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

Thompson’s account that he cites his description of Custer along the river to corroborate the fact that Custer was not wearing his buckskin coat and was in his blue shirt; see note in Cheyenne Memories, p. 57. In Lakota Recollections, Hardorff states: “Although Thompson embellished considerably on his recollections, the essence of this observation does not involve a self-serving matter,” p. 68.
    John Gray in Custer’s Last Campaign claimed that the movement of the Left Wing down Medicine Tail Coulee was a “ feint or threat, for even a semblance of an attack on the Indian women and children should draw the warriors from Reno’s endangered battalion, allowing it to regroup in safety; it might then join Benteen and/or the packtrain and provide backup for a stronger Custer attack. . . . Custer was trying to buy time that would enable his full regiment to deliver a decisive attack,” pp. 360–61. Richard Fox claimed the move down Medicine Tail Coulee was “to gather intelligence,” since “Custer had early on anticipated that Benteen’s assistance would be necessary” before he could attack the village, in Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, p. 314. According to the Oglala He Dog, “There was no fighting while Custer down near river but a few shots down there. No general fighting; fifteen or twenty Sioux on east side of river, and some soldiers replied, but not much shooting there. Did not hear Custer fire any volleys,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 207. Curley claimed that as Custer made his way down Medicine Tail Coulee, he “had all the bugles blowing for some time,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 172. The Cheyenne warrior Yellow Nose also commented on hearing music, in “Yellow Nose Tells of Custer’s Last Stand,” p. 40. According to Camp, “Custer no sooner came to the ford than he became aware that the main strength of the enemy were crossing the river at the north end of the village, making it necessary to attack in that direction. He may therefore have made no great effort to cross at the ford, or changed his mind, which would explain so few traces of battle there,” in Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 212; on the reasons behind Custer’s delay, see also pp. 222–23.
    As to the likelihood of Custer lighting out on his own as the majority of his column waited, either on the bluff or at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee, Varnum had an interesting response to Camp’s claim that Custer’s battalion had waited as many as forty-five minutes on the bluffs before engaging the enemy. “Anyone who knew George A. Custer,” Varnum wrote, “would find it hard to believe that he could keep still for five minutes under the circumstances.” If Thompson saw what he claimed to have seen, Custer was acting just as Varnum said he would: While the others waited, he dashed up and down the river on his Thoroughbred in search of essential information about the village and Reno’s activities. As relayed by his daughter Susan Taylor, Thompson claimed, “Everyone was used to Custer’s unpredictable actions and thought nothing of it,” in Susan Taylor MS, p. 278. Frank Anders wrote of the battle veteran William Taylor’s lament: “He says that after hearing all the stories he doubts that he was there and only dreamed that he was there,” in Anders’s Nov. 4, 1940, letter to W. A. Falconer, Anders Collection, North Dakota State Archives. When working on the final 1914 version of his Account, Thompson spoke about how he relied on his original notes and earlier narratives to help him sort out his often confused memories of the battle: “[H]e had lived and relived this past so many times in his head,” Susan Taylor wrote, “that he was not sure just how it really went. . . . He followed his original MS pretty well as he said it was fresher in his mind when he wrote it but that so many conflicting stories came out later that did not fit his memories,” in Susan Taylor MS, p. 314. As Susan Taylor points out, Thompson’s description of Custer’s forward-leaning riding posture is a telling detail; in a footnote in the Susan Taylor MS, she writes, “The cavalrymen rode leaning forward because of the long stirrups in use those days. He actually stood on the balls of his feet when the horse was trotting to keep from being harshly jarred. With those long stirrups, it was impossible for a rider to post when he rode . . . [i.e.,] flexing of the knees like a set of springs. Shorter