On June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, five companies of the U.S. Seventh
Cavalry, under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped
out.
White Wolf, who was in the fight, said that afterwards a
lot of young men searched the soldiers’ pockets. That square green paper money
was in them. Later when the children were making toy mud horses, they used the
money for miniature saddle blankets. Silver money was also found from which the
Cheyennes made silver buckles.
Other warriors including Wooden Leg, Little Hawk and Bobtail Horse found bottles of whiskey on
dead troopers.
On June 27, 1876 the cavalry
discovered the remains.
Lieutenant E.S. Godfrey reported
The marble white bodies, the
somber brown of the dead horses and the dead ponies scattered all over the
field, but thickest on and near Custer Hill, and the scattering tufts of
reddish brown grass on the almost ashy white soil depicts a scene of loneliness
and desolation that "bows down the heart in sorrow." I can never
forget the sight:
Captain Tom
Custer was found near the top of
the hill, north, and a few yards from the General, lying on his face; his
features were so pressed out of shape as to be almost beyond recognition; a
number of arrows had been shot in his back, several in his head, one I remember,
without the shaft, the head bent so that it could hardly be withdrawn; his
skull was crushed and nearly all the hair scalped, except a very little on the
nape of the neck.
General Custer was not mutilated at all;
he laid on his back, his upper arms on the ground, the hands folded or so
placed as to cross the body above the stomach; his position was natural and one
that we had seen hundreds of times while taking cat naps during halts on the
march. One hit was in the front of the left temple, and one in the left breast
at or near the heart.
Boston, the youngest Custer brother was
found about two hundred yards from "Custer Hill." The body was stripped except his white cotton
socks and they had the name cut off.
Occasionally,
there was a body with a bloody undershirt or trousers or socks, but the name
was invariably cut out. The naked mutilated bodies, with their bloody fatal
wounds, were nearly unrecognizable, and presented a scene of sickening, ghastly
horror! There were perhaps, a half dozen spades and shovels, as many axes, a
couple of picks, and a few hatchets in the whole command; with these and knives
and tin cups we went over the field and gave the bodies, where they lay, a scant
covering of mother earth and left them, in that vast wilderness, hundreds of
miles from civilization, friends and homes, to the wolves!"
Trumpeter
Giussepi Martini saw a
heap of dead men in a deep gully between Custer and the river. Martini said that one of the first
sergeants with whom some of the men had left their pay for safe keeping had
about $500 in paper money torn up and scattered all over his body. He also reported that one of Adjutant Cooke’s
sideburn was scalped off, skin and all.
Seventh Cavalry scout George Herendeen added, "The heads of four white soldiers were found in the Sioux camp that had been severed from
their trunks, but the bodies could not be found on the battlefield or in the
village."
Lieutenant Charles Roe of the Second Cavalry, said, "we found in
the Indian village a
white man's head with a lariat
tied to it, which had been dragged around the village until the head was pulled
off the body."
Survivor Jacob Adams recalled,
"troopers were lassooed from their horses and dragged to the center of the
village, where they were
tied to trees and burned to death that night within sight of
their comrades of Benteen's division, who were helpless
to rescue them. After the battle, John
Ryan said, "we found what appeared to be human bones, and
parts of blue uniforms, where the men had been tied to stakes and trees."
Of the five guidons carried by Custer's troops at
the “Last Stand” only one was immediately recovered, concealed under the body
of a dead trooper. That trooper was Corporal John Foley, who was trying
to escape on horseback. Foley was pursued by Indians and shot himself in
the head before he was overtaken. The recovered flag later became known as the
Culbertson Guidon, after the member of the burial party who recovered it,
Sergeant Ferdinand Culbertson.
The Culbertson Guidon
was sold by Sotheby’s auction house to a private collector in 2010 for $2.2
million.
Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined
Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined
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