The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1877-08-01
GENERAL CUSTER'S REMAINS.
Their ELIMINATION and Removal from the
Rattle Grouud.

Battle Ground.
A dispatch to the New York Herald
says: Colonel M. Sheridan, with certain
military and other friends; Troop J, of
the Seventh cavalry, Captain Nowlan
commanding; G y. Barronette and G.
Herndon White and Curley, who were
with Custer; Half Yellow Face, who was
with Reno, and several Crow Indian
scouts, with a train of OK wagons, left
the mouth of the Little Big Horn river,
at noon of the first inst. for the Custer
field. They travelled twelve miles up the
west side of the river and camped.
Early the next morning Barronette, with
most of the scouts, pressed rapidly up
some five miles to the old village site,
then six miles across it, over immense
quantities of lodge poles, camp kettle
pals, pots and other camp equipage-
much Of which was broken and destroyed
by General Terry after the Indian re-
treat-and into Rcno's valley; thence
they filed some ten miles above, return
ing again along the line of the Indians
retreat to Clusters valley and his elevated
but silent resting place. Meanwhile the
main party had marched to near the cen-
ter of the village site, some six miles
long, and camped at ten A. NJ. Thence
in squads they passed over Clusters val
ley, on the west side of the stream, and
the now deep, rapid ford and line of re-
treat, and all united at Clusters grave, at
the extreme end and highest point of a
broken, t~reeless ridge.
Gradually riding a mile and q half
from this and then some feet down the
western slope they found, partially I'M
earthed, all that remains of the gallant
Custer. Beside and below him lay his
brother, Capt. Thomas Custer, and other
officers and friends, surrounded by the
partially exposed and bleaching bones of
the soldiers and their horses, fragments
of clothing and shoes and shod hoofs of
horses. Although the remains of Gen.
Custer and most of his friends there, as
elsewhere, had evidently been disfgured
by the coyotes or savages, and probably
both, and many, if not the most, of the
skulls there and throughout all the fields
were smashed to fragments, mangled OF
missing, still what was decided to be and
probably were tie main portions of the
bones Of Gen. Custer and his two
brothers were secured. Neither Reed
nor the officers who fell with him and
Reno were found.
The remains were carefully and sor-
rowfully gathered, wrapped and then
packed with grass cut from Clusters
valley, placed in ten rough collins and
brought away. The remains of Lieut..
Porter and some of his men have been
found. Though the bodies Of Lieut..
Mcintosh and DR.. De Wolf were dis
overed and buried last year, little, if
any, portions of their remains or of
Lieut.. Hodgson's could now be found.
BY the request of his esteemed father,
the gallant Lieut.. Crittenden sleeps
where he fell, with his boys about him,
awaiting Gabriel's reveille, but for the
guidance of his friends, his name, rank,
etc., are rudely carved upon o head
post. Another board shows where Capt.
Keogh fell, and where his men sleep.
There is also a rude inscription at the
head of each OF the others, but most of
the soldiers, either singly or in groups,
have a stake driven where they rest.
After the duty of sprinkling mother
earth upon the fallen braves and the re-
ligious ceremonies were finished, the
train and cortege slowly and silently
wended it's way from the lofty cactus
desert to the deep valleys of cottonwood
and willow that fringed the rivers of
this Indian battle land.