The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-20

0SsSsSsSsSsSeSeSeSsSe SeSSS
willows along the stream were tent
stakes sticking into the ground, and
the bleaching bones Of animals were
strewn about as thickly as garbage in
q typical Chicago alley. The road
winding about among these suggestive
relics moved toilsomely up the steep
grades amid prairie dog settlements
and stunted buffalo grass, until the
gateway of the battle ground, now a
wire inclosed cemetery, was reached.
Within the Enclosure the road becomes
but little more than trail, and one OBJ
serves that this long sloping ridge sat
urated with tragic memories has been
permitted to remain in it's natural
state. The monuments shut off from
approach by high iron fence, and the
pathetic little headstones to which al
fusion has already been made, are the
only additions to the field since the day
of the fight. 1t has been dedicated as
a national soldiers cemetery, and at
two or three points an orderly array Of
tombstones mark the spot where
soldiers from all the Western posts
have been buried since this field be-
the houseless, homeless and sometimes
friendless private soldiers of the re-
public. The care-taker's house. a solid
stone structure standing on the bleak
hillside, without tree or a shrub
about 1T, seemed almost as stern and
forbidding as the lonesome hills them
selves. But entering the office to reg
lister we found a bluff old soldier who
apologized for the heat with as much
concern as If he were in some manner
accountable for the solar eccentricities.
on his desk there lay little moldy col
lection of rifle balls and spent cart
ridges that had recently been I'M
earthed-in the battlefield by a big rain
storm almost resembling a waterspout
There We're also a few fragments of
soldiers shoes, all curled, twisted. and
misshapen, properties" as stage peo-
pie would call them, which at once put
us in touch with the grim happenings
OF twenty years ago.
Failing into a brief conversation with
this ancient grayedigger, whose du-
ties cannot be very burdensome in this
city of the dead, where recruits are
few, learned of the present DISPOSE
ton of the battle-ground and the ar
rangements for its preservation. But
sip as the first gravedigger in Ham
let, so we presently went away with
the guide and Journeyed quite around
the field OF strife now lying so peace
full under the heavy rays Of a mid
summer sun. Reaching the uttermost
limits of the battle ground, the guide
pointed over among the distant val
legs some miles away, and said:
There is where Custer divided his
ON hn tyr - Al.
Keeping 225 men under his own COM
mand, giving Reno 125, Benteen 1876
and McDougall lin charge of pack
traiD 49, Reno, marching several
miles away from Custer, found the
enemy first and scrambled back into
hurriedly prepared intrenchments, but
Custer. either careless or unconscious
of the danger, plunged forward through
the ravine and up the hill where he
was to make his last stand. Once here
and observing that trap had been
sprung for him by the Indians. Of
whose numbers he had no adequate
idea, Custer was either too proud to
retreat as Reno did, and he might have
done, or else, with a supreme conf
dence in his troops, he believed that
he could cut his way out At all
events, he would not retreat Right
here at the farthest point away from
and ran skirmish line across the
brow of the hill. The rest is soon
told. No reinforeements came and
within half. or at the most three
quarters of an hour, all was over. The
stones tell you how the boys fell, scat
tered ali over the field"
I asked the guide what the local
theory of Clusters generalship In this
campaign was, but there did not ap-
pear to be any definite opinion on that
point Custer was always a brave and
som etimes rash man. and it may be
that, smarting under certain uncom-
fCrtable events occurring in Washing
ton shortly before the ill-starred cam
paign was inaugurated he was deter
mined, as Capt. Charles King has ex-
pressed 1t, to have one battle royal
with the Indians, in which he and the
Seventh cavalry should be the sole
participants on one side, and by con-
sequence the sole heroes. The idea of
defeat seems never to have occurred to
him.
This latter impression is confirmed by
the testimony Of a trumpeter who wels
sent away by Custer with a message
just before the battle began, and who
consequently was the last man among
the living to look upon the face Of Gen.
Custer looked down upon the Indian
village, apparently asleep. in the quiet
valley OF the Little Big Horn, he pulled
off his hat. waved it above his head
and shouted:
Courage, boys! We have got them.
AS soon as we get through we viii go
back to our station.
But that station. way bach at Fort
Lincoln on the Missouri, where more
than score of wives were waiting IN
agcnizing suspense for news of the ax-
petition, was never to see these brave
men again Whether the commander
blundered in dividing his troops in the
face of a numerous enemy or Reno
bIundered In his precipitate attack and
retreat may never be definitely deter
mined Certain It is that 265 men were
killed and fifty-two wounded out of that
little army of invasion numbering $40
soldiers Clusters Immediate force was
wiped out. and Reno lost more than a
third OF his available force mp to the
time when the fusillade Of the Indians