General Custer and slain elk
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: OPPS NEG.43252
label: Local Note
content: Photograph answering the description given by General Custer in letter to his wife, September 6, 1873. He states that the picture was to "form one of the series now being collected on the expedition under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute." Although the files of BAE, SI and NM contain no record of the SI's having collected or received any photos pertaining to Custer's Yellowstone expedition, the BAE files contain a series of stereo prints attributed to the Wheeler expedition (in the field 1873 and other years of same decade) among which this photo was.
label: Local Note
content: Black and white copy film negative
name: label: Creator
content: Illingworth, William H. ?
creator: label: Creator
content: Illingworth, William H. ?
setName: label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives
label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives / Additional Materials / Illingworth, William H. ?
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Photograph (8x10 in)
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
bibliography: label: Bibliography
content: Reproduced in The Custer Album by Lawrence A. Frost, 1964 Superior Pubishing Co., Seattle, Washington, and attributed to William H. Illingworth evidently on the assumption that the photo was taken in 1874 when Illingworth was photographing. page 138.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Extract from a letter written by General Custer to his wife: "Stockade" on the Yellowstone, September 6, 1873. I think I told you in my letter of eighty pages about my chasing elk four miles and killing three. Since then I have had the good fortune to kill a fine large buck elk taller than "Dandy" weighing cleaned eight hundred pounds, and with the handsomest pair of antlers I ever saw, and such a beautiful coat. I killed him only a mile and a half from camp, sent for a wagon, and carried him entire back with us, when the officers and men, and even those belonging to the scientific party, flocked to the grassy plot in front of my tent to see him. The photographer who accompanied the scientists hitched up his photograph-wagon and drove over to take a picture of what they called the "King of the Forest." All the officers and the photographer insisted that not ony the game but the hunter should appear in the picture. So I sat down, dressed as I was in my buckskins, resting one hand on an antler, and you may judge of the immense size of the elk when I tell you that as I sat there my head only reached to about half the height of the antlers. The picture is to form one of the series now being collected on the expedition under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute.