Note.—The question concerning Custer’s conduct is so important a one that I have included in Appendix A the opinions, pro and con, of several officers with whom I have corresponded; and in which I have indicated some other sources of information by which the reader may settle the debatable question for himself.
[78]. Charles A. Eastman, M. D., a full-blooded Sioux, a graduate of Dartmouth and the Boston University School of Medicine, who has published an interesting account of the battle from his investigations among the Sioux. See The Chautauquan, Vol. XXXI., No. 4, July, 1900.
[79]. Killed with Custer at the Little Big Horn
[80]. General G. A. Forsyth.
[81]. The unanimous testimony of the Indians who have discussed the battle subsequently is that they were panic-stricken by Reno’s approach, and would have fled if his attack had been pressed home. This is about the only statement upon which the Indians all agree.
[82]. This statement is elsewhere denied.
[83]. DeRudio and one other man joined the command on the night of June 26th; the others succeeded in crossing the river to Reno’s position late in the afternoon.
[84]. “The splendid officers of the Seventh, who had followed Custer so faithfully, begged Major Reno to let them try to join the general. They cried like women, they swore, they showed their contempt of that coward, but the discipline of their lives as soldiers prevented them disobeying until it was too late. You know Colonel Weir and Lieutenant Edgerly tried.”—Private letter to me from the wife of an officer who was killed in the battle.