packs continued straight on, following the trail, is probably evidence that McDougall and Mathey were correct and that Kanipe simply ran into Benteen, then cooled his heels rather than risk going back to the packs.]
15. Edgerly said Kanipe met Benteen east of the watering place; Kanipe said it was west. The packs were two miles east of Benteen. [93]
16. Kanipe also said he met Benteen a little west of the “burning tepee.” [93]
17. In a letter dated 9Oct1910 at Bristol, PA, Kanipe wrote to Camp that when he met Benteen, the captain had just left the watering place, but when he first saw Benteen (it had to be from a distance) his command was watering, and it was about 1 mile from where he met McDougall. [93] “I was not in sight of McDougall when I met Benteen; it was just after he crossed the Dry Creek and if you remember that there is a little valley up that Dry Creek. Benteen was closer to McDougall when he was at the water hole than he was when he met me I would say one-half mile further from him.” [93, FN 9]
18. On the way to McDougall, Kanipe claims to have passed a small party of Rees—half-dozen or more—with ponies, less than 200 yards away. “They passed to my right and went on ahead. When I turned to my right to go to Benteen they gained on me… Soon after this I saw Benteen coming and turned right and went over that way waving my hat. Benteen and his command then turned to his right and came over to meet me.” [93, FN 10] Camp writes that he had trouble reconciling the timing of this event with the retreat of the Rees and Kanipe’s running into them.
19. Camp writes in another footnote that Kanipe met Benteen about 1 mile west of the lone tepee. [93, FN 11]
20. Kanipe met the head of the pack train about at the “lone tepee.” [93]
21. Packs were strung out about 1 mile and Kanipe met McDougall about ½ mile east of the “lone tepee.” [93]
22. When Kanipe got back to the north branch of Reno (Benteen) Creek, “he saw Benteen over south at main Benteen Creek [Reno Creek] and he waved his hat and Benteen turned to the right (north) and came over that way and Kanipe turned to right and passed Benteen….” [93, FN 11]
23. Kanipe claims to have ridden back at the head of the pack train, bringing it to Reno. [94]
a. No mention here of meeting LT Hare on his way to get ammo from the packs.
b. Says the whole command began to move north at about 2:30 PM. [94]
c. Kanipe claimed the Indians charged Reno—off of Weir Peaks—at about 3 PM. [94] [This differs from Godfrey’s account and Camp noted it.]
24. Indian camp began moving around sundown of 26Jun76, but the firing continued until dark.
25. Kanipe said that Custer’s men went at a trot and a gallop all the way up the bluffs and when they saw Reno’s command charging, Custer’s men began yelling, urging their horses on at a breakneck speed, in a wild run. Many men actually got ahead of Custer and this was when he said, “Hold your horses, boys; there are Indians enough down there for all of us.” [94]
26. Camp says Cooke sent Goldin to Reno before Kanipe left for McDougall, though he makes no citation. [95]
27. “Asked Knipe if ridge where monument now is was so level and wide… Says no, say was narrower and Custer laid on very peak of it.” [95, FN 15]
28. Once beyond Custer hill and moving along the SSL, Kanipe said, “I next went along the line of dead bodies toward the river, and riding along the edge of the deep gully about 2,000 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… Having seen those bodies in the gulch I am at a loss to understand the absence of markers there.” [95 – 96, FN 15]
29. Kanipe said there were only 3 tepees remaining in the village and they were piled full of dead Indians, wrapped in buffalo skins.
30. Estimated at least 60 dead Indians found this way [Camp]. [96] “There were three tepees full of dead Indians in the village. I did not count them, but I estimate there was something like 65 or 70 dead Indians in these three tepees. They were already tied up in buffalo robes, ready for burial.” [96, FN 17, Kanipe’s own words in a letter to Camp, 20Jul1908]
My Impressions:
• Custer’s route along bluffs
• Ford A time
• Indians on the bluffs
• Kanipe’s “message”
• Kanipe meeting Benteen
• Kanipe meeting Rees
• Kanipe meeting packs
• Benteen near Ford A
• Kanipe leading packs to Reno Hill: no mention of meeting LT Hare; rather suspicious.
• Custer’s speed of advance
• Goldin’s message to Reno
• Custer Hill configuration
• Deep Ravine bodies
• Mitch Boyer’s location
• Number of dead hostiles
1908 – 1923—Walter Camp letters and interviews. Hardorff, Richard G., ed., On the Little Bighorn With Walter Camp, El Segundo, CA: Upton & Sons Publishers, 2002. A series of letters between Camp and Kanipe.
1. [July 20, 1908, Kanipe to Camp] Kanipe told Camp there was a single tepee at the lone tepee site and it contained one dead warrior. Custer ordered the tepee set on fire. [6]
2. Custer told his adjutant to have Reno cross the creek and come alongside of them. [7]
3. They rode together—at a slow gallop—for several hundred yards. [7]
4. Kanipe then says Custer saw 50 to 100 Indians on the bluffs to the right and turned to pursue them. They increased their speed. Custer never left his command, always riding right in front of the troops. [7] [Here’s the old 50 – 100 Indians business again, only now it is Custer who spotted them, not Kanipe. He still doesn’t tell us where they went.]
5. From atop the bluffs, they could see Reno and his troops as well as the Indian camp. [7]
6. Kanipe estimated the distance from the LBH River to where Custer turned right as about ½ mile. [7]
7. There were hardly any horses around where Custer lay. He was lying across 2 or 3 soldiers, his back barely touching the ground. Custer had been stripped of his clothes. There was no “fortification out of their horses.” [8]
8. Custer was shot in the left breast, near his heart, a single shot. [8]
9. Sergeants Finley and Finckle were badly mutilated; Bobo was not. [8]
10. Kanipe saw no decapitation. [8]
11. He claimed there were 3 tepees full of dead Indians, some 65 – 70, he thought. [8] [In a footnote, Hardorff claims this number is incorrect, that the real number was only 16, and that total Indian dead was something less than 40. I disagree.]
12. An I Company sergeant was lying in the village, his horse nearby. [8] [This is almost certainly incorrect.]
13. [August 4, 1908, Kanipe to Camp] In this letter, Kanipe identifies the I Company trooper found in the village as SGT Bustard. [11] [Bustard’s body was properly identified by LT Edgerly as being near Keogh’s. This was corroborated by SGT Flannagan {D}, and further corroborated by James Rooney {I} who said the body in the village was that of PVT William A. Brown {F}. {13, FN 2}]
14. Kanipe claimed the troops on Reno Hill saw Indians riding around with flags on poles, not knowing these were Custer’s guidons, his personal flag, and the regimental colors. [12] [He specifically mentioned the regimental colors.]
15. The officers in Custer’s five companies wore shirts without their shoulder straps. They wore the uniforms of regular soldiers. Kanipe said, “… [T]he officers who were killed, or most all of them, wore regular soldier’s uniform and I don’t think that any of the officers had shoulder straps on any of their blouses. As to the wool hats I will say that ‘C’ Troop and ‘E’ and ‘L’ all wore white hats. The other companies of the Regiment wore black hats.” [12]
16. [June 6, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp let Kanipe know that Varnum spoke highly of him. [81]
17. Camp wrote that Varnum said it was a mistake to say all the scouts ran away before the valley fight began. [82]
18. Camp tells of interviewing one of Varnum’s Dakota scouts—Ring Cloud (probably Whole Buffalo)—and that he told Camp “that less than half of the Rees started for the Powder River before Reno’s fight in the valley began….” [82]
19. These Rees were probably the ones Kanipe saw when he was on his way to the packs. [82]
20. The remainder of the Rees “went into the edge of the timber when Reno’s men began the fight on the skirmish line, and that the fight lasted no time at all.” [82]
21. Camp mentioned that he had discussed the Peter Thompson story with Varnum and Varnum could not understand the part about Thompson seeing Custer at the ford or Billy Jackson’s stirrup having been shot away by GAC. [84]
22. [June 22, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp tells Kanipe that some of the Sioux ponies were as much as five miles away and only a third of the warriors had their horses by the time Reno attacked. By the time Custer showed up, most of the ponies had been brought in. [87]
23. “The Indians all tell me that Custer and his men were over across from the village a considerable time threatening to attack, the soldiers occasionally shooting over into the village, but that the soldiers did not at any time attempt to ford the river and come over.” [87]
24. [November 13, 1909, Camp to Kanipe] Camp writes that he had spoken to George Herendeen and Herendeen said the body of PVT Nathan Short was reported to have been found by the Crow scouts, not by Crook’s troopers. [93]
25. The body was found pinned beneath his horse near the Rosebud and down by the Yellowstone. [93]
26. The man had a light-colored hat, with crossed sabers and the number 7 drawn in with pen. [93 – 94]
27. [November 22, 1909, Kanipe to Camp] Kanipe verified that Short marked his equipment that way and that it was unusual, because most troopers marked their equipment on the inside. [95]
28. [April 24, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp wrote that Mathey told him Hare met the pack train “on a little hill.” [108]
29. Because Mathey saw men on the hill and couldn’t tell whether they were Indians or white men, “he halted the head of the pack train and waited for the remainder to come up before going ahead. He [Mathey] says he halted right on a little hill that commanded the ground for quite a little distance around…. [W]hile the packs were halted at this little hill, Lieut. Hare rode up and said that the Indians were ‘whipping hell out of the soldiers.’” [108]
30. Camp compliments Kanipe on the accuracy of his stories, especially compare to those of the 8 officers and 32 enlisted men he had interviewed. [109] [Amazing, especially when compared to W. A. Graham’s comments, below.]
31. [September 28, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp describes his version of the Custer fight. [110] [Camp believed in what Richard Fox called the “fatalistic” theory of the battle, where Custer was driven back from Ford B, all 5 companies fought as a whole, things were all mixed up, and the Indian charge broke the command in two right about where Keogh died.]
32. Camp states that the distance between Ford A and the lone tepee was exactly 3 miles. [111] [This is incorrect.]
33. The morass where Benteen watered was 1 mile east of the lone tepee, 4 miles east of the LBH. [111] [Also wrong.]
34. [November 8, 1910, Camp to Kanipe] Camp wrote Kanipe that he had found former sergeant, Richard Hanley. Hanley told him that Brennan, Thompson, and Fitzgerald were not with the packs. He could not remember Watson. [112]
35. Camp told Kanipe the story of his having met former private, Jacob Adams, and Adams’ story that when “the pack train reached a point about a mile east of the river a horseman was seen approaching…. At first it could not be determined whether he was a white man or an Indian. Adams went ahead to see who he was and found him to be a white man about 40 or 45 years old, sandy hair, with goatee and mustache. He was a thick-set man….” [112]
36. Mathey remembered a half-breed—and maybe one or two others—joined the pack train when they were about a mile from the river. [112 – 113]
37. [January 22, 1911, Camp to Kanipe] Camp asked Kanipe if he knew what the shouting and shooting was all about as Custer’s men rode down Reno Creek. Kanipe didn’t know. [114]
38. [March 27, 1911, Camp to Kanipe] Camp tells Kanipe of meeting Alfred Dale, a hospital steward with Terry’s HQ, and Dale remembered hearing the report of a dead man and horse found just west of the Rosebud. This was in August 1876. Dale did not see the remains. [116]
39. Apparently there were two incidents of reported carcasses, the man and horse found west of the Rosebud, and a horse with carbine found to the east of the creek. [117]
40. [February 25, 1917, Camp to Kanipe] Nothing of significance.
41. [April 4, 1923, Camp to Kanipe] A year earlier, there was a ceremony in Washington, D. C., for the burial of the Unknown Soldier. Godfrey and several other LBH vets attended and Godfrey held a dinner afterwards. Peter Thompson told his story and Godfrey and the others refused to believe it and Thompson took offense and left. [166]
42. Camp alluded to Godfrey’s having seen Thompson coming “up the slope from the river bottom, leading his horse, but did not see Watson with him.” [166]
43. Camp wrote that he had met William Slaper (M) who told him “he remembers distinctly that on the evening of June 25, 1876, Watson came in with the rear guard, under McDougall, leading his horse, and explained that his horse had played out some distance back… and that he had waited until the rear guard came along and then walked with it, leading his played-out horse. Slaper says Watson never at that time, or any other time, told him of being with Thompson….” [166 – 167] [Kanipe never replied.]
Undated—Camp’s notes. Hardorff, Richard G., ed., On the Little Bighorn With Walter Camp.
1. Kanipe said Custer traveled with the companies five abreast, all the way from the divide. The order—left to right—was E, F, L, I, C. [176] [This can also be used to show that E and F were one battalion, C, I, and L another.]
2. “Was C Company in Yates’ or Keogh’s squadron? Knipe says it was in Keogh’s squadron.” [177]
3. Knipe had told Camp that when the command went to Weir Peaks, he rode with H Company “and saw Thompson’s horse standing near head of hollow down which Custer marched.” [177]
1924—Graham, W. A., COL, The Custer Myth. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA: 1953 (2000). From the Greensboro, NC, Daily Record, April 27, 1924. Graham made a note regarding the inaccuracies in Kanipe’s story: “The many inaccuracies in Sgt. Kanipe’s story are characteristic of the accounts of most of the enlisted survivors recounted during the ’20s.” [250]
1. It was Kanipe’s opinion that if Custer had taken the Gatling guns and the Rodman gun there would have been no massacre. [248] [Typical second – guessing.]
2. On the evening of June 22, Custer issued orders for no more bugle calls, fires only large enough to make coffee, and commands were to be given by signs. [248]
3. Apparently, SGT Finley (C) kept the scalp they found in the sundance camp belonging to one of Gibbon’s men. He had it in one of his saddlebags when he was killed. Kanipe said Finley was the oldest line sergeant in C Company. [248]
4. Kanipe said the Crows, sent out to scout on June 24, arrived back in the camp at 10 PM. “It was just good dark. You know that you can see to read at 9 o’clock in the summer time in that country.” [248] [This is a tacit admission that the command was probably still on HQ/St. Paul time, otherwise, why wouldn’t you be able to read at the same time in St. Paul? It seems to indicate their watches were still set ahead. Besides, in the northern climes, it gets darker earlier than in the south, even at the beginning of summer.]
5. They got orders to move and they “marched all night,” until Custer put them into a ravine to camp. They had been “riding at a hard trot and a gallop.” [248]
6. In a typical factual error, Kanipe says, “Quartermaster Sergeant Hearst lost some hard bread from the packs… General Custer ordered the sergeant to go back and get the bread.” [248] [First of all, the sergeant was Curtiss, he was not a QM SGT, and Custer didn’t know about the incident until it was all over.]
7. Kanipe says he “could tell that the plan was to strike the Indian camp at three places.” [248] [More guessing.]
8. “We went at a gallop.” [248] [This obviously refers to the move down Reno Creek.]
9. Kanipe now says they made their way “to a crossing and found a vacated Indian camp on the other side. The fires were not all out. There was a dead Indian in one of the tepees that was still standing. General Custer ordered the tepee fired.” [248 – 249] [It is not sure here whether Kanipe meant the LBH crossing—Ford A—or just some dry stream crossing. What is significant is that he remembers the tepee near “a crossing.”]
10. Kanipe then tells the story of spotting the Indians on the top of the bluffs, telling 1SG Bobo. [This is probably more Kanipe fantasy.] He does, however, say that when this occurred Custer’s command was “within a quarter of a mile of the junction of Benteen’s creek [Reno Creek] with the LBH….” [249] [Again, a significant observation. While I wouldn’t use it as the definitive source for Custer getting that close to Ford A, the statement can be used as confirmation.]
11. Custer’s command [for the second time in this account, Kanipe omits Company L when he talks about the battalion] headed up the range of bluffs. They rode hard. [249]
12. The men yelled and they “galloped along to the far end of the bluffs….” [249]
13. Kanipe said SGT Finckle—riding hard next to Kanipe and Tom Custer—told him his horse couldn’t make it, but Kanipe told him he could do it. Apparently, Finckle dropped back a bit. [249] [I wonder if this was a seed planted in Kanipe’s mind for his “packs” message.]
14. This is when Tom Custer supposedly told Kanipe to give the message to CPT McDougall. [249] [Much of Kanipe’s story sounds too fishy. He seems to be a little too close to the action, while 1SG Bobo and LT Harrington are never mentioned.]
15. Kanipe says this was his good fortune [obviously!] and that if Finckle hadn’t have dropped off, that Finckle would have been sent back instead. [249] [Very convenient! In trying to debunk some of Theodore Goldin’s claims, Graham wrote TMP Martini asking him about Goldin’s story of bringing a message from Custer/Cooke to Reno. Martini denied ever knowing the man and claiming that he was the only messenger that day. The letter Martini wrote to Graham—dated April 12, 1922—could also be used to impugn the story of Kanipe that he too was sent back with a message to the packs. {268}]
16. “I remember the last words that I heard General Custer say; the men were on the hill, we all gave them three cheers riding at a full gallop, some of them couldn’t hold their horses, galloping past General Custer. He shouted at them, ‘Boys, hold your horses, there are plenty of them down there for us all.’” [249] [This is an indication that Kanipe went a fairly long distance with Custer’s command, probably leaving shortly before they halted so Custer could overlook the fight below. This could be used for determining some of the Benteen timing.]
17. Kanipe now contends that he gave the orders to McDougall first, then rode on to Benteen, “as I had been told to take them to him, also.” [249] [Suddenly, a new Kanipe twist of the old story: McDougall first, then Benteen, instead of the other way around. Plus, now he tells us he was also told to give the orders to Benteen, something that never appeared in the first telling of this tale.]
18. The Indian camp moved late in the evening of the 26th. [250]
19. Terry and Gibbon arrived around 10 AM of the 27th. [250]
20. SGT Finley had 12 arrows in him and lay by his horse. [250]
21. All the men [Kanipe saw] were completely naked. [250]
22. GAC lay across a couple men; TWC was near him. Kanipe also said LT Calhoun was nearby, but this is completely false. [250]
23. Kanipe felt there were “fully 4,000 Indians besides the squaws… between 12,000 and 15,000 Indians in all.” [250]
24. Kanipe said there were three tepees standing in the abandoned village “with 75 (sic)” Indians in them. [250] [More Kanipe fantasy.]
From Graham, COL W. A., The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custerania, The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA, 1953, pp. 247 – 250.
THE STORY OF SERGEANT KANIPE, ONE OF CUSTER’S LAST MESSENGERS
On May 17 we were sent out on what was to prove to be the disastrous expedition. We started to the Yellowstone River. We marched 12 miles to the Big Heart river and made camp. We stayed there a while looking around. About June 10 we went on up to the Powder River. Six companies of the 12 were sent out on a scouting party. Leaving the wagon train at the Powder river and taking 10 days rations on pack mules, we went up the Powder river for two days, then turned across towards the Tongue river and it was on the Rosebud river that we found the Indian trail.
It was about sundown then, so we made a little coffee, then marched up the trail all night. In the morning we made coffee, and hit out up the trail again, marching up it until 12 o'clock. General Reno who was in command of this detachment, found that his 10 – day rations were running low, so we turned back down the Rosebud river and at the junction of it and the Yellowstone we met the other six companies of the regiment, under General Custer.
General Terry, department commander, was there. General Custer was under arrest. It was said, because of his attitude against the post traders who had been allowed the concessions at the different posts and which were done away with after the airing of scandals concerning post traderships during President Grant’s administration.
Why, those fellows had things so that you couldn't buy anything at the posts without getting it from them. Liquor was 25 cents a glass and the glasses was mostly glass—mighty little whisky. Custer set a maximum price and it caused his arrest. But all the high army officers were with him and he was given a command at the place I spoke of. On July 22 Custer’s outfit drew 15 days’ rations off the steamboat Far West that was in the river. There were two Rodman guns, two Gatling guns in a battery with Custer. He thought that he could get along without them, and he turned them over to General Gibbon, who carried them across the river.
There’s where he made a mistake, as we see it now, because if he had had one of those Rodman guns and had fired it one time those Indians wouldn’t have stopped running yet—no siree, would still be running. And if we’d had one of the Gatling guns there would have been a lot more survivors than me. In fact there would never have been any Custer massacre.
On June 22 we broke camp and started out, marching all day. That evening Custer issued orders that there would be no more bugle calls and only fire enough to make coffee and that commands would be given by signs. On the morning of June 23 we started out. We marched until nearly night, then camped and continued on next morning, June 24. That day we came to a place where the Indians had had a sun dance, and had staged a war dance, too. They had built brush sheds out of the cottonwood trees, and the ground was patted down smooth and hard, where they had been dancing about on it.
Six Crow Indian scouts that were with our regiment had come on ahead and they had found the scalp of a white man. That was from the head of a soldier with Gibbon’s command. Well, sir, when those Indians, they hated the Sioux, the ones we were hunting, anyway, found this scalp hanging on a willow twig they sure had a fit.
Just cut up in general and yelled and hollered and danced about. What did they want? Why, if they had had a Sioux there then it would have been a bad day for him, they were that mad. They brought the scalp back to General Custer, who passed it around to the men, after looking at it. Sergeant Finley, who was the oldest line sergeant in my company, had it in his saddle pockets when he was massacred. We marched all day June 24. Indian scouts that had been sent ahead returned that night about 10 o’clock. It was just good dark. You know that you can see to read at 9 o’clock in the summer time in that country.
We got orders that night to saddle and pack up. We marched all night, coming close to the junction of the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn River. So General Custer took the regiment into a ravine that looked as though we could keep concealed there as long as we wanted to. But, in coming in, as we were riding at a hard trot and a gallop, Quartermaster Sergeant Hearst lost some hard bread from the packs of some of the pack train. Learning this, General Custer ordered the sergeant to go back and get the bread.
But when the sergeant reached the point where the bread had dropped out, there were two Indians helping themselves to it. They ran at the approach of the soldiers. Coming back to camp this incident was reported to General Custer and he ordered us to saddle up.
I reasoned it out that he had planned to surprise the Indians the next morning, but as they already knew that we were there, he was going to do it now. We marched up the divide and halted. General Custer took the chief trumpeter and two scouts and was gone two hours.
When he came back he divided the regiment into three detachments. He gave Major Reno three troops, “A,” “M,” and “G”; Captain Benteen, three troops, “H,” “K” and “D,” and gave Captain McDougall charge of the pack train with Troop “B.” He then took for himself Troops “C,” “E,” “I,” and “F.” Leaving that place we went out this way. Major Reno was to the left and abreast with General Custer and Captain Benteen to the left of Major Reno. You could tell that the plan was to strike the Indian camp at three places. Captain McDougall was to bring the pack train on up the main Indian trail. We went at a gallop. Turning down what is now Benteen’s creek, we made our way to a crossing and found a vacated Indian camp on the other side. The fires were not all out. There was a dead Indian in one of the tepees that was still standing. General Custer ordered the tepee fired. Major Reno came in sight and he was signaled to cross Benteen creek and did so. General Custer, with three companies, pushed down the creek.
When we reached within a quarter of a mile of the junction of Benteen’s creek with the Little Big Horn I sighted Indians on the top of the range of bluffs over the Little Big Horn river. I said to First Sergeant Bobo, “There are the Indians.”
General Custer threw up his head about that time and we—Troops “C,” “E,” “I,” and “F”—headed for the range of bluffs where we had seen the Indians. Tom Custer, brother of the general, was captain of my troop, “C.” We rode hard, but when we reached the top the Indians were gone.
However, we could see the tepees for miles. The Crow Indian scouts with our outfit wanted to slip down and get a few ponies. Some of them did slip down, but they got shot for their pains. Chief Scout Mitch Buie (Mitch Boyer or Bouyer), Curley, a Crow, and “Bloody Knife” Reeve stayed up on the bluffs with us.
Well, sir, when the men of those four troops saw the Indian camp down in the valley they began to holler and yell, and we galloped along to the far end of the bluffs, where we could swoop down on the camp * * * * (four words illegible).
I was riding close to Sergeant Finkle. We were both close to CPT Tom Custer. Finkle hollered at me that he couldn’t make it, his horse was giving out. I answered back: “Come on Finkle, if you can.” He dropped back a bit.
Just then the captain told me to go back and find McDougall and the pack train and deliver to them orders that had just been issued by General Custer.
“Tell McDougall,” he said, “to bring the pack train straight across to high ground—if packs get loose don’t stop to fix them, cut them off. Come quick. Big Indian camp.”
I went back. I thought then that was tough luck, but it proved to be my salvation. If Sergeant Finkle had not dropped back a few minutes before he would have got the orders—and I would not be telling this story.
Away off in the distance, the dust rolling up like a little cloud, I saw the pack train. I went toward that. My company and the others went on down toward the Indian camp. I remember the last words that I heard General Custer say; the men were on the hill, we all gave them three cheers riding at a full gallop, some of them couldn't hold their horses, galloping past General Custer. He shouted at them, “Boys, hold your horses, there are plenty of them down there for us all.” They rode on. I rode back.
Reaching the pack train, I gave Captain McDougall the orders sent him, and went on toward Captain Benteen as I had been told to take them to him, also. McDougall and his outfit rode on to the top of the hill and reinforced Major Reno as he retired from the bottom of the bluffs.
The Indians were following close at their heels, shooting and yelling, and men were dropping here and there. They, the Indians, would hop on them and scalp them before we could rescue them. Dr. DeWolf was killed just as he reached the top of the hill. If he had gotten a few feet further he would have been saved.
As I went back after Captain Benteen I saw some Indians running along. I thought they were hostile Indians and got ready to give them a few rounds before they got me, but they were scouts that were making their get away from the big battle that was going on. They had come from Major Reno’s command and they were that scared that they did not stop until they reached the Powder River.
Delivering the orders to Captain Benteen, I rode back to the top of the ridge with the battalion and there we joined the others under Major Reno and McDougall. The Indians were between this outfit and General Custer, so I could not join my company.
Major Reno started to march out on the range of bluffs there and attack the Indians, but they came at us and we retired, and formed skirmish lines. But, before we could do that we lost several men and they were scalped before we could get to them. They shot at us all day then at night they powwowed until daylight on the 26th. Then they started out again shooting and charging. We killed a many a one, just how many I do not know.
We were cut off from water, and there were 68 wounded men in camp. A wounded man wants water bad, and it was pitiful to hear their groans as they called for it and we couldn’t get it. Some fellows tried to go for it but got shot and had no such luck as bringing any for the wounded.
I remember the first shot that was fired in that two-day battle. It went right under my horse’s belly and lodged in the bank. There were 14 men and two officers, Lieutenant Harrington and Lieutenant Sturgis, that never were found. It was said that the Indians cut off their heads and dragged them around as they pow-wowed during the night.
There were 56 men in our outfit killed on the hill by the Indians.
Well, they kept up the shooting all through the day of the 26th, until late in the evening we could see the camp begin to move. The warriors kept shooting at us and the squaws were getting the camp moved. On the morning of the 27th there was not an Indian in sight.
We got water and made coffee and relieved the suffering of the wounded as best we could. About 10 o’clock General Gibbon and his command arrived. General Terry, department commander, came with him. When General Terry came up lusty cheers (greeted him). He cried like a baby. Then he told us that he had seen 200 men in the valley below and we knew that General Custer and the four companies had been wiped out. We had thought that maybe he had been corralled as we were.
Late on the afternoon of the 27th, Captain Benteen went to the battlefield, and I was allowed to go with him, and look about wherever I wanted to.
I looked over the dead and recognized here and there a buddy and a sergeant that I knew. I recognized Sergeants Finkle and Finley. Sergeant Finley lay at his horse’s (Carlo) head. He had 12 arrows through him. They had been lying there for two days in the sun, bloody and the wounded mutilated. You could tell what men had been wounded because the little Indians and the squaws would always, after taking the clothes off the men, shoot them full of arrows or chop them in the faces with tomahawks. They never hurt a dead man, just these that were wounded.
In all this pile of men, not a one had a stitch of clothes on. The Indians had taken it all. They must have gotten about $25,000 in money off of them, too, for we had just been paid at Powder river camp before we left on the campaign and there had been nothing to spend a cent for.
I saw where the last ones fell, they were in a little heap. General Custer lay across a couple of men, the small of his back only, touching the ground. The dead were thick around him. He had been shot through the heart. My captain, Tom Custer, a brother of the general, was near this last bunch, as was his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Calhoun, who was in command of “H” [sic] troop.
In that battle there were fully 4,000 Indians besides the squaws, making a total of between 12,000 and 15,000 Indians in all.
And on the whole field where Custer and those four companies were wiped out not a living being was left to tell the tale. One horse survived—his name was Comanche—when he was found he had seven bullet wounds. He was Captain Keo's (Keogh’s) horse.
Well, there were a good many dead Indians. We found three tepees standing with 75 Indians in them, and there is no telling how many more were carried away when they moved camp. I thought that I would cut one of them out of the blankets and buffalo robes that he was wrapped in. When I did I found that he had a string of scalps as long as your arm and among those were four women’s, with hair as long as my arm, two of them having red hair. It was a sight. I dropped them—didn’t want them.
They buried the dead and then began to carry the wounded, including the horse Comanche, to the Far West steamboat which had come up the river as far as it could. It then backed down to the Yellowstone River.
Most of the wounded got well. Old Comanche did and there was an order from general headquarters that this (only) survivor, in fact, of Custer’s battle was to have a box stall the rest of his life. One man out of the 7th Cavalry Band was assigned to look after him and on dress parade old Comanche would be led at the head of the regiment, draped in black.
What became of the Indians? Why they went on. My regiment did not try to hunt them, we were all shot to pieces.
Okay... that is all I have. I am going to post it on both boards because I only think that is the right thing to do.
I hope this helps someone... anyone.
Best wishes,
Fred.