The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn

Custer Papers, NA. Custer told of how he spent the night writing his article for Galaxy magazine in a June 9, 1876, letter to Libbie in Boots and Saddles, p. 270. Edgerly wrote of Custer’s dinner of bread drenched in syrup in an Oct. 10, 1877, letter to Libbie in Merington, p. 302. Terry described his wet return to the Powder River encampment in his Diary, p. 21. Godfrey wrote of how the officers speculated about why Custer was not given the scout in his Field Diary, edited by Stewart, p. 6. Kellogg claimed that Custer had declined the scout in an article in the June 21, 1876, New York Herald . Godfrey described the difficulties of training the pack mules in his diary, Stewart, p. 5. My description of the Gatling gun is based largely on Julia Keller’s Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, pp. 173–206.
    The scouts’ description of Reno as “the man with the dark face” is in Libby, p. 73. Benteen describes his confrontation with Reno in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin in John Carroll’s Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 209. My descriptions of Reno’s service on the munitions board and his actions upon learning of his wife’s death, as well as his run-in with Thomas Weir, are based primarily on Ronald Nichols’s In Custer’s Shadow, pp. 116–20, 133–35, 136, 148. Custer told of how Terry requested that he lead the column to the Yellowstone in a June 11, 1876, letter to Libbie in Merington, p. 302. The engineer Edward Maguire calculated that the column had covered a total of 318.5 miles, averaging 15.9 miles per day, in John Carroll’s General Custer . . . The Federal View, p. 42. Hanson describes how the appearance of the column transformed the once-placid banks of the Yellowstone, p. 245. In a June 21, 1876, article in the New York Herald, Kellogg wrote about the temporary trading post at the Powder River encampment; the Arikara scouts also described the post, in Libby, pp. 71–72; the scouts also recounted how the interpreter Fred Gerard told them they could each have a single drink of whiskey, Libby, p. 207, and how much they enjoyed the playing of the regimental band, Libby, p. 73.
    John Gray quotes Terry’s Feb. 21, 1876, letter to Sheridan in Centennial Campaign , p. 40. Custer’s June 12, 1876, letter to Libbie describing how the dogs slept with him in his tent is in Boots and Saddles, p. 271. Dr. Paulding’s remarks concerning Gibbon’s lack of initiative are in “A Surgeon at the Little Big Horn: The Letters of Dr. Holmes O. Paulding,” edited by Thomas Buecker, p. 139. Benteen’s June 12–13, 1876, letter to his wife, Frabbie, describing the languid scene inside his tent along the Yellowstone is in Camp Talk, edited by John Carroll, p. 14; along with Custer, Benteen feared that Reno’s scout might unnecessarily “precipitate things” and ruin an otherwise excellent opportunity to attack the Indians. Reno’s note to Terry in which he says he can tell him “where the Indians are not ” is quoted in Gray’s Centennial Campaign, p. 136.
    On the Crows’ decision to align themselves with the American government, see Frederick Hoxie’s Parading Through History, pp. 60–125, as well as Jonathan Lear’s provocative Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation . John Gray writes extensively of Mitch Boyer’s background in Custer’s Last Campaign, pp. 3–123; he also cites Boyer’s comments about how the Lakota “can’t get even now,” p. 396. My thanks to Neal Smith for identifying the binds on Boyer’s headgear as blue jays, specifically Steller’s jays. On Reno’s scout, see James Willert’s Little Big Horn Diary, pp. 130–31, and Gray’s Custer’s Last Campaign, p. 132. Terry described his strategy prior to the Reno scout in a June 12, 1876, letter: “a double movement, one part of the force going up the Tongue to near its head waters then crossing to the head waters of the Rosebud, & descending that stream; the other portion joining Gibbon’s troops & proceeding up the last named river,” Terry Letters, p. 19. On Reno’s previous experience fighting Indians, see Nichols, In Custer’s Shadow, p. 37.
    Mark Kellogg wrote of his voyage down the Yellowstone on the Far West in the June 21, 1876, New York Herald . For a useful biography of Kellogg, see Sandy Barnard’s I Go with Custer. Custer wrote to Libbie about the drowning of Sergeant Fox and the temporary loss of the letter bag in a June 17, 1876, letter in Boots and Saddles, p. 273. See also Willert’s