[77]. Sure proof that the horses were not, as is sometimes urged, utterly worn out by the hard marching.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Last of Custer
I. Reno’s Failure at the Little Big Horn
It will be necessary, in order clearly to comprehend the complicated little battle, to treat each of the three operations separately, and then see how they were related to one another.
As Reno’s men trotted down the valley, they saw, some distance ahead of them and to the right across the river on a line of high bluffs, Custer attended by his staff. The general waved his hat at them encouragingly, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. That glimpse of Custer, standing on that hill with outstretched arm gallantly waving his troopers on to battle, was the last any one of his comrades in the valley had of him in life; and it is certain that Reno must have realized then that Custer was not following him, and that he was expected to attack in his front alone.
However, Reno, having drawn near to the village, deployed his skirmishers, and slowly advanced down the valley. In a few moments they were hotly engaged with a constantly growing force of Indians.
Now, one thing about the battle that followed is the utter unreliability of the Indian reports of their movements. It is alleged that fear of punishment made them and keeps them reticent and uncommunicative. Different Indians tell different stories. Most of these stories disagree in their essential details, and it is impossible to reconcile them. It may be that the faculties of the Indians are not sufficiently alert to enable them to recall the general plan of the battle, or at least to relate it, although they knew well enough how to fight it at the time. Their accounts are haphazard to the last degree. Some say that they knew nothing of the advent of the troops until Reno’s men deployed in the valley. At any rate, they had sufficient time, on account of his dilatory and hesitating advance, to assemble in heavy force. Reno had less than one hundred and fifty men with him. Even if Dr. Eastman’s estimate,[[78]] that the Indians numbered but twelve hundred warriors, be true, they still outnumbered Reno, although, owing to the fact that the villages were strung along the river for several miles, only a portion of them were at first engaged with the troops. Flushed with their previous victory over Crook a short time before, these Indians now fell upon Reno like a storm.
| CAPT. MYLES MOYLAN | MAJ. MARCUS A. RENO |
| LIEUT. A. E. SMITH[[79]] | CAPT. EDWARD S. GODFREY |
SOME OF CUSTER’S OFFICERS