Custer's Dead Officers: First Lieutenant William Van Wyck Reily

 

First Lieutenant William Van Wyck Reily was one of the youngest officers in the 7th Cavalry Regiment and among those killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

Born on December 12, 1853, Reily came from a naval family.  Reily himself entered the Naval Academy in 1870 but resigned in 1872 after academic difficulties. He later joined the 10th U.S. Cavalry as a Second Lieutenant in 1875 and transferred to the 7th Cavalry in early 1876, just months before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

He was described as a “dashing and handsome officer,” though some accounts suggest he was still learning to ride when the regiment departed on the final campaign.  His a signet ring was later recovered from a captured Cheyenne warrior in1877 and returned to Reily’s mother. His remains were reinterred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

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