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

assignment by abandoning his position at Weir Peak too soon and how he (Benteen) was the one who told Godfrey to cover the battalion’s retreat, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 208–9. McDougall recounted how he told Benteen he’d “better take charge and run the thing,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 71. Peter Thompson recounted how he climbed up the bluff under heavy fire and joined Reno’s battalion in his Account, pp. 29–31. Kanipe told how he greeted Thompson by asking “[W]here in the devil have you been?” as well as Thompson’s reply, in Hardorff’s On the Little Bighorn, p. 126.
    Edgerly described how he fled from Weir Peak, as well as his promise to the wounded Vincent Charley and how Charley was later found with “a stick rammed down the throat,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, pp. 56–57, and in W. A. Graham, RCI , pp. 162–63. Sergeant Harrison’s account of how he assisted Edgerly in mounting his plunging horse is in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 62; Harrison’s military record is in Nichols’s Men with Custer, p. 143. Wylie also recounted the retreat from Weir Peak, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 130. In contrast to the general lack of bravery and compassion displayed during the incident involving the death of Vincent Charley was an occurrence at the Battle of the Rosebud the week before when the Cheyenne warrior Comes in Sight tumbled from his horse in the midst of the fighting. Before he could be killed by the enemy, his sister Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who’d been watching from the sidelines, bravely rode to his rescue and carried him to safety. As a consequence, the Cheyenne called the battle “Where the Girl Saved Her Brother,” in Stands in Timber’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 189.
    Benteen told how Wallace and his handful of men became the “nucleus” of the entrenchment in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin, in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, pp. 208–9, and in his narrative in the same volume, pp. 171–72. My account of how Godfrey covered the battalion’s retreat is based on his Field Diary, pp. 13–14, on “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 143, and on “Cavalry Fire Discipline,” pp. 252–59. Young Hawk’s account of his actions during the retreat to the entrenchment is in Libby, pp. 100–103. Godfrey recounted how he gradually came to realize his overzealous actions on the firing line were “endangering others” in his Field Diary, edited by Stewart, p. 14. In a Mar. 19, 1896, letter to Goldin, Benteen claimed Godfrey “is rather an obtuse fellow, and like the traditional Englishman, it takes him a good while to see the nub of a joke,” in John Carroll, Benteen-Goldin Letters, p. 289. Hanley’s account of how he retrieved the mule Barnum is in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 127. Private John McGuire told Camp that he had assisted Hanley in the capture of the mule and that when Hanley received his Medal of Honor, he confided, “McGuire, you deserve a medal as much as I do, if not more, for you were wounded and I was not,” in a footnote in Hardorff’s Camp, Custer, p. 82. Ryan told how he and French and some others finally killed the Indian sharpshooter, in Barnard’s Ten Years with Custer , p. 298; according to Ryan, French “cut a notch in the stock” of his rifle every time he killed an Indian. Varnum told of the “one ring of smoke” coming from the surrounding warriors and how the warriors “would sit back on their horses” during a charge, in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 57. McDougall described the hills as being “black with Indians looking on,” in Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 71. Slaper’s account of how French sat tailor-style “while bullets were coming from front and both sides” is in Brininstool, p. 55. William Taylor claimed it was his idea to build the barricades in With Custer, pp. 51–52. Benteen testified that after firing ceased on the night of June 25, Reno “was up on the hill where my company was stationed . . . and recommended that I build breastworks. I was pretty tired, and I had an idea that there wasn’t much necessity for building breastworks; I had an idea that the Indians would leave us [italics in original newspaper story],” in Utley’s Reno Court of Inquiry, p. 324. In his defense, Benteen claimed that he “sent down for spades to carry out his instructions, and could get none”; the lack of proper tools did not prevent the other companies from digging pits with their