Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1917-03-23

One of the most thrilling news
paper stories that was ever flashed
before the readers of this country
came out of Montana the day after q
great throng at the Centennial expo
sition at Philadelphia had been cele-
brating the one hundredth anniver-
sary of the independence of the Unit
ed States. In fact, AZ the very hour
that this assemblage, made up of
representatives of all the nations and
races of the earth, was listening to
the keynote Grafton of this m
able Fourth of July, the steamer Far
West, with 38 wounded men aboard
from Reno's command, was making
the fastest run ever made on the
Missouri river to carry to the world
the account of this great tragedy in
the development of the west-the
story of how Custer and his COM
mand had been surprised and ami
hilated by the Sioux and how Reno
had lost a large part of his W
force in desperate resistance to the
enemy.
Makes Trip i'm 81 Hours.
1t was 5 o'clock on the afternoon
of July 8, 1876, that the steamer
started down the Yellowstone from
the confluence of that river with the
Big Horn, bound for Bismarck, ITO
miles away. She made the trip in
just 81 hours, at an average rate OF
10 IT miles an hour, a record I'M
equaled by any boat that ever floated
on the Missouri or any of its tribu-
taries from Fort Benton to St. Louis.
1t was late in the evening of the
5th that the Far West reached Bis
marck. Officers and men ran up the
streets to arouse the sleeping town.
Soon lights flashed at the windows
and men rushed from their houses
half dressed to learn the tidings of
tragedy. C. A. Lounsberry, editor of
the Bismarck Tribune, who was also
the accredited correspondent of the
New York Herald, fastened to the
telegraph office in company with ].
M. Carnahan, the telegraph operator.
When Carnahan took his seat at the
key he continued to send messages
for % hours with scarcely a stop.
First Message in Bulletin Form.
The first message sent out was the
following bulletin to the New York
Herald:
"Bismark, d. T., July 5, 1876
General Custer attacked the Indians
June 25, and he, with every officer
and man in five companies, was
killed. Reno with seven companies
fought in intrenched position three
days. The Bismarck Tribune's spe-
cial correspondent was with the ex.
petition and was killed."
In a pouch beside the body of this
Inflated correspondent, Mark KEEL
logg, had been found full notes or
the campaign up to the day of the
battle. These had been sent by Gen.
eral Terry to the Bismarck paper in
the care of Captain Grant Marsh, the
pilot of the Far West, and they
formed part of the running story OF
the Custer disaster that was sent out
over the wires to a waiting world
Brisben's Comment Put on Wire.
Two columns of comment and des.
cr1ption were furnished by Major
Brisben. Then were sent out inter
views with DR.. Porter, the surgeon
who had been with Reno, and with
Captain Marsh and accounts of the
part played by Curley and of the
death of the scout, Charlie Reynolds.
1t is reported that during a lull
when Carnahan's key for a moment
ceased to click, Lounsberry threw
him a copy of the New Testament,
exclaiming:
take this! Fire it in when you
run out of copy. Hold the wires,
Iell EN- it's coming and to hold the
key"
The list of killed and wounded was
tnen sent and the story grew through
the day of the sixth until more than
1900 words had been transmitted.
1t cost the New York Herald SO 900,
but 1T was the biggest "beat" in news
paper history up to that time. To
the widow and children of Mark KEEL
logg, the Herald sent $4,000.
Like Thunderbolt.
The news of the humiliation of
Clusters force fell on the outer world
like a thunderbolt for no previous
news of a credible nature had
reached the country that such a dis
aster had befallen.
The Helena Independent on the
morning of July 6 ran the following
account of the battle, which also ap-
peared in a Salt Lake paper:
"Advices just received from the
Diamond r. outfit with Gibbon re-
port a terrible battle with the In
dams on the Little Big Horn. Gus
ter attacked a camp of 1000 Sioux
and after a desperate battle defeated
them. Three hundred soldiers and
10 officers were killed and Custer
himself, as reported in another dis
patch, is slain. The battle-ground
is literally covered with slain. The
Indians retreated. Gibbon was SO
hours too late for the battle"
This garbled account was based on
a version of the fight brought to
BoZeman from the mouth of the Big
Horn by "Muggins'' Taylor.