The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (56 page)

Custer’s ability to leap to a stand from a lying-down position is referred to in Frost,
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 47. Custer’s letter to Libbie describing Bloody Knife’s comments about his endurance is in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 267. Charles Francis Bates wrote about Custer’s napping habit in
Custer’s Indian Battles,
pp. 12, 34. According to Katherine Gibson Fougera, Custer “had a habit of throwing himself prone on the grass for a few minutes’ rest and resembled a human island, entirely surrounded by crowding, panting dogs,”
With Custer’s Cavalry,
p. 110. Chorne writes of the seventy-eight unmounted troopers having to march in their high-heeled cavalry boots, p. 40. According to Private William Slaper, Custer was “a hard leader to follow. He always had several good horses whereby he could change mounts every three hours if necessary, carrying nothing but man and saddle, while our poor horses carried man, saddle, blankets, carbine, revolver, haversack, canteen, ” in
Troopers with Custer
by E. A. Brininstool (subsequently referred to as Brininstool), p. 63. The reporter Mark Kellogg wrote of Custer’s “hell-whooping over the prairie” in the June 14
New York Herald
. Don Rickey in
Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay
wrote about Custer’s nickname of “Hard Ass,” p. 90.

Kellogg wrote in his diary on May 21, 1876, “General Custer visits scouts; much at home amongst them,” in “Notes, May 17 to June 9, 1876 of the Little Big Horn Expedition” (subsequently referred to as diary), p. 215. Red Star’s account of Custer’s interactions with the scouts is in
The Arikara Narrative of Custer’s Campaign and the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
edited by Orin Libby (subsequently referred to as Libby), p. 61. Custer’s remarks about becoming “the Great Father” appear in Libby, pp. 62, 82. Emanuel Custer’s Sept. 22, 1864, letter to his son is part of the Bacon-Custer Correspondence, Monroe County Museum Library. For an account of the political scene in 1876, see Roy Morris Jr.’s
Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876
. Utley has an excellent discussion of Custer’s presidential ambitions in
Cavalier in Buckskin:
“That Custer fantasized such an absurdity cannot be disproved, of course, but that presidential aspirations governed his tactical decisions demands more weighty evidence than supplied by the Arikara scout,” p. 164. Utley believes that Custer was actually referring to his hopes of being promoted to brigadier general.

The anecdote about Custer telling his father “you and me can whip all the Whigs in Ohio” is in Jay Monaghan’s
Custer,
p. 13; see also Emanuel Custer’s Feb. 3, 1887, letter to Libbie Custer in
Tenting on the Plains,
p. 182. For the organization of a cavalry regiment, see Jay Smith’s “A Hundred Years Later,” p. 125, and Robert Utley’s
Frontier Regulars,
in which he states that the company, not the regiment, “commanded loyalties and fostered solidarity,” p. 25. Benteen’s reference to when “war was red hot” is in a Feb. 12, 1896, letter to Goldin in John Carroll,
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 248. Perry Jamieson in
Crossing the Deadly Ground
describes the army’s mission in the West as a “long-running police action . . . broadly understood but never precisely defined,” p. 36. Don Rickey writes of the lack of target practice in the army at the time in
Forty Miles,
p. 101. In his diary, the surgeon James DeWolf describes when he and Dr. Porter went “pistol shooting” with Lieutenants Harrington and Hodgson: “Porter was best,” he wrote, “so you see, some of the cavalry cannot shoot well,” in Luce, “Diary and Letters,” p. 81. Peter Thompson’s daughter Susan recorded her father’s comment about being scared “spitless” of his Springfield carbine in her unpublished manuscript about her father’s account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. She also had some additional comments about the training standards of the Seventh Cavalry: “Thompson said . . . that he scarcely knew how to shoot a gun, he was scared ‘spitless’ of one. He had gotten to shoot his gun a little on the way from Ft. Lincoln when hunting was permitted, briefly, but that was about all the experience he had and he was simply not at ease with his gun loaded. Target practice had been neglected the winter of 1875–76. Of course, Thompson had been in the cavalry for nine months and he was considered to be a ‘trained veteran.’ He was; of horse grooming, stable cleaning, wood cutting, water hauling, policing barracks, saluting smartly and keeping a low profile around officers, listening to jokes and barracks rumors. Apparently, the recruits were supposed to get on-the-job training, if they lived long enough,” pp. 252–53. My reference to the kick of a Springfield carbine and its reloading difficulties comes from personal experience; my thanks to Dr. Timothy Lepore for letting me fire his replicas of a Springfield and a Colt revolver.

Charles Windolph mentioned the ironies of a German immigrant joining the army in
I Fought with Custer,
p. 4. The demographics of the Seventh are in Thomas O’Neil’s
Custer Chronicles,
“Profiles of the 7th by S. Caniglia,” p. 36. The statistics concerning the size of the army and the territory it was responsible for are in Jay Smith’s “A Hundred Years Later” in
Custer and His Times,
edited by Paul Andrew Hutton, p. 125. According to Windolph, the “Old Timers” told the new recruits “we must save our last cartridge to blow out our own brains,” p. 6. John Keegan in
Fields of Battle
writes of the various levels of experience among the soldiers of the Seventh and adds, “[T]here were too many unfamiliar faces for it to be reckoned by European officers an effective fighting force,” p. 285. Don Rickey in
Forty Miles
writes of the high rate of suicide in the U.S. Army, p. 165, and claims that alcoholism was three times that of the British army, p. 159. James O’Kelly’s account of the hapless charge of Captain Weir’s company is in the Aug. 24, 1876,
New York Herald
. Charles King’s words of praise regarding the “snap and style” of the Seventh are in
Campaigning with Crook,
p. 72. Windolph described being “part of a proud outfit that had a fighting reputation” in
I Fought with Custer,
p. 53.

Terry’s censure of Custer for having left the column “without any authority whatever” is from his May 31, 1876, diary entry, p. 19. Custer described his, Tom’s, and Boston’s antics in a May 31, 1876, letter to Libbie in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 270. Custer’s May 31 letter to Terry is in the Letters Received 1876 Record Group 98, NA. DeWolf wrote to his wife on June 1, 1876: “The men in their dog tents have it worst. They have been standing around the fire most of the day,” in Luce, “Diary and Letters,” p. 78. Terry wrote of his fears the Indians had scattered on May 30, 1876, in
Terry Letters,
p. 9. Terry described his quarters during the snowstorm on June 2, 1876, in
Terry Letters,
p. 13. Mark Kellogg wrote of the meeting between Terry and messengers from Gibbon in the June 12, 1876,
New York Herald
. In his diary, edited by Edgar Stewart, Godfrey wrote in a June 4, 1876, entry, “Genl Terry had Sun stroke today,” p. 5. Terry described his tactical thinking in great detail on June 12, 1876, in
Terry Letters,
p. 15. Edward Maguire described the alkaline bottomlands encountered by the column during its march toward the Powder River, in John Carroll’s
General Custer . . . The Federal View,
p. 41. The phrase “the sky fitting close down all around” is quoted by Libbie Custer in
Following the Guidon,
p. 196. DeWolf described his terrible sunburn in his diary, in Luce, “Diary and Letters,” pp. 79–80. As Chorne observes, “[I]f [a soldier] had a mustache, his upper lip . . . was protected,” p. 122.

Terry told of his conversation with Custer about getting the column to the Powder River on June 6, 1876, in
Terry Letters,
pp. 16–17. Boston Custer described the march to the Powder River in a June 8, 1876, letter to his mother in Merington, p. 300. Lieutenant Winfield Edgerly also described the march in an Oct. 10, 1877, letter to Libbie Custer in Merington, pp. 301–2. Peter Thompson’s description of Custer’s erratic riding habits is in
Peter Thompson’s Account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn: The Waddington Typescript,
edited by Michael L. Wyman and Rocky L. Boyd (subsequently referred to as
Account
), p. 6. The description of a cavalry charge is from Frederick Whittaker’s
Life of Custer,
p. 158. In the July 29, 1876,
Army and Navy Journal,
General A. B. Nettleton wrote of Custer’s “instantaneous quickness of eye—that is lightning-like formation and execution of successive correct judgments in a rapidly-shifting situation.” Wert provides a good account of Custer’s activities prior to attending West Point, pp. 22–25. Custer wrote of his wish “to see a battle every day during my life” in an Oct. 9, 1862, letter cited in Thom Hatch’s
Custer Companion,
p. 20. Thom Hatch provides an excellent account of Custer’s role in the Battle of Gettysburg in
Clashes of Cavalry,
p. 118, to which I am indebted; for a recent, more detailed account of Custer’s pivotal role at that battle, see Thom Carhart’s
Lost Triumph,
pp. 213–40. Sheridan’s note to Libbie is quoted by Frost in
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 130. Custer’s tongue-lashing of Corporal French is described in
Account,
p. 7. Red Star told of Custer’s abuse of Isaiah Dorman in Libby, p. 195, and of Custer’s firing at Bloody Knife during the Black Hills Expedition, p. 194. Custer’s claim that they were “the first white men to see the Powder River at this point of its course” is related by Edgerly in Merington, p. 302, as is Terry’s claim that “nobody but General Custer could have brought us through such a country,” in Merington, p. 302. Boston Custer wrote of Terry and his staff’s “exalted opinion of themselves” in a June 8, 1876, letter to his mother in Merington, p. 301.

In a June 8, 1876, letter, Terry wrote, “The steamer was waiting for us & a welcome sight she was,”
Terry Letters,
p. 17. Mark Kellogg wrote of how “the sharp quick march of the cavalry kept pace with the steamer which was running up the Yellowstone,” in the July 11, 1876,
New York Herald
. Hanson writes of Terry’s trip up and down the Yellowstone with Marsh and the
Far West
on June 9, 1876, pp. 241–44. Lieutenant James Bradley’s journal provides an excellent account of the Montana Column’s movements prior to joining up with Terry in “Journal of the Sioux Campaign of 1876 Under the Command of General John Gibbon,” pp. 204–12.

Hanson describes Marsh and Terry’s encounter with a herd of buffalo crossing the Missouri River in 1867, pp. 96–98. Yet another example of Marsh’s coolness in a crisis came in 1894, when his steamboat the
Little Eagle
was hit by a tornado. Only after he was sure that his crew had made it to the relative safety of the barge at the riverboat’s bow did Marsh, still at the wheel in the pilothouse, begin to look out for himself. But by then the
Little Eagle
was in the tornado’s grip. The vessel lurched suddenly to the side, and Marsh watched helplessly as the boilers broke loose from the tipping deck and exploded on contact with the cold river water. Before the now heavily damaged boat completely capsized, Marsh, then sixty years old, managed to climb out of the pilothouse through an open window. As the riverboat turned completely upside down, Marsh scrambled over the side and onto the bottom of the turtled hull while his crew watched in amazement from the barge, in Hanson, pp. 422–25. Terry wrote of what he hoped to accomplish with Reno’s Scout on June 8, 1876, in,
Terry Letters,
p. 19.

Chapter 4:
The Dance

For information on Sitting Bull’s sun dance and sun dances in general, I have consulted Peter Powell’s “Sacrifice Transformed into Victory: Standing Bear Portrays Sitting Bull’s Sun Dance and the Final Summer of Lakota Freedom” in
Visions of the People,
edited by Evan Maurer, pp. 81–108; Standing Bear’s account in
The Sixth Grandfather,
edited by Raymond DeMallie, pp. 173–74; Black Elk’s in
The Sacred Pipe,
edited by Joseph Epes Brown, pp. 67–100; Ella Deloria’s excellent description of the ceremony in
Waterlily,
pp. 113–39; and numerous references in WCC.

One Bull describes how Sitting Bull “pierced the heart” on the Little Missouri in One Bull Interview, box 105, notebook 19, WCC. White Bull spoke about the pain of being pierced to Walter Campbell: “[T]here was a strong pain for the first jerks then the nerves seem to be killed and no pain thereafter. Even jerking out. Some bleeding but put stuff on that stopped it,” box 105, notebook 8, WCC.

For two quirky, sometimes winningly irascible accounts of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, see the two books by George Hyde:
Red Cloud’s Folk: A History of the Oglala Sioux Indians
and
Spotted Tail’s Folk: A History of the Brulé Sioux
. On Sitting Bull’s selection as the leader who has “authority over all decisions of war and peace,” see Utley,
Lance and Shield,
pp. 85–87. According to Robert Higheagle, Sitting Bull sang the following song after being “coronated by Running Antelope and Gall”: “Ye Tribes behold me / The chiefs [of old] are no more [are gone] / Myself [as substitute or successor] shall take courage [pledge],” in “25 Songs by Sitting Bull,” box 104, folder 18, WCC. One Bull’s description of the ceremony with which Sitting Bull became war chief is in box 104, folder 11, WCC. My account of Sitting Bull’s role as leader owes much to Jeffrey Ostler’s
The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism,
especially pp. 52–53.

Sitting Bull’s famous words about being “fools to make yourself slaves to a piece of fat bacon” are in Charles Larpenteur’s
Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri, 1833–1872,
p. 360. White Bull told of Four Horns’ advice about being “a little against fighting,” as well as Crazy Horse’s statements about attacking the soldiers only if they attack first, in ww box 105, notebook 8, WCC. White Bull also spoke of the cautionary words of Sitting Bull’s mother, ww box 105, notebook 24, WCC. Utley writes of the state of relative peace after 1870 in
Lance and Shield,
p. 90. Kingsley Bray in
Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life
writes of the
iwashtela
movement among the Lakota, p. 132; according to Bray, “in October 1870, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse agreed to a policy that for the present complemented
iwestela
. . . a gradual transition to reservation life. Sitting Bull even declared an end to his own band’s four-year war against the military posts on the upper Missouri,” p. 154. John Gray in
Centennial Campaign
estimates that the total population of the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes that had participants in the Battle of the Little Bighorn was 21,870, and that only 8,000, or 37 percent of that population, were not at the agencies during the battle and could have possibly taken part in it, pp. 318–20. My account of Sitting Bull and Crow King’s encounter with a group of agency Indians on the Yellowstone River in 1870 is from Stanley Vestal’s
New Sources of Indian History,
pp. 329–32. Sitting Bull’s statement that Red Cloud “saw too much” comes from William Quintin’s report of a conference with the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre at Fort Shaw in which it was said that Sitting Bull had broken with Red Cloud; cited by James Olson in
Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem,
p. 131. Vestal writes of Sitting Bull’s difficulty sleeping with his two jealous wives in
Sitting Bull,
pp. 39–40.