Besides being a gallant fighter, Custer was also a great lover of recreation and fun, while a genuine hunting expedition drew him out from his almost habitual quiet and made him the natural leader of the party. Among his friends was William Cody, better known to the amusement loving world as Buffalo Bill, on account of his alleged excessive prowess in the shooting and destruction of buffalo. If Mr. Cody were consulted, he would probably prefer to be called Indian Bill, as his hatred of the average red man was very largely in excess of his anxiety to kill the hump-backed oxen, which were, at one time, almost in sole possession of the Western prairies. On one occasion, he and Custer had a very delightful time together, and Cody has given a pleasing description of what took place.
This was on the occasion of the visit to this country of the Grand Duke Alexis. Some twenty-three years ago this European celebrity enjoyed a tour through the United States, and visited most of the grandest features of our native land. Before coming to the country, he had heard of its great hunting facilities, and also of the sport to be obtained from shooting buffalo on the prairie. He mentioned this fact to the officers of the Government, who were detailed to complete arrangements for his benefit, and, accordingly, it was arranged that the Grand Duke should be conducted into buffalo land, and initiated into the mysteries of buffalo hunting, by the officer who has since been annihilated by the Sioux, and the irrepressible hunter who has since developed into a prince among showmen.
These two somewhat rough, but very kind, chaperones, took with them on this trip a party of Indians, including "Spotted Tail," with whose daughter Custer carried on, we are told, a mild flirtation on the march. A great deal of amusement was derived from the trip, as well as very much important information.
It was but four years later that Custer was engaged on a more serious and less entertaining mission. The scene of the tragedy was visited some three years ago by Mr. L. D. Wheeler, to whom we are indebted for the following very graphic and interesting description of the visit and of the thoughts it called forth:
"A rather lengthy ride found us at Reno's crossing of the river, the ford where he crossed to make his attack. Fording the stream, we dismounted among the young timber and bushes lining the stream, and ate lunch. Before lunch was finished, two Indian girls came down the river. The younger, tall, slender and graceful, dressed in bright, clean scarlet, was a picture. With her jet black hair hanging in shining plaits, her piercing eyes and handsome face, she was the most comely, sylph-like Indian maiden I have ever seen.
"Mounting our horses, lunch over, we cantered back on the trail that Custer and Reno followed, for a ride of several miles to Lookout Hill, or Point, which we ascended. This was the point where Custer and his officers obtained their first view of the valley of the Greasy Grass, as the Sioux call the Little Horn.
"After a survey of the region, spurring our horses forward, we in time found ourselves climbing the gentle acclivities which led up to Reno's old rifle-pits, now almost obliterated. The most noticeable feature of the spot is the number of blanched bones of horses which lie scattered about. A short distance from the pits--which are rather rounded, and follow the outline of the hills in shape--and in a slight hollow below them, are more bones of horses. This is where the wounded were taken, and the hospital established, and the horses kept. From the wavy summit line of the bluffs, the ground slopes in an irregular broken way back to the northeast and east, into a coulee that forms the passage to the ford which Custer aimed for and never reached. The ground about the battle-field is now a national cemetery. It is enclosed by a wire fence, and there are several hundred acres of it. It might be cared for in a manner somewhat better than it is. During one of my visits there, a Crow Indian rode up to the gate and deliberately turned his herd of horses into the inclosure to graze.
"As I rode into the grounds, after fording and recrossing the river where Custer failed, the first object to greet my sight was a small inclosure, with large mound and headstone, which marked the spot where Lieutenant Crittenden fell. At one corner, and outside of it, stood the regulation marble slab which marks the place where each body on the field was found. This one stated that there Lieutenant Calhoun was killed. At numbers of places down the western slope, but near the ravines, the surface is dotted with the little gravestones. In some places, far down the descent, and far from where Custer, Van Reilly, Tom Custer and others fell, they are seen singly; in other spots three or four, or half a dozen. At one point there are over thirty, well massed together. Down in this part of the field, in the ravine running towards the monument, is the stone marking where Dr. Lord's body was found, and with it are four others.
"In the shallow coulee east of the ridge, and almost at the bottom of the slope, some distance northwest of where Calhoun and Crittenden were killed, and on the main ridge slope of it, is a large group of stones. Here is where Captain Miles Keogh and thirty-eight men gave up their lives. On this side of the ridge--the eastern side--between where Keogh and his men died and where Custer fell, there are numerous stones. On the opposite side of the Custer ridge--that which faces the river--and close to its crest, there are very few stones, and those are much scattered, and not in groups. At the northern extremity of the ridge is a slight elevation which overtops everything else, and slopes away in all directions, save where the ridge lies. Just below this knoll, or hillock--Custer Hill--facing southwest, is where Custer and the larger part of his men fell."
On the right bank of the Missouri River--the Big Muddy--in North Dakota, almost within rifle shot of the town of Mandan, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, there existed in the '70s a military post named after the nation's great martyr President, Fort Abraham Lincoln. On the morning of the 17th of June, 1876, there went forth from here among others, with the pomp and ceremony for which they were distinguished, a cavalry regiment famed in the army for dash, bravery and endurance--the noted Seventh Cavalry.