list of soldiers killed at little bighorn

Colonel Commanding in Field, Hdqtrs. Hoxie, Frederick E.: Parading Through History. Adobe installed on your computer, you can download it for free directly from [229] Writer Evan S. Connell noted in Son of the Morning Star:[230]. "[106]:194, The scattered Sioux and Cheyenne feasted and celebrated during July with no threat from soldiers. The men were buried where they fell in shallow graves, marked with wooden tipi poles . "[167], The Lakota and Cheyenne warriors that opposed Custer's forces possessed a wide array of weaponry, from war clubs and lances to the most advanced firearms of the day. Left to right: Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, White Man Runs Him, Curtis and Alexander B. Upshaw (Curtis's assistant and Crow interpreter). The U.S. 7th Cavalry, a force of 700 men, suffered a major defeat while commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (a brevetted major general during the American Civil War). Widely known as an expert on military archaeology, he is the author or co-author of numerous publications, including They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Uncovering History: Archaeological Investigations at the Little Bighorn, and Custer, Cody . "[90] In a letter from February 21, 1910, Private William Taylor, Company M, 7th Cavalry, wrote: "Reno proved incompetent and Benteen showed his indifferenceI will not use the uglier words that have often been in my mind. Under . Reno and Benteen's wounded troops were given what treatment was available at that time; five later died of their wounds. According to this theory, by the time Custer realized he was badly outnumbered, it was too late to retreat to the south where Reno and Benteen could have provided assistance. Two Moons, a Northern Cheyenne leader, interceded to save their lives.[113]. The number of cartridges indicated that about 20 warriors at this position were using Henry repeating rifles. In November 1868, while stationed in Kansas, the 7th Cavalry under Custer had routed Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita River in the Battle of Washita River, an attack which was at the time labeled a "massacre of innocent Indians" by the Indian Bureau. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was the subject of an 1879 U.S. Army Court of Inquiry in Chicago, held at Reno's request, during which his conduct was scrutinized. If they dida thing I firmly believethey were tortured and killed the night of the 25th. About 60% of these recruits were American, the rest were European immigrants (Most were Irish and German)just as many of the veteran troopers had been before their enlistments. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. This c. 1895-1899 portrait of A-ca-po-re, a Ute musician, by Charles A. Nast has been misidentified as Mitch Bouyer for nearly 100 years. Reno's Arikara scout, Bloody Knife, was shot in the head, splattering brains and blood onto Reno's face. ", Donovan, 2008, p. 191: "[Each] trooper carried 100 rounds of carbine ammunition and 24 pistol cartridges with himas many as 50 on a belt or in a pouch, and the remainder in his saddlebag (the pack train mules carried 26,000 more carbine rounds [approximately 50 extra per trooper]).". To the right of Custer Hill is Wooden Leg Hill, named for a surviving warrior. It is also where some Indians who had been following the command were seen and Custer assumed he had been discovered. It is where Custer gave Reno his final orders to attack the village ahead. Several days after the battle, Curley, Custer's Crow scout who had left Custer near Medicine Tail Coulee (a drainage which led to the river), recounted the battle, reporting that Custer had attacked the village after attempting to cross the river. list of soldiers killed at little bighorn switching from zoloft to st john's wort. Hatch, 1997, p. 124: "On a final note: the Springfield carbine remained the official cavalry firearm until the early 1890s". [65] The detachments were later reinforced by McDougall's Company B and the pack train. Some historians believe that part of Custer's force descended the coulee, going west to the river and attempting unsuccessfully to cross into the village. Custer National Cemetery is located at Interstate 90 Frontage Rd, Crow Agency, MT 59022. [187], Two hundred or more Lakota and Cheyenne combatants are known to have been armed with Henry, Winchester, or similar lever-action repeating rifles at the battle. Col. George A. Custer and Northern Plains Indians (Lakota [Teton or Western Sioux] and Northern Cheyenne) led by Sitting Bull. [107] Both Crook and Terry remained immobile for seven weeks after the battle, awaiting reinforcements and unwilling to venture out against the Sioux and Cheyenne until they had at least 2,000 men. Donovan, 2008, p. 175: "Each of these heavy, hand-cranked weapons could fire up to 350 rounds a minute, an impressive rate, but they were known to jam frequently. George Custer, in the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer's Last Stand). For instance, he refused to use a battery of Gatling guns and turned down General Terry's offer of an additional battalion of the 2nd Cavalry. Although recruiting records are not entirely accurate there were around 136 Irish-born soldiers in the 7th Cavalry at this time, of whom 102 travelled with Custer and fought at the Little Big Horn. Grant Marsh,", "Grant Marsh Tells of his Part in the Custer Expedition,", Sklenar, 2000, p. 68: Terry's column out of Fort Abraham Lincoln included "artillery (two Rodman and two Gatling guns)". Reported words of Lieutenant Colonel Custer at the battle's outset.[74]. "[196][197][198], Gallear points out that lever-action rifles, after a burst of rapid discharge, still required a reloading interlude that lowered their overall rate of fire; Springfield breechloaders "in the long run, had a higher rate of fire, which was sustainable throughout a battle. Hatch, 1997, p. 124: "Both sides [troopers and Indians] apparently believed that some weapons malfunctioned. Of the 45 officers and 718 troopers then assigned to the 7th Cavalry (including a second lieutenant detached from the 20th Infantry and serving in Company L), 14 officers (including the regimental commander) and 152 troopers did not accompany the 7th during the campaign. [citation needed] Custer's Crow scouts told him it was the largest native village they had ever seen. On the Indian side, Horn Chips said Crazy Horse told him that five of the Seventh Cavalry's Ree scouts were killed by the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Robinson, 1995, p. xxviii: "the Model 1873 Springfield rifle, in caliber .45-70 for the infantry, and .45-55 light carbine for cavalry. Hatch, 1997, p. 124: "Scholars have for years debated the issue of whether or not the Model 1873 Springfield carbine carried by cavalrymen, malfunctioned during the battle and [whether this] was one reason for the defeat" and "No definitive conclusion can be drawn [as to] the possible malfunction as being a significant cause of Custer's defeat. Gallear, 2001: "In 1872 the Army tested a number of foreign and domestic single-shot breechloaders". The regiment, reorganized into eight companies, remained in the field as part of the Terry Expedition, now based on the Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Bighorn and reinforced by Gibbon's column. Word of Custer's fate reached the 44th United States Congress as a conference committee was attempting to reconcile opposing appropriations bills approved by the House and the Republican Senate. Gallear, 2001: "The Indians were well equipped with hand-to-hand weapons and these included lances, tomahawks, war clubs, knives and war shields were carried for defense. Col. Frederick Benteen 7th Cavalry: Lt. James Calhoun Seventh Cavalry, in uniform. Calhoun was killed at Little Big Horn, 1876. Reports of an attempted fording of the river at Medicine Tail Coulee might explain Custer's purpose for Reno's attack, that is, a coordinated "hammer-and-anvil" maneuver, with Reno's holding the Indians at bay at the southern end of the camp, while Custer drove them against Reno's line from the north. They blamed the defeat on the Indians' alleged possession of numerous repeating rifles and the overwhelming numerical superiority of the warriors. [232], Photo taken in 1894 by H.R. HomeJoinFriendsPointClickGiveGuestbook. On June 28, 1876, three days after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, survivors of the 7 th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Major Marcus A. Reno began the painful task of burying Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's command. [190], Historian Michael L. Lawson offers a scenario based on archaeological collections at the "Henryville" site, which yielded plentiful Henry rifle cartridge casings from approximately 20 individual guns. [93], Under threat of attack, the first U.S. soldiers on the battlefield three days later hurriedly buried the troopers in shallow graves, more or less where they had fallen. Sitting Bull's village was multi-tribal, consisted of "a thousand tipis [that] were assembled in six horseshoe-shaped semicircles", had a population of approx. Charles Windolph, Frazier Hunt, Robert Hunt, Neil Mangum. Custer's Last Stand, 1876, Dead and Wounded This file contains a list of casualties at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, also referred to as the Custer Massacre, as reported in the Bismarck (Dakota Territory) "Tribune", dated 6 July 1876. and p. 175: "Reno had taken [a Gatling gun] on his [June reconnaissance mission], and it had been nothing but trouble. Warriors could have been drawn to the feint attack, forcing the battalion back towards the heights, up the north fork drainage, away from the troops providing cover fire above. ", Donovan, 2008, p. 191: "The Springfield had won out over many other American and foreign rifles, some of them repeaters, after extensive testing supervised by an army board that had included Marcus Reno and Alfred Terry.". Survivors of the assaults fled north to seek safety with Keogh's Company I they could react quickly enough to prevent the disintegration of their own unit. First, he went over the ground covered by the troops with the three Crow scouts White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, and Hairy Moccasin, and then again with Two Moons and a party of Cheyenne warriors. DeRudio testified that 'the men had to take their knives to extract cartridges after firing 6 to 10 rounds.' Indian accounts describe warriors (including women) running up from the village to wave blankets in order to scare off the soldiers' horses. Comanche eventually was returned to the fort and became the regimental mascot. The 1991 bill changing the name of the national monument also authorized an Indian Memorial to be built near Last Stand Hill in honor of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. In Custer's book My Life on the Plains, published two years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he asserted: Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.[52]. Ahead of those 5 or 6 [dead] horses there were 5 or 6 men at about the same distances, showing that the horses were killed and the riders jumped off and were all heading to get where General Custer was. They include): Bvt. In 1967, Major Marcus Reno was re-interred in the cemetery with honors, including an eleven-gun salute. Gen. Alfred Terry's column, including twelve companies (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, and M) of the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's immediate command,[29] Companies C and G of the 17th Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry departed westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory on May 17. Two men from the 7th Cavalry, the young Crow scout Ashishishe (known in English as Curley) and the trooper Peter Thompson, claimed to have seen Custer engage the Indians. Rifle volleys were a standard way of telling supporting units to come to another unit's aid. The warriors gave chase, and the men were forced to split up. You'll find name, company, rank and if they were in the battle or not, along with other information. [70] Custer's body was found near the top of Custer Hill, which also came to be known as "Last Stand Hill". Read a brief summary of this topic. Winkler, A. [54] Such was their concern that an apparent reconnaissance by Capt. When he and his scouts first looked down on the village from the Crow's Nest across the Little Bighorn River, they could see only the herd of ponies. [65] Behind them he saw through the dust and smoke hills that were oddly red in color; he later learned that this was a massive assemblage of Indian ponies. On the morning of June 25, Custer divided his 12 companies into three battalions in anticipation of the forthcoming engagement. Miles wrote in 1877, "The more I study the moves here [on the Little Big Horn], the more I have admiration for Custer. Stands In Timber, John and Margot Liberty (1972): Calloway, Colin G.: "The Inter-tribal Balance of Power on the Great Plains, 17601850". We'll finish them up and then go home to our station. [155][156][157][158] In addition to these practical concerns, a strained relationship with Major James Brisbin induced Custer's polite refusal to integrate Brisbin's Second Cavalry unitand the Gatling gunsinto his strike force, as it would disrupt any hierarchical arrangements that Custer presided over. It took place on June 2526, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. As Reno's men fired into the village and killed, by some accounts, several wives and children of the Sioux leader, Chief Gall (in Lakota, Phiz), the mounted warriors began streaming out to meet the attack. [118] Indian accounts also noted the bravery of soldiers who fought to the death. 18761881. His rapid march en route to the Little Bighorn averaged nearly 30 miles (48km) a day, so his assessment appears to have been accurate. In the end, the army won the Sioux war. Comanche lived on another fifteen years. [64] He made no attempt to engage the Indians to prevent them from picking off men in the rear. The guns were drawn by four condemned horses [and] obstacles in the terrain [would] require their unhitching and assistance of soldier to continueTerry's own battery [of Gatling guns]the one he had offered to Custer[would have] a difficult time keeping up with the march of Colonel John Gibbon's infantry. [67] The great majority of the Indian casualties were probably suffered during this closing segment of the battle, as the soldiers and Indians on Calhoun Ridge were more widely separated and traded fire at greater distances for most of their portion of the battle than did the soldiers and Indians on Custer Hill. The day before, he noted that Native Americans had killed a buffalo and "had a pow-wow over it . Later, looking from a hill .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}2+12 miles (4km) away after parting with Reno's command, Custer could observe only women preparing for the day, and young boys taking thousands of horses out to graze south of the village. Three companies were placed under the command of Major Marcus Reno (A, G, and M) and three were placed under the command of Captain Frederick Benteen (H, D, and K). Persistent rain and lack of supplies forced the column to dissolve and return to its varying starting points. Its official nickname is "Garryowen", after the Irish air "Garryowen" that was adopted as its march tune.The regiment participated in some of the largest battles of the Indian Wars, including its famous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where its commander Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was killed. If Gatling guns had made it to the battlefield, they might have allowed Custer enough firepower to allow Custer's companies to survive on Last Stand Hill. ", Lawson, 2008, p. 53: "Many of the officers and most of the civilians brought along their own weapons. open, view, and print these as they were written -- no matter what kind of ", Donovan, 2008, p. 175: "Custer refused Terry's offer of the Gatling gun battery. The committee temporarily lifted the ceiling on the size of the Army by 2,500 on August 15.[122]. Today a list of positively known casualties exists that lists 99 names, attributed and consolidated to 31 identified warriors. [67] By the time troops came to recover the bodies, the Lakota and Cheyenne had already removed most of their own dead from the field. [224][225][226], A modern historian, Albert Winkler, has asserted that there is some evidence to support the case of Private Gustave Korn being a genuine survivor of the battle: "While nearly all of the accounts of men who claimed to be survivors from Custer's column at the Battle of the Little Bighorn are fictitious, Gustave Korn's story is supported by contemporary records." "[199], The breechloader design patent for the Springfield's Erskine S. Allin trapdoor system was owned by the US government and the firearm could be easily adapted for production with existing machinery at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. As an evidence of this I recall the three charred and burned heads we picked up in the village near the scene of the big war dance, when we visited the village with Capt. [85][86], A Brul Sioux warrior stated: "In fact, Hollow Horn Bear believed that the troops were in good order at the start of the fight, and kept their organization even while moving from point to point. var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; This is as good as it can get -- for today, a complete list of the [164][165] Researchers have further questioned the effectiveness of the guns under the tactics that Custer was likely to face with the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Reno advanced rapidly across the open field towards the northwest, his movements masked by the thick belt of trees that ran along the southern banks of the Little Bighorn River. The regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, returned from his detached duty in St. Louis, Missouri. The rapid fire power was intimidating, especially to inexperienced soldiers. [114] Lakota chief Red Horse told Col. W. H. Wood in 1877 that the Native Americans suffered 136 dead and 160 wounded during the battle. One of the regiment's three surgeons had been with Custer's column, while another, Dr. DeWolf, had been killed during Reno's retreat. The regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, was on detached duty as the Superintendent of Mounted Recruiting Service and commander of the Cavalry Depot in St. Louis, Missouri,[34] which left Lieutenant Colonel Custer in command of the regiment. They certainly did not have the ammunition to practice, except whilst hunting buffalo, and this would suggest that the Indians generally followed the same technique of holding their fire until they were at very close range". The 7th Cavalry returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln to reconstitute. [53]:379, The Sioux and Cheyenne fighters were acutely aware of the danger posed by the military engagement of non-combatants and that "even a semblance of an attack on the women and children" would draw the warriors back to the village, according to historian John S. [41], With an impending sense of doom, the Crow scout Half Yellow Face prophetically warned Custer (speaking through the interpreter Mitch Bouyer), "You and I are going home today by a road we do not know. ", Sklenar, 2000, p. 79: After the 7th Cavalry's departure up Rosebud Creek, "even Brisbin would acknowledge that everyone in Gibbon's command understood [that]the Seventh was the primary strike force. their downloads. [45] They advanced a mile, to what is today Weir Ridge or Weir Point. company, rank and if they were in the battle or not, along with other Several contemporary accounts note that Korn's horse bolted in the early stages of the battle, whilst he was serving with Custer's 'I' company, and that he ended up joining Reno's companies making their stand on Reno Hill.[227]. Donovan, 2008, p. 191: "Army appropriations were at an all-time low, and a key factor in the Springfield's favor was its low production cost.". Vegetation varies widely from one area to the next. Writers of both pro- and anti-Custer material over the years have incorporated the theory into their works". Gunpowder of the day is now known as black powder. Its approach was seen by Indians at that end of the village. Sklenar, 2000, p. 163: "the village contained possibly 1,200 lodges, plus several hundred wikiups housing individual warriors. This would be inconsistent with his known right-handedness, but that does not rule out assisted suicide (other native accounts note several soldiers committing suicide near the end of the battle). [54], Some authors and historians, based on archaeological evidence and reviews of native testimony, speculate that Custer attempted to cross the river at a point further north they refer to as Ford D. According to Richard A. For the 1936 film serial, see, Looking in the direction of the Indian village and the deep ravine. Finally, Curtis visited the country of the Arikara and interviewed the scouts of that tribe who had been with Custer's command. He was described as 5'6, light hair, hazel eyes with a light . In this section of our website we're proud to bring you as much material as we can regarding the people involved, from both sides, in the Sioux War of 1876. Credit needs to be given to John Doerner, Chief Historian at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and volunteers Gary and Joy . Thus, Custer unknowingly faced thousands of Indians, including the 800 non-reservation "hostiles". Most of the soldiers killed at Little Bighorn were not properly identified and were buried hastily in shallow graves. [92]:314 Fighting dismounted, the soldiers' skirmish lines were overwhelmed. This webpage provides his eyewitness account of the Battle of Little Big Horn, as told to a New York Times reporter. [6] Widows of soldiers killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn, 25 June 1876, who are known to have remarried While great care has been taken to ensure that the information in all six lists below is correct the author is fully aware that factual, typographical and other errors can slip through even the most stringent vetting process. They lobbied Congress to create a forum to decide their claim and subsequently litigated for 40 years; the United States Supreme Court in the 1980 decision United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians acknowledged[note 6] that the United States had taken the Black Hills without just compensation. The historian James Donovan believed that Custer's dividing his force into four smaller detachments (including the pack train) can be attributed to his inadequate reconnaissance; he also ignored the warnings of his Crow scouts and Charley Reynolds. ", Lawson, 2007, pp. White, Richard: "The Winning of the West: The Expansion of the Western Sioux in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries". [17] The area is first noted in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. I am hoping that some day all of these damned fakirs will die and it will be safe for actual participants in the battle to admit and insist that they were there, without being branded and looked upon as a lot of damned liars. Box 636, Crow Agency, MT 59022, | Home | [213][214] Michael Nunnally, an amateur Custer historian, wrote a booklet describing 30 such accounts. "[note 3][40] Custer's overriding concern was that the Native American group would break up and scatter.

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