[45]. This statement has been called in question. The facts are taken from Custer’s farewell order to his division, April 19, 1865, as published in Captain Frederick Whittaker’s “Complete Life of General George A. Custer,” Sheldon & Co., New York, 1876. There is no possible doubt as to the correctness of the statement.
[46]. It is interesting, in view of his great services to his country, to learn that the first American ancestor of the Custer family was a Hessian officer who was captured at Saratoga in 1777.
[47]. Killed in the Battle
[48]. Mo-ke-ta-va-ta.—Letter from Mr. W. H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.
[49]. Dog Soldiers were bands of especially ruthless Indians who could not brook even tribal restraint. They included members of different tribes and were unusually formidable. Possibly they got their name from a perversion of Cheyennes, i.e. Chiens-dogs. Another account describes them as a sort of mercenary police at the service of a chief of a tribe, with which he enforced his commands upon the recalcitrant and generally kept order. In any case they were men of exceptional courage and bravery.
[50]. A corruption of Set-t’á-iñt-e, “White Bear.”—Letter from Mr. W. H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.
[51]. “Our Wild Indians,” Colonel Richard I. Dodge, U.S.A.
[52]. “... and at the last the brief reference to that episode when he (Custer) let glory of battle go, to save two white women!
“Has any one told you that the long line of soldiers and officers drawn up to witness the return of the two captives wept like women, and were not ashamed when the poor creatures came into the lines? Will you not write that story up some day, Dr. Brady? I will give you some addresses of officers who were eye-witnesses. They cannot seem to put such a picture before the public, but they do talk well.”—Private letter to me from the wife of an officer present on the occasion noted.