Captain Benteen Describes Panic at the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

“I went over the battlefield carefully with a view to determine how the fight was fought.  I arrived at the conclusion I have right now-that it was a rout, a panic, till the last man was killed; that there was no line formed.

“There was no line on the battlefield.  You can take a handful of corn and scatter it over a floor and make just such lines.  There were none. The only approach to a line was where five or six horses were found equal distances like skirmishers.  Ahead of them were five or six men about the same distances….That was the only approach to a line on the field. (This was on Calhoun Hill).

“There were more than twenty killed there to the right; there were four or more all within a space of twenty to thirty yards.  That was the condition all over the field.  Only where General Custer was found was there any evidence of a stand.

“ I counted seventy dead horses and two Indian ponies.  I think, in all probability, that the men turned their horses loose without any orders to do so.  Many orders might have been given, but few obeyed.  I think they were panic stricken; it was a rout….”

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined