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

bullet at the group of Indians surrounding Lieutenant McIntosh, probably about a mile away. “The Indians immediately scattered, and the bullet probably struck close to them,” he reported to Camp, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 76. Godfrey recorded Moylan’s claim that Custer had made “the biggest mistake of his life” by dividing the regiment in “Custer’s Last Battle,” W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 141. Sergeant Culbertson overheard Weir ask Moylan whether “Custer gave him any particular orders” when he had served as adjutant, in W. A. Graham , RCI, p. 127. In the years after the battle, Benteen attempted to rationalize his conduct once he’d rejoined Reno’s battalion. “After getting with Reno,” he wrote to Goldin in a Feb. 10, 1896, letter, “not that I didn’t feel free to act in opposition to Reno’s wishes, and did so act, but then, what more could be done than we did do? Like ostriches, we might have stuck our necks in the sand, only that Custer had galloped away from his reinforcements, and so lost himself,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 246; of course, if Weir had not, in Benteen’s words, “exhibited a very insubordinate spirit,” Benteen and Reno would most likely have remained on the bluff, much like the proverbial ostrich, also in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 217.
    Davern testified that he told Weir that Custer must be fighting the Indians “down in the bottom,” in W. A. Graham , RCI, p. 121. John Fox of D Company recounted the conversation between Weir and Reno and how Moylan and Benteen tried to dissuade Weir from going toward Custer, in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 94. Edgerly recounted how he ended up following Weir with the entire troop, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 55–56. Although some accounts have Benteen heading north before the arrival of the pack train, Captain McDougall saw Benteen and Reno talking when he first arrived: “[A]ll was quiet with Reno and Benteen’s men and one would not have imagined that a battle had been fought. [I]f the Indians had appeared suddenly . . . and attacked they could have annihilated the whole 7 cos.,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 70. Mathey told of how Reno greeted the pack train with a raised bottle of whiskey and said, “I got half bottle yet,” in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 43. McDougall spoke of how Reno “did not appear to regard the seriousness of the situation” and how he (McDougall) said, “I think we ought to be down there with [Custer],” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 70. Benteen recounted how Reno had “his trumpeter sound the ‘Halt’ continuously and assiduously,” in his narrative, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 186.
    Herendeen described how he led his group of frightened troopers to safety, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 225. George Wylie told how Sergeant Flanagan pointed out to Weir that what he thought were troopers were really Native warriors, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 129. Private Edward Pigford described the approaching warriors as being “thick as grasshoppers”; he also claimed to have seen the last stages of Custer’s battle: “[T]he Indians were firing from a big circle, but gradually closed until they seemed to converge into a large black mass on the side hill toward the river and all along the ridge,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 143. Edgerly remembered how Weir “standing on high point signaled that Indians were coming and he [Edgerly] therefore turned back and circled over to left and crossed his track and swung . . . ahead to high ground in front of Weir. . . . French’s troop came up next . . . Godfrey, then Benteen,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 56. Gibson heard Benteen say that Weir Peak was “a hell of a place to fight Indians,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 81. Benteen recorded his impression that the regiment “had bitten off quite as much as we would be able to well chew,” in a Mar. 1, 1892, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 215. Hare said Benteen and Reno conferred “a half mile to the rear of Company D,” and that Benteen said they must fall back, since Weir Peak was a “poor place for defense,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 67. Benteen described his activities at Weir Peak and during the retreat back to Reno Hill in in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 171–72, and in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin, in which he described how French “flunked” his