Custer’s Last Flag

     In 1895, the Detroit Institute of Arts paid $54 for a U.S. 7^th Cavalry guidon.  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.

     A second 7th Cavalry guidon was recovered in September 1876, at the Battle of Slim Buttes near present-day Reva, South Dakota.  This flag is now displayed at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  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