The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-10-26
BLEACHING BONES.
sickening Picture OF the Scene of the Gus
ter Massacre.
[From the ST. Paul PIoneer-prcss.l

ter Massacre.
[From the st. Paul Pioneer-Prcss.l
Mr.. Frank M. Fleming, of Minneapo-
lis, who left here last spring TO assist in
building one of the new military posts
on the Yellowstone river, returned home
few days since bringing some very in
teresting particulars in regard TO the
work of construction and the result of his
observations at the scene of the Custer
massacre ON the Rosebud.
The post upon which Mr.. Fleming
was employed during the summer is To-
Gated at the mouth of the Little Big
Horn, which is only some eighteen miles
distant from the spot where Custer and
his gallant comrades met their terrible
fate. Upon their first arrival at the site
of the new fort the civilian mechanics
had occasion to complain of the meager
allowance of provisions issued from the
commissary department merely for the
purpose of swelling profits in some di
rection. This fraud and dereliction was
finally brought to the attention of the
commanding officer, Col. Buell., and,
after one or two unsuccessful efforts on
his part, the citizens gained their point
and obtained the right and full ration
which the Government and the COM
mandant intended they should have.
Since then Mr.. Fleming states that the
mechanics from Minneapolis and st.
Paul have been well supplied and are
now working contentedly. The Big
Horn post is rapidly approaching COM
pletion, is of sufficient capacity to ac-
comomdate formidable force and strong
enough to resist any attack which Sitting
Bull, Joseph, or any other savage war
rior may make upon it. The second
post is about 100 miles distant from the
Custer battle-ground. Shortly before
Mr.. Fleming's departure home he visited
the scene of the Custer massacre, and his
description of it is painfully interesting.
He said that, from the sad traces found,
Custer must have struck the center OF
the Indian camp, leaving the right OF it,
which was in timbered and circular RAJ
vine, to swing against his right flank and
rear, and shoot down officers and men
as fast as they retreated for the high
lands. where their dead and mutilated
bodies were subsequently found. He
is disposed to believe that the command
was butchered and annihilated in this
way, without inflicting any serious dam
age upon the Indians, as the whites must
have been almost completely at their
mercy.
The bones of the dead horses are still
loose upon the desolate hills. Owing
to the necessarily hurried burial of the
soldiers, the bodies were but imperfect
ly covered with earth, and since the fun
eral rites were performed the coyotes
have removed the thin covering and torn
the limbs from the bodies, leaving the
heshless bones exposed on the ground.
Mr.. Fleming says the field is strewed
with feet, legs, hands, and arms, which
had been wrenched from the shallow
graves by the coyotes, the nationality of
their owners being shown by an occa-
sional shred of the army blue. Feet
still covered by the cavalry boot and
with the flesh gnawed clean from the
exposed parts are found thickly strewn
over the sanguinary feld-sickening
mementoes of that last fatal charge on
the Rosebud