| LIEUT. H. M. HARRINGTON[[88]] | ADJ. W. W. COOK[[88]] | LIEUT. J. J. CRITTENDEN[[89]] |
| LIEUT. J. E. PORTER[[88]] | LIEUT. J. STURGIS[[88]] | LIEUT. DONALD McINTOSH[[90]] |
| LIEUT. W. VAN W. RILEY[[88]] | LIEUT. BENJ. HODGSON[[90]] |
OFFICERS OF THE SEVENTH CAVALRY
All killed at the Little Big Horn
V. After the Battle
On the morning of the 27th of June Terry and Gibbon rescued Reno. The next day the surviving troops of the regiment, with some individuals from the other command, marched to the scene of Custer’s defeat to identify and bury the dead. The bodies upon the dry grass had all been stripped and left, white and ghastly save for the red stains of wounds. The bodies of Doctor Lord, Lieutenants Porter, Harrington, and Sturgis, with those of a number of men, were not recovered. What became of them is not known to this day. They may have been captured alive and taken by the Indians to the village, and there tortured to death and their bodies disposed of. This, however, is unlikely. The Indians positively deny that they took any prisoners, and it is probable that they did not. There are quicksands near the bed of the Little Big Horn, and possibly those bodies were engulfed in them. But all this is only surmise. No one can tell anything about it, except that they were undeniably killed. And we may be certain they died as brave men should.
They buried two hundred and twelve bodies on the hill, and the total losses of the regiment in the two days of fighting were two hundred and sixty-five killed and fifty-two wounded—over fifty per cent. The losses of the Indians were never ascertained. They did not, however, begin to equal those of the soldiers. It is grossly unfair to speak of the battle as the “Custer Massacre,” as is often done. Custer attacked the Indians, and they fought him until all the white men were killed. There was no massacre about it.
The cause of the disaster must, first of all, be laid to Custer’s disobedience of orders. In spite of that, however, I think it is probable that he might have won the battle, or at least made good his defense until relieved by Terry and Gibbon, although sustaining heavy loss, had it not been for three happenings. The first was the vastly greater number of Indians in the field than any one expected to encounter. The next, and to me this is absolutely decisive, was Reno’s failure to press his attack. If he had gone in with the dashing gallantry which was expected of him, while it is certain that he could not alone have whipped the Indians, yet he could have so disorganized them as to have maintained his position in the valley in the midst of the village without the greatest difficulty, until Custer could fall upon the rear of those attacking him, and Benteen, with the pack train, could reinforce them both. The Indians say that they were demoralized for the time being by Reno’s sudden appearance, and that the squaws were packing up getting ready for flight when the weakness of Reno’s advance encouraged them to try to overwhelm him. Custer had a right to expect that Reno would do his duty as a soldier and take a bold course—which was, as usual, the only safe course.
Colonel Godfrey, in his account, suggests still a third cause. The carbines of the troopers did not work well. When they became clogged and dirty from rapid firing, the ejectors would not throw out the shells, and the men frequently had to stop and pick out the shells with a knife. The chambers of the carbines at that time were cylindrical, and the easily accumulated dirt on the cartridges clogged them so that the ejectors would not work properly. The chambers were afterward made conical, with good results. The Indians had no such trouble. Their weapons were newer and better than those of the soldiers. If the indifferent weapons of the troopers failed them, their annihilation in any event would have been certain.[[91]]
I have censured Custer somewhat severely in this article, and it is a pleasure to me to close it with a quotation from Captain Whittaker’s life of his old commander. In this quotation Lawrence Barrett, the eminent actor, who was an old and intimate friend of Custer, has summarized the character of the brave captain in exquisitely apposite language; and, in his words, I say good-by to the gallant soldier whose errors were atoned for by an heroic death in the high places of the field:
“His career may be thus briefly given: He was born in obscurity; he rose to eminence; denied social advantages in his youth, his untiring industry supplied them; the obstacles to his advancement became the steppingstones to his fortunes; free to choose for good or evil, he chose rightly; truth was his striking characteristic ... his acts found his severest critic in his own breast; he was a good son, a good brother, a good and affectionate husband, a Christian soldier, a steadfast friend. Entering the army a cadet in early youth, he became a general while still on the threshold of manhood; with ability undenied, with valor proved on many a hard-fought field, he acquired the affection of the nation; and he died in action at the age of thirty-seven, died as he would have wished to die, no lingering disease preying upon that iron frame. At the head of his command, the messenger of death awaited him; from the field of battle where he had so often ‘directed the storm,’ his gallant spirit took its flight. Cut off from aid, abandoned in the midst of incredible odds ... the noble Custer fell, bequeathing to the nation his sword; to his comrades an example; to his friends a memory, and to his beloved a Hero’s name.”