Wild West – June 2019

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Custer’s mission had been to force the Indians back to

their reservations. His decision to try to capture the

village explains why his five companies were posi-

tioned to cover one end of the camp, while Reno

with three companies and the Arikara and Crow

scouts moved to flank the camp from the other

end. The failure of that plan—which would have

made sense had the camp been occupied only

by women and children—was exposed by Indian

accounts, including those of Cheyenne war-

rior Wooden Leg to Dr. Thomas Marquis and

of Oglala medicine man Black Elk to John Nei-

hardt, both published only after the officers and

most enlisted survivors had died off. The Lakota and

Northern Cheyenne warriors were not off hunting

buffalo in some distant valley—they were sleeping away

a 100-degree afternoon after an all-night dance. The gunfire

announcing Reno’s initial attack on the Hunkpapa village of

Sitting Bull, Gall and Rain-in-the Face jolted them awake. Though

initially panicked, they rallied to protect the flight of the women

and children by opposing first Reno’s command and then Cus-

ter’s command with all the warriors they could muster. The latter

20th-century archaeological findings of Richard Allan Fox Jr.

and Douglas D. Scott, who unearthed spent slugs and cartridge

cases from both sides of the battle, confirmed the recollections of

Sitting Bull and the Indian testimony transcribed by interviewer

Camp in the early 20th century, as well as accounts by troopers

like William O. Taylor. The Indians had had ample repeating

rifles to shoot the soldiers to pieces.

Foolish Elk—whom Camp considered rather intelligent,

despite his name—sat down with the interviewer in 1908. “No

soldiers, dead or alive, were taken into the village,” Camp re-

called Foolish Elk saying. “I told him that it might be supposed

that some of the soldiers were taken alive and tortured. He then

laughed and said that had I seen the amount of firing that was

done on the battlefield, I would never suppose that any of the

soldiers could come out alive.”

A Minneconjou Sioux named Turtle Rib confirmed for Camp

that he and other Indians had been asleep when the soldiers

struck and took no prisoners during the battle.

“Many [Indians] had Winchesters, but we had all kinds of

guns,” recalled He Dog, an Oglala whom Camp interviewed

in 1910. “The number of Indians killed at Little Bighorn was

between 30 and 40.”

He Dog’s Indian casualty numbers support counts made

by the Minneconjou warrior White Bull (who named 26 dead

warriors), the Hunkpapa warrior Rain-in-the-Face (who esti-

mated 14 or 16 dead Sioux warriors) and the Hunkpapa Chief

Gall (who tallied 43 Indian dead, including his two wives and

three children). “It made my heart bad,” the latter said of having

found his slain family. “After that I killed all my enemies with

the hatchet.” Further pressed by a journalist from the St. Paul

Pioneer Press, Gall denied taking white prisoners into the village.

“We took no prisoners. Our hearts were bad, and we cut

and shot them all to pieces.”

The deaths of Indian women and children cast a

shadow on the morality of the action, and the fact

that nine or 10 soldiers or scouts died for every

warrior killed affirms the Little Bighorn was a

tactical catastrophe. Colonel Sturgis’ attack on

Custer in print assuredly had been swayed by

grief and envy. But a combination of Indian

accounts and archaeology eventually got at

the truth. The Little Bighorn was an attempted

hostage situation that had backfired in the face of

too many repeating rifles.

Wild West special contributor John Koster is the author of

Custer Survivor (2010) and Custer’s Lost Scout (2017).

Suggested reading: Jerusha Wilcox Sturgis’ “Life of Mrs. S.D.

Sturgis” (Sturgis Family Papers, U.S. Military Academy Library).

Jerusha Sturgis

Company C Guidon

A burial party found this 7th Cavalry

flag three days after Custer’s defeat.

Memorialized

Above: Sam Sturgis rides

in namesake Sturgis, S.D.

Right: He and wife Jerusha

are buried in Arlington

National Cemetery.