The Last Days of George Armstrong Custer by Thom Hatch

Author:Thom Hatch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466851979
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Fourteen

Bodies on the Field

It had been at about 9:00 on the morning of June 27 while leading an advance guard of mounted infantry attached to the Montana Column with General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon that First Lieutenant James H. Bradley came upon a horrible sight. Bradley had the dubious distinction of being the man who discovered the more than two hundred bodies of Custer’s command lying where they had fallen on the field. He dispatched a messenger to take word of this tragedy back to the main column.

Bradley then resumed his march looking for additional bodies and happened upon Reno’s command on the hilltop. Those troops who had endured two days pinned down by hostile Indians were relieved and elated to be rescued. They also were informed at this time about the fate of Custer’s command, a shock that certainly dampened their spirits.

The entire outfit moved from the hilltop four miles north to a more defensible position in the valley not far from the abandoned Indian village. They then visited the scene of Custer’s defeat. By that time, the more than two hundred mutilated bodies—along with many horse carcasses—had been decomposing in the summer heat for two days.

First Lieutenant Edward S. Godfrey described the scene as they approached: “We saw a large number of objects that looked like white boulders scattered over the field … and it was announced that these objects were the dead bodies.” He added that “many faces had a pained, almost terrified expression.”

Captain Thomas Weir exclaimed: “Oh, how white they look! How white!”

First Lieutenant Francis M. Gibson sadly said, “It was the most horrible sight my eyes rested on.”

Captain Frederick Benteen looked down at the body of George Armstrong Custer—the man he had enjoyed tormenting and slandering for so many years—and said with emotion: “There he is, God damn him; he will never fight anymore.”

After all of the cavalrymen had been killed, their bodies had suffered further indignities. The Sioux and Cheyenne women, and perhaps a number of children and older men, had descended on the field to mutilate the bodies, quite a few beyond recognition. The extent of the mutilation has been a subject of debate, with many eyewitnesses claiming that there was very little and an equal number taking the opposite view that it was widespread. This disparity of opinion could be explained by the fact that each troop was assigned a different area of the field to bury the dead and certain portions may have received the brunt of the post-death violence.

The acts of mutilation that have been documented include dismemberment of arms, legs, hands, fingers, and penises; decapitation; scalping, lacerations, and slashes from butcher knives, tomahawks, and axes; crushing skulls with stone mallets; and multiple gunshots and arrows fired from close range. The field was said to have been littered with hands, heads, feet, and legs that had been severed.

Those men lying facedown were likely killed by Cheyenne, a tribe that may have believed that it was bad luck to leave an enemy facing the sky.

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