Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1936-07-04

&uUAEAAH6xUM Oh OGMs OCUEEG AN1A~
strong Custer and five companies
Of the Seventh cavalry In Che bat
tie Of the Little Big Horn. The fol-
Lowing article attempts 70 present
some little known sideiights on the
battle, events leading mp TO Il and
IFS aftermath.
Three omens Of disaster warned
Clusters comrades Of impending doom.
One came on the morning Of May IL,
1876, when the Seventh cavalry rode
westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln
on its campaign against the Sioux.
1t was a sitting morning Mist rose
from the prairie AS the smart regiment
faded from view, one watcher among
those left behind at the fort cried out
and the others saw mirage lift half
the distant regiment from the earth.
Nearly half the regiment died on the
Little Big Horn six weeks later.
presentiment of disaster was felt
by most of Clusters officers as early
as June 81, four days before the fatal
encounter with the Sioux and Chey-
enne. Gen. E. S. Godfrey, in his &C
count of events before the battle, pub
nshed in the Century Magazine In
1892, wrote:
some Of the officers made their
wills; others gave verbal instructions
erty and distribution of mementoes.
They seemed to have presentiment Of
their fate"
At noon June "a, as Custer halted on
the march from the Rosebud to the Lit
tie Big Horn, he summoned his off
GERS. They gathered around his staff
flag. After Custer warned his officers
to use utmost caution, as the Indian
trail indicated large number Of hos
IN Ern t7n them
As Godfrey started to leave, the wind
blew over Clusters headquarters flag.
1t fell toward the rear. Godfrey re-
=sanAed 1t. It again fels-towarG the
#aMr. he picked II up, dug Il into the
earth and propped 1t against sage
brush 1t stood this time but later some
of those who had seen 1t fail twice,
pointing toward the rear, remembered
this augury of doom.
Godfrey, of course, was not with
Clusters force in the fatal battle, having
been sent with the detachments Of Reno
and Benteen.
Mystery, human interest, drama
these abound in the post mortem exam
nations:
Jack Victory, colorbearer, said to
have been the most handsome trooper
In the regiment, was found after the
fight with his right arm cut off at
the shoulder. The col0rs had disap-
peared. 1t is believed the Indians found
1t impossible to wrench the staff from
mis- grasp and amputated his arm to
get the flag.
MRS. George A. Custer, the generals
widow, never visited the battlefield. All
attempts to have her attend the battle
anniversary observances were futile.
She lived, until her death few years
ago, at Bronxville, N. Y.
After the fight, wives Of the slain
ssr,TEforc ouronT Vnvor tc TnrnaTrV Some
kept the pact.
Comanche, the mount of Captain
A6yles Keogh, was the sole survivor.
.Comanche was found by the rescue
party two days after the battle, badly
wounded. He was carefully nurSed BY
Reno's men and transferred to Lincoln,
Neb., thence to Fort Riley, Kan, where
he spent the remainder Of his life.
.Saddled but unridden, Comanche par
ticipated in every formal parade Of the
Seventh cavalry during the later years
of his life After his death his skin was
mounted and placed in the basement OF
the natural science building at the
University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Bodies of all the officers except one
Lieut. John j. Crittenden-were re-
moved from the battlefield. Crittenden
was buried where he fell, at his fathers
request. 1t was found necessary, how
ever. to move his body to the enclosure
etery as a projected highway would
have passed directly over the grave.
Clusters body was reinterred at West
Point and the others at Fort Leaven-
worth.
-Four members of the Custer family
died in the battle-General Custer, two
of his three brothers, Thomas and Bos-
ton, and his sisters husband, Lieut..
James Calhoun.
Mark Kellogg, special correspondent
az the Bismarck Tribune and New York
Herald, went on the expedition against
orders of the department commander.
Clusters love of glory was not I'M
known to his superiors. He was in dis
favor with President Grant, with Sec
rotary Of War Belknap and with Gem
erals Sherman and Sheridan. Only
Terry, of all his Superiors, bore him a.
feeling of fatherly tolerance.
Kellogg rode from the spot where
the Far West was moored, at the mouth
OF the Rosebud, on mule. The biggest
news story in the history Of the indian
wars was enacted before his eyes but
he never lived to write it. That, to a
newspaper man, seems a tragedy
Poets, from Longfellow and Whitman
70 John @. Neihardt and Arthur Chap
man, have sung the tragic song OF the
Little Big Horn. Painters have given
their versions of the battle on heroic
canyases Army officers have made
tactical studies of the probable course
OF events on that sulLry Sunday in
Americas centennial year. Biographies
have put every detail of Clusters life
under the microscope of their scrutiny.
still the details of the disaster continue
20 excite the inaginationS of men.
AS Walt Whitman wrote, in trying to
describe John Mulyaney's painting OF
kfae battle.
Nothing tn the books like 1t, nothing
in Homer nothing in Shakespeare
more grim and sublime than either, all
native, all our own and all fact"