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

“Anxiety in a horse can spread like a virus,” p. 11; he continues, “Those who have not experienced a horse urgently going somewhere are unaware of their real physical capacity. . . . A runaway is far more dangerous than a downright bucking bronc as he becomes intoxicated by his speed and his adrenaline is transformed to rocket fuel,” p. 13. Rutten told Camp about how his horse started to act up “as soon as he smelled Indians . . . and he could not control him. The only thing he could do was to continually circle him around the three troops,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 118. John Henley recounted his similar experiences during the Yellowstone campaign, in Liddic and Harbaugh’s Camp on Custer, p. 48. Reno claimed that the dust on the trail they were following was “four to six inches deep,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 213. Varnum described seeing the Indians in the distance up ahead, “apparently trying to kick up all the dust they could,” in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 46. DeRudio described “the immense dense dust” and added that “we could see the shadows of Indians in that dust,” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 149. Custer’s claim that it would take “another Phil Kearny massacre” to convince Congress to properly fund the military is in Henry Carrington’s Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka, Land of Massacre, p. v. On Crazy Horse’s role as a decoy at the Kearny massacre, see Bray’s Crazy Horse, pp. 98–100. Private William Morris of M Troop described Captain French as “a fat man, with a falsetto voice,” in Wengert and Davis’s That Fatal Day, p. 25. Slaper’s description of French as being “cool as a cucumber” is in Brininstool, p. 53.
    French’s letter in which he wrote “I thought we were to charge headlong through them all” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 337. Jay Smith in “A Hundred Years Later” cites the statistic that between 1868 and 1878, there were nineteen attacks on Indian villages, with the only unsuccessful charge occurring at the LBH, p. 105. Concerning Custer’s decision to attack, Camp wrote: “[V ]illages of 100–200 lodges had been ‘jumped’ before and since. . . . [A]n attack on a village of 1500 with a force of less than 500 men should be regarded as something of an experiment,” in Hardorff, On the Little Bighorn, p. 213. As asserted by Gregory Michno, who compiled 216 instances during which the American military came upon an Indian village in Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, Custer’s decision to attack the Indian village without reconnaissance was perfectly in keeping with common practice at the time: “That was the whole point of the pursuit: find the Indians and attack. No commander . . . would expend time and energy to track Indians only to call it off at the crisis point, even with unfavorable odds,” p. 356. Regarding the dynamics of a cavalry charge, General A. B. Nettleton wrote, “[I]n campaigning with cavalry, when a certain work must be done, audacity is the truest caution,” in July 29, 1876, Army and Navy Journal . Sheridan’s claim that the defeat at the LBH was due to Custer’s “superabundance of courage” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 117. According to Pink Simms, if Reno had charged instead of thrown out a skirmish line, “a mounted charge would have temporarily demoralized the hostiles and the two commands would have joined. It is idle to think that they could have defeated them, but a united command, by employing defensive tactics could have survived. No doubt they would have suffered heavy casualties,” box 111, folder 1, Camp Papers, BYU.
    An officer is not supposed to let his personal feelings influence how he responds to a superior’s orders. But as later became obvious to a newspaper reporter who attended the monthlong RCI, such was not the case at the LBH. “It will be found,” the reporter wrote, “to be a general rule in human nature that where one man dislikes another, the dislike sways his judgment, without reference to the justice of the conclusion. Hence it is rather an unavoidable inference that Reno did not like Custer . . . ; and that, influenced by his feelings, he only half carried out Custer’s orders in attacking the Indians,” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 466; much the same could be said for Benteen’s subsequent conduct. Dr. Porter testified as to Reno’s strange behavior at the ford, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 62. Godfrey in “Custer’s Last Battle” quotes Reno’s