Custer at the Alamo (2 page)

Once I was called Tatanka Iyotake, a leader of the Strong Hearts, medicine chief of the Sioux Nation. A man powerful in
the ways of Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit. We had fought the wasichu for many years, forced them from our sacred Black Hills, and some had signed a treaty to live in peace. But the white men came back. Always they come back.

We were gathering for one last hunt when the white general Crook attacked. We drove him away and traveled up the Rosebud River to celebrate. There I performed the Sun Dance, cutting a hundred strips of flesh from my body. In return, I received a vision of that which would come. The people rejoiced. Though another army of white soldiers were approaching, they would fall into our camp and perish. I did not tell my people of the vision’s end, of our eventual defeat, or of the reservations. I did not tell them of the starvation and humiliation yet to come. Destroying this second group of bluecoats would mean the end of the Sioux nation for all time.

What could be done? What offering might Wakan Tanka accept to forge a different path? I began to pray as we crossed over the Wolf Mountains into the valley of the Greasy Grass, each day growing more pensive. Our numbers increased as young men left the reservations to join us, the warriors soon numbering in the thousands. Never had the People gathered in such strength.

On a quiet afternoon, the trouble began. Gunshots at the southern end of the encampment. The final battle had begun, a battle we would win but destroy our way of life. I did not reach for a weapon, nor even leave my teepee. I searched the mystic lands for wisdom from the Great Spirit. Deep into my heart, I looked for hope. A path not taken. Then a strange mist arose, lifting me, guiding me, but not in a direction I understood. Was this to be Wakan Tanka’s answer?

A Journey through Gray Clouds

My name is George Armstrong Custer, once a major general in the United State Army during my country’s Civil War. Because I’ve been known to embellish upon my accomplishments, there are some who may doubt the veracity of this account. I cannot explain the recent events that have led to this chronicle. I don’t think there is an explanation. All I can do is relate the story to the best of my ability, and let history be the judge.

June 25, 1876 - Montana Territory

“They’re down there, General,” Lt. Varnum said as we studied the misty valley from a vantage point called the Crow’s Nest.

The Little Big Horn was still a good fifteen miles away, a morning haze rising from the distant river. Even though I had borrowed Lt. DeRudio’s Austrian binoculars, I could detect no evidence of a village.

“I don’t see them. Not a one,” I said. Not that I doubted Varnum’s judgment, but I needed to know what we were up against.

I had pushed the command hard for three days, riding up the Rosebud River from the Yellowstone before crossing the divide over the Wolf Mountains. The Sioux and Cheyenne were nearby, gathered in strength but ready to flee the moment they realized the Seventh Cavalry was following their trail. I could not allow that. This needed to be a short war, brutal if necessary. A scattering of the hostiles would lead to the massacre of white settlers throughout the Powder River country and, inevitably, to the decimation of the Indians themselves.

Since my final conference with General Terry on the Yellowstone, we had traveled south through empty badlands. Six hundred cavalry and an unruly pack train driven by hired teamsters. Fifty Crow and Arikara Indians scouted our path. Needing to travel fast over rough ground, we had taken no wagons. I even rejected the two Gatling guns I’d been offered, afraid they would slow our march.

The late June weather was brutally hot, the Montana landscape already turned dry. Sagebrush and weedy gullies often hindered our passage. The only trees tall enough for shelter grew near the twisting creek that we were forced to cross several times.

The Wolf Mountains are low series of hills, the creek water so alkaline that we struggled to find a clean spring. The mules kept losing their packs, causing a good deal of cursing, but we had no trouble following the trail left behind by the Sioux. The wide path crossed from the Rosebud into the Valley of the Little Big Horn, the terrain torn up by heavy lodge poles and thousands of ponies. I guessed that several tribes lay ahead of us, mostly Lakota and perhaps a few Cheyenne.

We paused for several hours at the crest of the mountains. I would rest the command for a day, scout the enemy location, and attack at dawn on the 26th. That should give General Terry and Colonel Gibbon time to come upriver from the north and block any attempt at escape.

Varnum and I were still at the Crow’s Nest, searching for signs of the elusive village, when I received word of a most disturbing nature.

“General, compliments of Captain Custer,” Corporal Voss reported, a reliable young man acting as the regiment’s chief trumpeter. “The captain says we’ve been spotted.”

“How is that?” I asked, startled by the bad news.

“Lost some packs on the back trail. We was retrieving ‘em when a bunch of hostiles saw us from a hill,” Voss said.

I instantly realized there was no longer time to scout the village or wait for General Terry. If I was going to catch the Indians before they fled into the mountains, we would need to advance at once.

“So much for a surprise attack,” Lt. Varnum lamented.

“We haven’t lost the initiative yet,” I replied. “Voss, my compliments to Captain Custer. Tell him to bring the entire command forward on the double.”

By noon the Seventh Cavalry was in motion with barely a few hours rest. We crossed the divide and started down the long slope toward the Little Big Horn, reaching a lone teepee a few miles above the valley. A dead warrior lay inside, dressed in his finest regalia.

Though I had not been able to see the hostile village from the Crow’s Nest, my scouts assured me they were waiting for us down in the grasslands, hidden by a series of steep bluffs. I sent Captain Benteen to the left with companies H, D and K to prevent the Indians from escaping into the foothills. Benteen and I had not been on good terms for many years. Though a good soldier, he was also a back-stabbing complainer, always seeking to cause trouble. But I wanted Captain Keogh with me, so Benteen, as the senior captain, won the assignment.

As Benteen split off with a hundred and twenty troopers, I preceded along a shallow creek until a group of mounted Sioux suddenly appeared on the trail ahead. They were not dressed in war paint or carrying their traditional weapons. It could be a hunting party, but they would soon sound the alarm.

I could not afford to delay, ordering Major Reno to cross the river and charge the village with three companies. This would panic the Indians and allow me, with five companies, to attack in flank and complete the rout. By nightfall the campaign would be over. I was already looking forward to seeing my beloved Libbie again. Maybe we would spend the holidays with the family in Monroe, or go to New York City for the winter.

“Autie!” my younger brother yelled.

Tom knew he wasn’t supposed to address me informally in the field. My official rank was lieutenant colonel. Twelve years before, during the Civil War, I had achieved the rank of major general at the rambunctious age of twenty-five. But it was a brevet rank, subject to reduction when the war ended.

Tom had never been much for formality, however. Six years my junior, ruggedly handsome and largely self-educated, he had joined the Union Army as a private, only sixteen years old. By 1864 he held the volunteer rank of 2nd lieutenant, and by the end of the war, he had earned the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel. Now he was my aide-de-camp, newly promoted to captain only a year before.

There were times I envied my little brother. Tom seemed to have all the qualities I lacked, like cool judgment and a popular style of leadership. He also had one of my best qualities, having won the Medal of Honor during the Civil War. Twice. While winning the second award, he had been shot in the face at point blank range, leaving a long scar on his jaw. And even then, he refused to leave the battlefield. Tom bowed to no man when it came to courage.

“Autie, over here!” Tom shouted, waving from the back of his horse. “We can see the valley from this peak!”

I gave my brown sorrel a good kick in the flanks and followed Tom up a steep slope to a high point along the trail. I was followed by my adjutant, Lieutenant William Cooke, called Queen’s Own because of his Canadian birth. Cooke was thirty years old, and, like Tom, a veteran of the Civil War. The day had turned unmercifully hot, the dust terrible, and the long marches necessary to bring us to the battlefield had the entire command exhausted. But we were still the Seventh Cavalry, the finest unit in the United States Army, so I figured we had plenty of fight left in us. I quickly realized we were going to need it.

“Goddamn, George, there must be ten thousand Indians down there,” Lieutenant Cooke said, scratching his long bushy sideburns.

We had reached a rocky outcrop east of the Little Big Horn River atop a string of hundred foot bluffs. Cooke knew I didn’t care for his swearing, but I overlooked the indiscretion.

“Not quite that many, Bill,” I replied, though it wasn’t a bad guess.

I turned to look back at our line of march. Coming down from the divide, the village had been hidden from view. Now the size of the enemy encampment was all too clear. The Indian agents, those grasping, corrupt bastards appointed by Ulysses S. Grant, had told us that only eight hundred Indians had left the reservations, but here were six times that number. The village stretched along this twisting tributary of the Big Horn River for at least a mile. Probably a thousand lodges. It was without doubt the largest gathering of Indians ever seen on the western plains. And I had blindly stumbled right into it.

I recalled my conversation with General Terry, a final conference on the paddle-wheeler
Far West
up on the Yellowstone. The Indians had been ordered to report to the reservations, and failing that, would be rounded up and sent back by force. Sitting Bull and the other non-treaty tribes had chosen to resist, making it the army’s job to enforce the government’s policy. General Crook was approaching from the south. Colonel Gibbon had come from Fort Ellis to the west, the Seventh Cavalry from Fort Lincoln to the east. We had endured five weeks of hard riding, trying to find Indians that didn’t want to be found.

Well, now we had found them. No telling what had happened to General Crook. Colonel Gibbon was two days away, beyond supporting distance. If the hostiles were going to be defeated, the Seventh would need to do it alone.

“Reno’s charging the upper end of the village, if you can call that lazy-ass attack a charge,” Tom said. “Where the hell is Benteen?”

Down to our left, Major Reno was making a half-hearted assault on the village with his three companies. Reno had a brave Civil War record but didn’t know squat about fighting Indians, and I suspect he had an unspoken fear of the savage red man. One generally shared by those who had seen the mutilated bodies of their victims.

Reno’s approach had taken the Indians off-guard, but now they were stirred up madder than a hornet’s nest, riding out against him in force on their war ponies. If Reno stopped his charge, if he gave up the initiative, not one of his hundred and twenty men would leave the valley alive.

I waved back to the ravine where my five companies were waiting. Two hundred and ten tired but brave soldiers anxious to get into the fight. The men cheered. After two months in the saddle, they wanted to go home as much as I did.

Mitch Bouyer rode up. A grizzly half-breed scout, part French Canadian and part Santee Sioux, there was nothing about Indians that Mitch didn’t know. With Bouyer came Sergeant Jimmy Butler of L Troop, the best marksmen in the regiment, and Mark Kellogg, a reporter for the
Bismarck Tribune
. Corporal Voss rode nearby with his trumpet, as did Sergeant Bobby Hughes, bearing my personal red and blue silk guidon.

“Told ya thar were too many Injuns, Gen’ral,” Bouyer said, leaning forward on his saddle horn while chewing on a chaw of tobacco. Another habit I didn’t approve of.

“We still have a chance,” I said. “We’ll charge the northern end of the village and ride through them. Where can we cross the river?”