The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (69 page)

On the demise of C Company and the warriors’ attack on Calhoun Hill, see Fox,
Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle,
pp. 143–61. I have also found Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard’s
Where Custer Fell
extremely helpful in describing these episodes; they claim that Keogh’s Right Wing “probably enjoyed half an hour to forty-five minutes of relative tactical stability, and the deployment of Company C must have been a controlled and seemingly logicalI reaction to the situation as [Keogh] saw it. Most likely the move was intended to check the growing number of Indians gathering on Greasy Grass Ridge,” p. 91. Sitting Bull told of how the dismounted soldiers “swayed to and fro . . . like the limbs of cypresses in a great wind,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 71. Yellow Nose described how the Indians “seemed really to be springing from the ground” in “Yellow Nose Tells of Custer’s Last Stand,” p. 40. On Lame White Man’s role in the battle, see the accounts of John Stands in Timber in
Cheyenne Memories,
pp. 197, 205; Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
pp. 170–71; and Wooden Leg in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 231, who quotes Lame White Man as calling out, “Come. We can kill all of them.” John Two Moons told of how the warriors finally followed Yellow Nose on his fourth attempt to lead them in a charge, in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 66. White Shield told how Yellow Nose used the captured guidon to count coup, in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 53, which also contains a footnote with extensive biographical information about Yellow Nose. See also Yellow Nose’s own account in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
pp. 99–105. White Shield, Little Hawk, Young Two Moons, Long Forehead, and John Stands in Timber all commented on Yellow Nose and the guidon, in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories.
Gregory Michno in
Lakota Noon
claims that Yellow Nose took the guidon much earlier in the battle, during his encounter with Yates’s Left Wing as it first made its way toward the river in the vicinity of Medicine Tail Coulee, pp. 127–28, 139. Hardorff, on the other hand, places the event later in the fight, during the warriors’ assault on Calhoun Hill, in
Indian Views,
p. 102. Since Yellow Nose’s description of how a group of troopers suddenly found itself surrounded corresponds so closely to Wooden Leg’s and Kate Bighead’s descriptions of what happened to C Company in the vicinity of Greasy Grass Ridge, I have placed the guidon taking during the initial attack on C Company prior to the charge on Calhoun Hill, as do Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard in
Where Custer Fell,
p. 92. Runs the Enemy’s description of how “a great roll of smoke seemed to go down the ravine” is in Joseph Dixon’s
The Vanishing Race,
p. 176; Fox also cites this account in his description of C Company’s collapse,
Archaeology,
p. 154. Red Horse’s description of “the bravest man they had ever seen” is in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
pp. 57, 60. Two Moons mentioned a heroic trooper in buckskin with “long black hair and a mustache,” in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 102. Walt Cross in
Custer’s Lost Officer
argues that this “bravest man” was Harrington, pp. 140–55.

On the archaeology conducted at the battlefield, see Douglas Scott and Richard Fox’s
Archaeological Insights into the Custer Battle;
Scott, Fox, Melissa A. Connor, and Dick Harmon’s
Archeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn;
Scott, P. Willey, and Melissa A. Connor’s
They Died with Custer;
and Fox’s
Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle
, pp. 63–131. Two Moons described the firing as “pop—pop—pop” in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 102. Curley compared the sound of gunfire to “the snapping of threads in the tearing of a blanket” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 11. Red Hawk’s account of the skirmish line at Calhoun Hill is in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections
, p. 43. Moylan testified about the shells he found on Calhoun Hill in W. A. Graham,
RCI,
p. 76. Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard provide an excellent account of the attack on Calhoun Hill in
Where Custer Fell,
pp. 95–97. On the devastating effect of “high trajectory arrow fire,” see Jay Smith’s “A Hundred Years Later,” p. 141. Moving Robe Woman told of seeing a horse holder with as many as ten horses in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections,
p. 95. Gall’s account of attacking the horse holders is in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
pp. 89–92. Gall told F. E. Server about his discovery of the horses in Horse Holders’ Ravine; Server told Eli Ricker, “The horses were huddled together in this safety-spot, the only one on the now circumscribed field. They must have been packed in like livestock on shipboard,” in Ricker’s
Voices of the American West,
vol. 2, p. 144. Low Dog told how the plunging horses made it difficult for the soldiers to shoot effectively, in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 65. He Dog told of how Crazy Horse “broke through . . . a sort of gap in the ridge,” in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections,
p. 75. See also Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard’s account of the incident in
Where Custer Fell,
p. 104. Waterman’s claim that Crazy Horse was “the bravest man I ever saw,” is in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 110. Stands in Timber detailed the activities of the Suicide Boys in
Cheyenne Memories,
pp. 292–93. Moving Robe Woman told of the darkness of the smoke and the flash of guns, in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections,
p. 95. Crow King told of the war cry “Hi-Yi-Yi” (“a high, prolonged tone,” according to the interpreter) in Hardorff,
Indian Views
, p. 69. Red Hawk recounted how the soldiers were “swept off their feet. . . . [T]he Indians were overwhelming,” in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections
, p. 44. Gall claimed that “Calhoun’s men died fighting as skirmishers,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 91. Varnum remembered that Calhoun was identified by the fillings in his teeth, in Hardorff’s
The Custer Battle Casualties, II
, p. 15. Hugh Scott learned that an “Indian had shot an arrow in Crittenden’s eye and had broken it,” in Hardorff’s
The Custer Battle Casualties,
p. 104. Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard write that the positions of the bodies on Calhoun Hill indicate that the “two platoons had been fighting back to back,” in
Where Custer Fell,
p. 95. Gall recalled that Keogh’s men “were all killed in a bunch,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 91. On Keogh’s Agnus Dei, see “Captain Keogh’s Medals,” in
Myles Keogh,
edited by John Langellier, Kurt Cox, and Brian Pohanka, p. 162. Godfrey wrote that “in life [Keogh] wore a Catholic medal suspended from his neck; it was not removed,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 345.

Two Moons described how “[T]he whole valley was filled with smoke and the bullets flew about us, making a noise like bees,” in Joseph Dixon’s
The Vanishing Race
, p. 183. That White Shield wore a stuffed kingfisher on his head during the battle is in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 50, and that Standing Bear wore a skinned redbird and “vowed that I would make an offering if this bird should help me” is in DeMallie’s
The Sixth Grandfather,
p. 188. Iron Hawk told of how after being fired on by the soldiers, a Cheyenne warrior with a “hairy belt around his waist” shook out the slugs the belt had magically collected, in DeMallie, p. 189. Gall spoke of the Great Spirit on “a coal black pony,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 91. Red Horse told of how the soldiers threw down their guns and raised their hands, in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 75. Iron Hawk remembered seeing the soldiers firing “wildly in every way,” in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections,
p. 66. Shoots Walking, who was just sixteen during the battle, told of shooting two soldiers who stood dumbly by with carbines in their hands, in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 169. The Brulé warrior Standing Bear, not to be confused with the Minneconjou of the same name who wore a redbird on his head, recounted the pangs he felt killing soldiers who “lay on the ground, with their blue eyes open, waiting to be killed,” in Luther Standing Bear’s
My People the Sioux,
p. 83. Horned Horse told of how the warriors “were knocking each other from their steeds,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 63. Yellow Nose’s account of seeing two mounted warriors running into each other and rolling to the ground is in Stands in Timber’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 202. Wooden Leg recounted how the sight of the warrior with a missing jaw sickened him, in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
p. 234. White Bull’s account of his hand-to-hand battle with a trooper is in Hardorff’s
Lakota Recollections,
pp. 107–26. See also Vestal’s
Warpath
, in which White Bull proclaimed, “It was a glorious battle, I enjoyed it,” p. 199. Foolish Elk described the soldiers fleeing toward Last Stand Hill, in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 199. Fox estimates that only twenty survivors of the Right Wing reached Last Stand Hill, in
Archaeology, History and Custer’s Last Battle,
p. 195. Two Moons described how the warriors circled around the soldiers, “swirling like water round a stone,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 102. Hardorff describes the topography of Last Stand Hill: “In 1876, the crest near the present monument was much higher and considerably narrower, and only a small level place with a thirty feet diameter existed then,” in
The Custer Battle Casualties,
p. 35.

One Bull told of where he and Sitting Bull watched the battle with the noncombatants, in box 105, notebook 19, WCC; he also described how Sitting Bull was dressed during the battle: “buckskin clothes, no war bonnet, shirt was green quill work on buckskin, not painted and human hair hung from sleeves, wore one feather on head, no war paint,” in box 104, folder 6, WCC. According to Utley in
The Lance and the Shield,
Sitting Bull’s “willful and deliberate ways [as a boy] earned him the nickname Hunkesni, or ‘Slow,’ ” p. 6. Two Moons claimed that as Custer and the Left Wing and the survivors of the Right Wing gathered around Last Stand Hill “not a shot was fired,” in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 111; he also told of seeing the soldier in buckskin stagger from the northern ridge toward Last Stand Hill, p. 113. Fox believed that the remnants of both F and E companies redeployed at Last Stand Hill “to intercept right-wing survivors,” in
Archaeology, History and Custer’s Last Battle,
p. 192. Kate Bighead told of how there were “hundreds of warriors for every white soldier left alive” on Last Stand Hill, in Hutton’s
The Custer Reader,
p. 370.

Two Moons described how the horses of the Gray Horse Troop were “turned loose by the soldiers and they fled toward the river,” in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
p. 111. Standing Bear told of how the warriors shouted, “They are gone!” when the horses were released, then repeated the exclamation when the troopers followed, in DeMallie,
The Sixth Grandfather,
p. 186. Red Horse recounted how the group of soldiers and the group of warriors “stood for one moment facing each other,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 60. Iron Hawk told how he beat the soldier to death because “the women and children had run away scared,” in DeMallie,
The Sixth Grandfather,
pp. 191–92. Moylan testified that they found “20 odd bodies of E Company” in Deep Ravine: “The marks were plain where they went down and where they tried to scramble up the other side, but these marks only extended half way up the bank,” in W. A. Graham,
RCI,
p. 76. Fox cites Bourke’s reference to the seven skulls in Deep Ravine, in
Archaeology,
pp. 213–14. Gray writes about the discovery of what appear to be the bones of Mitch Boyer, in
Custer’s Last Campaign,
pp. 398–99; he also cites Boyer’s claim that the Sioux “can’t get even now,” from the July 15, 1876,
Helena Herald,
p. 396. Godfrey wrote, “I firmly believe [the E Company men found in Deep Ravine] belonged to Lieutenant Sturgis’ Platoon and had been ordered to locate a ford for crossing the river,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 95. In addition to citing Godfrey’s belief that it was Sturgis who led E Company toward the river, Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard cite Godfrey’s account of finding “several headless bodies” in the Indian encampment not far from the river; they also cite Private George Glenn’s claim that one of the severed heads found in the village was that of Sturgis, in
Where Custer Fell,
p. 112.

On what was found on June 27 on Last Stand Hill and the wounds on Custer’s body, see Hardorff’s
The Custer Battle Casualties,
pp. 15–31. Yellow Nose’s account of his encounter with the “striking and gallant” officer whom he took to be Custer is in “Yellow Nose Tells of Custer’s Last Stand,” pp. 41–42, and in Hardorff’s
Indian Views,
pp. 103–5. As Hardorff argues in a footnote, Yellow Nose’s opponent was almost certainly not Custer but his brother Tom; see also George Grinnell’s comments in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 58. On the mutilations to Tom’s body (Sergeant Ryan wrote that Tom’s head “was smashed as flat as the palm of one’s hand”), see Hardorff’s
The Custer Battle Casualties,
pp. 24–25. White Bull claimed that the Lakota sometimes mutilated the body of an enemy “because [the] man was
brave,
” in box 105, notebook 24, WCC.

Edgerly wrote that Boston Custer and Autie Reed were found “about a hundred yards from the general’s body,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 220. Frost cites the Oct. 28, 1868, letter in which Custer asked Libbie about the possibility of adopting Autie Reed, in
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 178. Big Beaver, who was seventeen at the time of the battle, reported that “a soldier got up and mounted his horse and rode as fast as he could towards the east. . . . Two Cheyenne Indians cut him off and killed him,” in Hardorff’s
Cheyenne Memories,
p. 149; others claimed the soldier committed suicide, while Moses Flying Hawk reported that instead of killing himself, the lone rider “was beating his horse with his revolver” when it went off accidentally, in Ricker’s
Voices of the American West,
vol. 1, p. 446. Walt Cross argues that forensic analysis of a skull taken from a remote portion of the battlefield indicates that it was Henry Harrington’s, in
Custer’s Lost Officer,
pp. 199–233.