Little Big Man

Back at the tepee I laid low, and you can read how the Indians continued to besiege the remainder of the Seventh on Reno Hill, that morning and afternoon of the 26th, but then some boys out herding horses come running through the tepees with news that more bluecoats had appeared, moving down the Greasy Grass from its mouth. So the warriors was called in and the women struck them countless tepees in no more than three-quarters of an hour, and we commenced to move south, everybody, thousands of Indians, tens of thousands of animals, in a column maybe four mile long, with the women and children on ponies which also pulled travois behind, and the warriors riding guard ahead and behind.

Still in my paint and buffalo hat, I stayed with the family contingent of course, riding one of Old Lodge Skins’s ponies, him alongside on another, and also his wives. A few Indians had looked at me while we was moving out, but nobody said beans. I reckon they was tired of fighting by now and didn’t want no more trouble unless forced into it. I learned a new thing: that Indians can’t keep their attention very long even on winning. I mean, I knowed they was like that in warring tribe against tribe, but I hadn’t ever seen them whip white men before.

It was early evening when the Cheyenne group passed through the valley across from Reno’s position, for we was last in line, and I looked over at them bluffs but could not see a soul, for the distance was some miles. Also the Indians had earlier fired the grass to screen our movements, and smoke still drifted aloft.

The soldiers coming from the north was of course Generals Terry and Gibbon, on their way to that junction with Custer, a day late as he had been a day early, and now they would find him two days dead and the Indians vanished.

You can read about that, and also about Reno and Benteen’s defense of their hill and the finding of the bodies of Lavender, Charley Reynolds, Lieutenant McIntosh the halfbreed Iroquois, and Bloody Knife the Ree, among others down in the valley. I come through that bottomland with the Indian assemblage, but fortunately didn’t have to see any of my dead friends. I reckon they lay in the timber.

And of course you can read of the Little Bighorn battle itself in a couple hundred different versions, for it is being argued up to this time. First come the newspaper stories, and next there was a military investigation to determine whether Reno had been a coward, which heard a lot of witnesses and declared him not guilty—though some of the very officers who testified in his favor continued to blacken his name out of court. Even as a remnant, the Seventh Cavalry lived up to its glorious traditions, linking arms in public while privately slandering one another.

And then come the accounts of officers and men who served in the other part of the field, and that of the Crow scout Curly. Other fellows went about the reservations, interviewing Indians who had fought on the hostile side. This naturally resulted in a mess: no two savages could agree on what had happened in even their own particular area, seeing things different as they invariably did, not to mention the roles played by manners and fear. Some Indians thought they would be punished if they made it sound too bad; some, out of courtesy, told the investigator what they thought he wanted to hear. One would claim all Custer’s men committed suicide; another, that the troops had crossed the ford, penetrated the village, and was driven out, with the General getting killed and falling in the middle of the river.

Last of all the scholars went to work, some setting up residence on the battlefield, which become a national monument, and going over the ground with tape measures and surveyors’ instruments. Did Custer disobey his orders? Could Benteen have reached him in time to save the day? What was the exact route of travel taken by the five troops after leaving the Lone Tepee? For every question there are ten answers, pro and con on every detail.

But I alone was there and lived it and have told the God’s honest truth so far as recollection serves. To this day I bear scars on cheek and shoulder from wounds I received on that ridge above the Little Bighorn River, Montana Territory, June 25, 1876, in the engagement with Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in which General George A. Custer and five troops of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry perished to the last man but one.

Why have I kept silent till now? Well, hostile Indians was never popular in this country, but for some years after the Little Bighorn their following dropped away to where it was outnumbered by admirers of the rattlesnake. “That’s right,” you can hear me say to a fun-loving bunch in some saloon, “I was saved by my friends among the Cheyenne.”