The Death and Defeat of Custer

Although there are multiple theories, no persons, past or present, knew or could know with certainty all that transpired involving the movement and dispositions of Gen. Custer’s battalion on that fateful Sunday in 1876, after the five companies led by Gen. Custer separated from those led by Maj. Reno and Capt. Benteen.  Known with certainty is only the final disastrous outcome.  Not even one of the Indian participants had firsthand knowledge of all that transpired on the entire field of battle.  In subsequent interviews, each related the events of that day as experienced from their particular battlefield perspective and as colored by swapped tales of their battlefield exploits, accuracy also undoubtedly suffering in the translations.  This resulted in apparent contradictions and ambiguities in Indian accounts of the battle and the movements and tactics of Custer’s battalion that have bedeviled and perplexed Custer historians from day one.  Where possible, I have deliberately avoided rehashing these, as well as standard incidents generally available in other sources.  Some, however, must be revisited to provide the framework for the subject matter of this essay.

        The five companies comprising Gen. Custer’s battalion were; Company C, normally commanded by Capt. Tom Custer, Company E, commanded by Lt. Algernon Smith, Company F, commanded by Capt. George Yates, Company I, commanded by Capt. Myles Keogh, and Company L commanded by Lt. James Calhoun.  On this day, Capt. Custer’s second in command, Lt. Henry Harrington, was acting commander of Company C because Tom Custer was serving as his brother’s adjutant.  Shortly after the opening of hostilities between Gen. Custer’s battalion and the Indians, all five of his doomed companies were mostly intact and deployed on or near Calhoun Hill at the southern end of Battle ridge.  Additionally, as the battle progressed, the battalion appears to have split into two divisions at opposite ends of Battle Ridge where each met its demise.  I have no quarrel in principle with these generally accepted scenarios.  By Indian accounts, the gray and bay horse troops, Companies E and F, were seen in Medicine Tail Coolie, on Finley Ridge, at the south end of Battle Ridge, then heading north up the ridge to the vicinity of Last Stand Hill, and finally on Last Stand Hill.  However, I do differ with the explanation most offered, that Custer failed to direct an organized resistance, and that the separation was due to a panicked retreat up the ridge, with slaughtered troopers littering the way.  I concur that at first glance the circumstantial evidence left on the battlefield might support this scenario; Indian accounts, however, do not.  While a panicked, body-strewn rout up the ridge did happen, I am convinced it was a terminal event, occurring near the climax of the battle on Last Stand Hill, well after the battalion had split into two divisions.
      Why then did Custer’s battalion come to be at the south end of Battle Ridge, then soon split into southern and northern divisions at opposite ends of the ridge?  Why did Custer not seek to obtain the best defensive position possible and assemble all five companies into a tight, heavily manned perimeter, from which he could maintain good communications with his company commanders and direct controlled heavy fire on all fronts?  The anecdotal evidence indicates that this was precisely what Custer had intended to do.  However, the success of that tactic depended upon Reno and Benteen with their combined six companies and the pack train, trapped high in the river bluffs four miles to the south, breaking out to link up with Custer’s five.  Without the pack train and the spare ammunition it carried, any defensive position, no matter how well established, would soon become untenable when the troopers expended the 100 rounds of rifle and 24 rounds of revolver ammunition carried on their persons and in their saddlebags.  Eventually, it must have become apparent to Custer that the former was not going to occur, thus forcing him to change tactics.
    In the early stages of the battle, after taking up defensive positions at the southern end of Battle Ridge and on Calhoun Hill and Finley Ridge, a well-directed and organized resistance was probably mounted, the Indians kept at bay and their charges repulsed.  Therefore, the Indian attacks had not yet cut Battle Ridge, and any movement of personnel to final positions near and on Last Stand Hill would seem to have been a well-organized deployment and not a forced or panicked retreat up the ridge.  It further appears that shortly thereafter, the organized and well-directed resistance began to break down, and the battle deteriorated rapidly to its conclusion.  What happened?  Did Custer intentionally split his command again by leading elements of his battalion to the opposite end of Battle Ridge, and if so for what purpose, and why did the situation deteriorate so quickly thereafter?  Possible resolutions of these questions and others derive from transcribed interviews with Indian combatants, as well as with Custer’s surviving Indian scouts and those of key military participants in post battle surveys of the field.  Most have been the subject of much conjecture and heated debate from the earliest inquiries.  Study of the many various accounts and related discussions, supplied by the sources listed in the bibliography, have led me to question some of the accepted occurrences, and to reject much of the conjecture concerning others.  I have attempted to sort out and assemble, within the general framework, pertinent portions of these oft-times seemingly convoluted and contradictory accounts into a probable sequence of events concerning Custer’s tactics and maneuvers after his battalion separated from those of Reno and Benteen, and the chain of events set in motion by them that led the course of the battle to its known conclusion.  As a whole, I think they offer a novel but plausible account of Custer’s movements that day, and of key events that conspired to bring about his defeat and death at the Little Bighorn.  Custer’s Crow Indian Scout Curly gave an account of those initial movements in post battle interviews.  Following is a synopsis of what is thought to have transpired, based upon these interviews. 

      In the beginning, after ordering Benteen with three companies to sweep the terrain to the south, Custer with five companies then detached to the right from Reno’s three.  Custer’s battalion then followed a northerly route, while Reno’s battalion proceeded straight ahead from the mouth of Reno Creek to cross the Little Bighorn and charge the southern end of the Indian village.  Custer’s battalion continued on its course, passing through the eventual Reno-Benteen entrenchment area, to Cedar Coolie.  Upon entering the coolie, the battalion halted and Custer rode to the top of a high knoll (probably Weir Point) where Mitch Boyer and Curly were watching Reno’s attack on the village.  After observing for a while, Custer returned to his command in Cedar Coolie and tarried there for an additional and critically long time, perhaps to make further battle plans, and discuss strategies with his company commanders.  Mitch Boyer and Curly continued to observe the Reno battle from the hilltop.  At this point, it would seem that Custer’s battle plan was for the whole battalion to proceed down Medicine Tail Coolie to the ford and cross the river into the center of the village.  They would then charge through it and entrap the warriors between his and Reno’s battalion, with Benteen’s and the pack train fast approaching from the south.  In fact, according to Curly, all five of Custer’s companies did start down Medicine Tail Coolie toward the ford.  However, at some point in the advance, he rode down from the knoll to intercept the head of the column and report that the Indians had broken Reno’s line and were driving his battalion back across the river and up into the bluffs, soon to be reinforced by the arrival of Benteen’s division and the pack train.  At about this juncture, or shortly thereafter, Curly and the rest of Custer’s Indian scouts withdrew from the field, so their accounts of later actions are questionable, particularly those of Curly.

      Upon receiving the news of Benteen’s rout, Custer must have realized that he could soon expect an attack from all sides by warriors who would be free to break off from the Reno engagement.  Thus, Custer seems to have changed his plan from one of offense to immediate defense.  It would appear that his initial strategic response was to order E and F Companies to continue their advance down Medicine Tail Coolie towards the ford, the purpose being to make a presentation and draw most of the warriors returning from the Reno engagement to defend the center of the village.  In the interim, Custer with the rest of the battalion would leave Medicine Tail Coolie, withdraw to the top of the bluffs, and seek a more tenable defensive position.  Presumably, when the hostile presence at the ford became too threatening, Companies E and F were to rejoin the rest of the command on the ridge top.  However, Custer undoubtedly was depending upon them to keep the returning Indians in check at the ford for a time sufficient to establish an adequately defended position while awaiting the arrival of the Reno-Benteen battalions and the pack train that he must have assumed, with most of the pressure removed, would soon break through and link with his.  They could then in essence achieve the goal of entrapping the warriors between their united forces and would regain the offensive.  Unfortunately, Custer had no way of knowing that Reno was apparently shell-shocked, and according to some rumors, possibly drunk and unfit to command.  Nor could he anticipate that Benteen would willfully prevent any attempt to break out and link up until the battle in Custer’s sector essentially was over, thus freeing a multitude of warriors to return to the Reno-Benteen entrenchment area, preventing any relief even at that late stage.  It was no secret that there was bad blood between Custer and Benteen.  Additionally, it would appear that Custer did not realize there was already a large force of Indians appearing on his flank when he exited Medicine Tail Coolie.  Thus, by the time E and F Companies approached the Medicine tail ford they were under great pressure from the rear and flank as well as from the front.  According to Chief Brave Wolf of the Northern Cheyenne and others, none of the soldiers even entered the river at that ford except for a single solider that entered and crossed on his runaway horse, only to die straightaway.  Forced to break off much too quickly, the two companies apparently retreated diagonally into the hills, the troopers fighting through the warriors to their front and in turn, pursued by warriors to their rear.  A harbinger of the events, I believe, soon to transpire at a more northern ford.  At any rate, it would appear that the two companies did manage to fight their way back up the slope mostly intact and rejoin the rest of the battalion on Nigh-Cartwright Ridge.
      Soon thereafter, Custer deployed his troops much as follows.  To stem the Indian advances coming from upper Medicine Tail and Calhoun Coolies on the left flank, one platoon of Company C with Company L deployed along Finley Ridge and on Calhoun Hill respectively.  To stem the Indian advances up Deep Ravine and those behind Battle Ridge, Companies E and F deployed along the ridge while Company I with the remainder of C, deployed below Calhoun Hill and to the east of the ridge.  After a considerable time of long distance fighting with little harm done to either side, I think Custer began to realize that help was not forthcoming and that they were in a very desperate situation, as the Indians had them completely surrounded and were slowly tightening the perimeter, so that Custer then decided on a final desperate strategy.  From Battle Ridge, he could see that across the river a large number of Indians, mostly women and children, had fled to the plains north of the village.  If he could affect a more northerly ford of the river, he might encircle and capture the non-combatants, thereby hoping to force the warriors into a standoff.

      Gen. Custer, having made the decision to attempt the capture of Indian non-combatants, left Companies C, I and L in their respective positions at the south end of Battle Ridge as a rear guard.  Then he, along with Tom Custer, led Companies E and F to the north end of Battle Ridge.  Riding with the detachment were Gen. Custer’s youngest brother, civilian army employee Boston Custer, and his nephew Autie Reed, both, just tagging along for the thrill of it all.  Once there, Capt. Yates and Company F were left on or near Last Stand Hill, while the General with Tom Custer and Company E proceeded a short distance down Cemetery Ravine, then obliquely to their right through the present cemetery grounds towards the river and a more northern ford.  The most likely candidate would be the one described by Col. John Gibbon, that he used on the morning of June 29 during his survey of the battlefield, which by his account would appear to be downstream (north) of the Deep Ravine Ford.  Capt. Yates’ likely assigned mission was to proceed down Cemetery Ravine with F Company after an agreed upon time delay, cross the river, and prevent the fleeing non-combatants from returning to the village, while  Company E blocked further flight to the north. 
 
      Another account of an attempted river crossing, by White Bull Calf, would not seem to pertain to the attempt at Medicine Tail Ford when compared to those of Chief Brave Wolf and others, known to be relevant to that attempt.  This includes a claim by the Hunkpapa Sioux Chief Gall that the soldiers were turned away a good quarter to half a mile away from the river.  All though no Indian accounts place White Bull Calf at the Medicine Tail ford, he related that he, with a handful of other warriors repelled an attempted crossing from the heavy cover afforded by trees and brush on the village side of the river.  It is of special interest to note that period photographs taken at Medicine Tail Ford reveal no such cover on the village side of the river.  White Bull Calf further related that several of the soldiers entered the river and that at least two were shot from their horses and fell into the water.  One of these may have been Lt. James Sturgis of E Company, for whom no body or identifiable remains were ever located.  It does not seem reasonable that a handful of braves could have stopped two companies of cavalry nearly one-half mile from a ford.  At that range, it certainly would require the superior force that the Indians claimed to have mustered at Medicine Tail Ford.  Therefore, in light of the above factors, there can be little doubt that White Bull Calf was referring to another attempted crossing, and not to the former.  In this latter case, the account of a handful of concealed braves repelling a single company of troopers at a river crossing at close range is not farfetched, particularly in view of their earlier experience at Medicine Tail Ford.  In addition, White Bull Calf made some even more astounding claims.  Namely, that he shot a soldier from his horse in midstream, and that the soldier was wearing a buckskin jacket and riding a sorrel horse with four white socks.  Then, that other soldiers dragged him from the river and carried him off on horseback as they all retreated up the slope to the general vicinity of the present cemetery grounds, where they dismounted and tarried for a considerable length of time.  The Cheyenne warrior John Stands In Timber also repeated the essence of this account by White Bull Calf.  Contrary to some testimony that Custer was not wearing his buckskin jacket that day, Lt. Edward Godfrey and other survivors from the Reno-Benteen battalions testified that he and some other officers were.  However, only Gen. Custer’s mount was a sorrel with four white socks.  Further claimed by White Bull Calf was that after the battle he recognized a dead solder on Last Stand Hill, with blond hair and a blond mustache, as being the one he had shot from his horse in the river.  He claims to have cut off the soldier’s trigger finger for good medicine and was about to scalp him when Meotzi’s mother, who identified the body as a relative, stopped him.  According to the northern Cheyenne, Meotzi was Custer’s wife by an Indian marriage and he, the father of her light-skinned fair-haired child.  Even though most of the marauding Indians on Last Stand Hill probably had never seen Custer or recognized his body, Meotzi’s mother certainly did.  This is the reason that Gen. Custer kept his hair, contrary to the claims of some Custer critics.  Namely, the asinine assertion that Custer died a coward’s death at his own hands, and the equally asinine romantic notion that no Brave would ever scalp an enemy he had not personally killed.  Upon the one hand, there is no anecdotal evidence that Gen. Custer committed suicide.  Upon the other hand, however, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that some troopers did indeed save the last bullet for themselves.  They, nevertheless, did end up without their hair.
               Most historians reject White Bull Calf’s accounts, believing them to be merely a distortion of facts pertaining to the long delay in Cedar Coolie and the aborted approach to the Medicine Tail ford.  However, that does not seem very likely in view of the accounts of Chief Brave Wolf and others who took part in aborting that approach, and who steadfastly maintained that no solider ever entered the river at Medicine Tail Ford, save for the one on a runaway horse.  Additionally, there were other persistent stories relating to a buckskin-clad soldier shot from his horse in midstream that circulated after the battle.  It is difficult to see how these could be distortions of an event that according to Chief Brave Wolf never occurred.  Assuming the veracity of White Bull Calf’s accounts leaves little doubt that he shot the General while Custer was leading a second attempted river crossing northwest of the final battlefield.  However, I do not believe that the wound, while it could have proven mortal in the long-term, was quickly fatal or totally incapacitating.  Otherwise, there would have been no need for the long delay at the present day cemetery grounds as claimed by White Bull Calf.  This is a serious point of contention.  How could a chest wound just below the heart not be instantly incapacitating and quickly fatal?  According to White Bull Calf’s account, the range at which he shot the Buckskin-clad soldier could not have been much in excess of fifty yards at most.  At that range, a viable projectile from a large caliber rifle would undoubtedly pass completely through one’s body leaving a horrific exit wound in the back.  This of course, would be quickly fatal.  The fact that Custer’s body apparently did not display an exit wound speaks volumes.  There are only about three possibilities for this.  These would be a defective cartridge, a friendly fire ricochet, or a fragmented bullet.  I believe the latter to be the most likely case.  When shooting through the thickets, if White Bull Calf’s bullet had encountered heavy brush in the line of fire, it could have fragmented.  A fragment might then have retained sufficient mass and velocity to penetrated Custer’s jacket and chest wall, into the pleural cavity, nicking a lung.  It is quite probable that such a wound would be neither instantly incapacitating, nor immediately life threatening; as amply exemplified when a seventy year old President Reagan strode unassisted into a hospital emergency room with a bullet lodged deep in his lung after being shot by a would-be assassin.  The sole basis for concluding that Custer’s chest wound would have resulted in near instant death is its observed location.  Yet, without the benefit of autopsy, which under the circumstances certainly did not occur, this conclusion is only conjecture.  A nonlethal chest wound inflicted by a bullet fragment, or for that matter either one of the other two referenced possibilities, could lead one to conclude erroneously, in the absence of an invasive examination, that it resulted in near instant death.

                After the prescribed time delay, Capt. Yates with F Company began the descent to the river down Cemetery Ravine.  At some point in the descent, they heard the sound of gunfire erupt on their right flank from the direction of the river.  In lockstep with an old military adage that admonishes “advance to the sound of the guns”, Capt. Yates ordered an oblique right turn and soon intercepted and joined Company E in flight to the present cemetery grounds.  After reaching this flat, and for a short time, relative safe area, the reunited Companies halted to attend to Gen. Custer, as best they could, and to receive further directions from Tom Custer.  By Indian accounts, after some delay, about half of the soldiers, presumably E Company, mounted gray horses and rode to the top of battle ridge above Last Stand Hill.  The likely purpose for this was to transport the General further from the advancing Indians and to protect the left flank of the cemetery grounds and Company F while Captains Custer and Yates made “what to do” decisions.  However, the situation would have rapidly deteriorated, thus compelling an immediate response of some kind.  After the battle, most of the bodies found between Last Stand Hill and the river were of E Company men.  This evidence clearly supported Indian accounts that the gray horse troop suddenly mounted their horses and for reasons not overtly obvious, galloped down the hill and dismounted on the low divide between Cemetery and Deep Ravines, where most died in a charge led by Lame White Man, a few survivors successfully fleeing back to Last Stand Hill.  By some accounts, shortly after the gray horse troop vacated the hill, one platoon of Company F mounted their horses and charged up the slope to reoccupy the position.  At about the same time, according to John Stands In Timber, the “Suicide Boys”, Indian boys below fighting age, charged the remainder of F Company’s position on or near the cemetery grounds and stampeded their horses.  Warriors then quickly overran the position, forcing the survivors into a mad dash for Last Stand Hill.  Boston Custer and Autie Reed, killed either in the attack or during the retreat, fell below and to the north of Last Stand Hill in the general vicinity of the cemetery grounds.  Tom Custer’s remains, purportedly found on the hill close to the General’s, were further down the slope and along the same line as those of Boston Custer.
      Concurrently, the Finley Ridge and Calhoun Hill positions had fallen to Chief Gall, Company I was nearly annihilated by Crazy Horse, and the carryover of Lame White Man’s charge in conjunction with One Bull’s had cut Battle Ridge.  The little that Remained of Custer’s southern division tried to retreat north to Last Stand Hill in a panicked run with Indians in hot pursuit.  More than one of the pursuing warriors later likened it to a buffalo hunt at close quarters once the soldiers turned their backs.  Thus, when the Indians made their final assault on Last Stand Hill, the remains of Companies E and F, and a few surviving “Fugitives” from the remnants of Companies C, I and L, and an increasingly debilitated and helpless Gen. Custer occupied the position.  An Arapaho brave named Waterman later claimed that he came upon Custer near the end of the battle, as the General crawled on hands and knees with blood coming from his mouth, and shot him through the head.  The official finding was that Custer suffered two wounds, one to the left lower chest below the heart and the other to the head.  Additionally, he was neither scalped nor his body mutilated, other than for a severed finger at the first joint and sewing awls stuck in his ears, and that the head wound had no associated powder burns.

      Had Gen. Custer, after separating from Reno, proceeded immediately to Medicine Tail Ford, he could undoubtedly have crossed into the middle of the Indian village with all five companies at this stage of the battle, encountering little resistance.  Most all of the braves were south of the village to confront Reno’s charge and were not even aware of Custer’s battalion in Cedar Coolie.  Indeed, he most likely could have been in the village before Reno’s battalion even reached the position where they dismounted to form a skirmish line.  In another few minutes, he could have arrived on the Reno battlefield, well before Reno ordered a withdrawal to the timber and panicked flight to the river, and would have had the Indians entrapped.  With Custer’s five companies to their rear and Reno’s three, reinforced with Benteen’s three and the pack train, to their front, the Indians caught in the open between the two divisions probably would have quickly lost their desire to do battle and Custer would have won the day.  It is also probable that had Custer not sent Benteen off on a “snipe hunt” (I am not alone in the opinion that he wanted Benteen to have no part in capturing the village) but had instead sent the combined companies of Reno and Benteen against the southern end of the village, his offensive scheme might still have been successful in spite of the long delay in Cedar Coolie.  However, all else being equal, had Reno, after being driven back across the river, regrouped with Benteen’s battalion and the pack train and immediately proceeded down river (north), they could have arrived on the Custer battlefield during the relative innocuous long-range phase of the battle before Custer’s desperate attempt on the northern ford.  With the full command and a mobile vital Custer to lead, the 7th might have regained the offensive, or at the very least held the Indians at bay until they, i.e., Indians were forced to withdraw when scouts brought word of Gen. Terry’s column rapidly approaching from the north.  This seems quite plausible when considering that during the long-range phase of the battle the Indians possessed mostly obsolete firearms, bows, and arrows, even though some apparently did posses Henry repeating rifles.  It was not until the capture of many carbines from fallen soldiers and much ammunition from the saddlebags of stampeded horses that the Indians were able to press the attack to its bitter conclusion.  However, after having said all of this, it is also possible that had Reno and Benteen come to Custer’s aid, Gen. Terry might have found more than 500 dead men when he arrived on Custer field.  To make a bad situation even worse, the Indians would have ended up with not only double the number of captured arms but also with the ammunition and other supplies carried by the pack train.  Had this occurred, it undoubtedly would have extended the duration of the Indian wars in the northwest.

      Prevailing opinion either rejects White Bull Calf’s account of an attempted river crossing out-of-hand or holds that it did not pertain to any other than the aborted one at Medicine Tail Ford.  Additionally, critics are quick to point out that if White Bull Calf’s account did pertain to another attempt by Custer at a far northern ford, it would prove his incompetence and unbridled arrogance in thinking himself still on the offensive after Reno’s rout, and in view of the surrounding and ever-advancing horde of hostiles.  In truth, both assessments would seem prejudicial and highly flawed.

Suggestions for further reading:
Frederick J. Chiaventone, “A Road We Do Not Know” Simon and Schuster, 1969.
Robert M. Utley, “Custer Battlefield”, Office of Publications, National Park Service, 1969.
Edgar I. Stewart, “Custer’s Luck”, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.
Thomas B. Marquis, “Custer on the Little Bighorn”, End.Kian Publishing Company, 1975.
Gregory F. Michno, “Lakota Noon”, Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1997.
James Welch, “Killing Custer”, W.W. Norton & Company, 1994.
Evan S. Connell, “Son of the Morning Star”, North Point Press, 1984. 
Gregory Michno, “The Mystery of E Troop”, Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1994.
William o. Taylor, “With Custer on the Little Bighorn”, Viking Penguin, 1996.