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

account of Fox’s drowning in Little Big Horn Diary, pp. 128–29. Benteen also wrote about the incident in a June 14, 1876, letter to his wife, Frabbie, in John Carroll’s Camp Talk, p. 15. Libbie’s letter to Custer in which she says, “All your letters are scorched,” is in Merington, p. 303. John Gray details who was left at the Powder River supply depot in Centennial Campaign, p. 129. In his Field Diary Terry wrote, “Band of 7th to remain at depot,” p. 22. According to James Wilber, “Custer wanted to take the band beyond Powder River, but Terry would not consent to it,” in Custer in ’76, edited by Kenneth Hammer, p. 149. Stanley Hoig in The Battle of the Washita describes how the band’s instruments froze at the onset of the attack, p. 128. According to James Henley, “Custer’s orders to have the band play ‘Garry Owen’ when about to charge [at the Washita] was ever a subject of ridicule in the regiment,” in Camp on Custer, edited by Bruce Liddic and Paul Harbaugh, pp. 36–37.
    According to Godfrey, “No one carried the saber,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 346. On DeRudio’s decision to bring his saber, see Hammer, Custer in ’76 : “DeRudio says he was the only man in the regiment who carried a saber,” p. 87. Kellogg wrote of the abandoned Indian village on the Tongue in the June 21, 1876, New York Herald . Custer’s letter to Libbie about finding the trooper’s charred skull is in Boots and Saddles , p. 274. Red Star described Custer’s examination of the skull in Libby, in which he also recounted Isaiah Dorman’s involvement in the desecration of the Lakota graves, pp. 75–76. Maguire provided a detailed description of the embalmed Lakota warrior, in John Carroll’s General Custer . . . The Federal View, p. 43. Stanislaw Roy told of how the soldiers of McIntosh’s G Company were warned that they “might be sorry” for the desecration in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 111. Boston Custer’s letter detailing the pillage is in Merington, p. 306. Godfrey’s description of the same is in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 129. Peter Thompson related Gerard’s pronouncement that “the vengeance of God . . . had overtaken” the Custer clan for despoiling the Lakota graves, in his Account, p. 46. Custer’s letter to Libbie describing the scene at night around the fire is in Boots and Saddles, p. 274. John Gray describes Reno’s activities along the Rosebud on June 17, 1876, in Centennial Campaign , pp. 133–34. Peter Thompson’s description of how the Indians’ travois tore up the ground is in his Account, p. 8. In a June 21, 1876, letter to Libbie, Custer wrote, “The scouts reported that they could have overtaken the village in one day and a half,” in Boots and Saddles, pp. 274–75. Forked Horn’s words of warning to Reno are in Libby, p. 70.

Chapter 6: The Blue Pencil Line
    George Bird Grinnell details Little Hawk’s scout up the Rosebud in The Fighting Cheyennes, pp. 282–84; he writes of Little Hawk’s reputation as a practical joker in The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life, p. 124. On the movements of Sitting Bull’s village, see John Gray’s Centennial Campaign, p. 327. Wooden Leg told of how the heralds warned “young men, leave the soldiers alone” in Marquis, Wooden Leg, pp. 198–99. Grinnell wrote of how Little Hawk and his scouts “howl like wolves, to notify the people that something had been seen,” in The Fighting Cheyennes, p. 284. White Bull spoke of how approximately a thousand young warriors slipped away at night for the Rosebud and how Sitting Bull was with him at the beginning of the battle, box 105, notebook 24, WCC.
    In writing about Crook and the Battle of the Rosebud, I have consulted John Finerty’s War-Path and Bivouac; John Bourke’s On the Border with Crook; Crook’s Autobiography, edited by Martin F. Schmitt; Charles King’s Campaigning with Crook; J. W. Vaughn’s With Crook on the Rosebud; Neil Mangum’s Battle of the Rosebud; and Charles Robinson’s General Crook and the Western Frontier . Perry Jamieson writes of Crook’s groundbreaking techniques with the mule train in Crossing the Deadly Ground, pp. 39–40. Crook’s observation “Nothing breaks [the Indians] up like turning their own people against them” appeared in a series of articles published in the Los Angeles Times in 1886; cited by Robert Utley in Frontier Regulars, p. 54. This was the same