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

Harmon’s Archeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn; Scott, P. Willey, and Melissa A. Connor’s They Died with Custer; and Fox’s Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle , pp. 63–131. Two Moons described the firing as “pop—pop—pop” in Hardorff’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 102. Curley compared the sound of gunfire to “the snapping of threads in the tearing of a blanket” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 11. Red Hawk’s account of the skirmish line at Calhoun Hill is in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections , p. 43. Moylan testified about the shells he found on Calhoun Hill in W. A. Graham, RCI, p. 76. Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard provide an excellent account of the attack on Calhoun Hill in Where Custer Fell, pp. 95–97. On the devastating effect of “high trajectory arrow fire,” see Jay Smith’s “A Hundred Years Later,” p. 141. Moving Robe Woman told of seeing a horse holder with as many as ten horses in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 95. Gall’s account of attacking the horse holders is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, pp. 89–92. Gall told F. E. Server about his discovery of the horses in Horse Holders’ Ravine; Server told Eli Ricker, “The horses were huddled together in this safety-spot, the only one on the now circumscribed field. They must have been packed in like livestock on shipboard,” in Ricker’s Voices of the American West, vol. 2, p. 144. Low Dog told how the plunging horses made it difficult for the soldiers to shoot effectively, in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 65. He Dog told of how Crazy Horse “broke through . . . a sort of gap in the ridge,” in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 75. See also Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard’s account of the incident in Where Custer Fell, p. 104. Waterman’s claim that Crazy Horse was “the bravest man I ever saw,” is in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 110. Stands in Timber detailed the activities of the Suicide Boys in Cheyenne Memories, pp. 292–93. Moving Robe Woman told of the darkness of the smoke and the flash of guns, in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 95. Crow King told of the war cry “Hi-Yi-Yi” (“a high, prolonged tone,” according to the interpreter) in Hardorff, Indian Views , p. 69. Red Hawk recounted how the soldiers were “swept off their feet. . . . [T]he Indians were overwhelming,” in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections , p. 44. Gall claimed that “Calhoun’s men died fighting as skirmishers,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 91. Varnum remembered that Calhoun was identified by the fillings in his teeth, in Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, II , p. 15. Hugh Scott learned that an “Indian had shot an arrow in Crittenden’s eye and had broken it,” in Hardorff’s The Custer Battle Casualties, p. 104. Brust, Pohanka, and Barnard write that the positions of the bodies on Calhoun Hill indicate that the “two platoons had been fighting back to back,” in Where Custer Fell, p. 95. Gall recalled that Keogh’s men “were all killed in a bunch,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 91. On Keogh’s Agnus Dei, see “Captain Keogh’s Medals,” in Myles Keogh, edited by John Langellier, Kurt Cox, and Brian Pohanka, p. 162. Godfrey wrote that “in life [Keogh] wore a Catholic medal suspended from his neck; it was not removed,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 345.
    Two Moons described how “[T]he whole valley was filled with smoke and the bullets flew about us, making a noise like bees,” in Joseph Dixon’s The Vanishing Race , p. 183. That White Shield wore a stuffed kingfisher on his head during the battle is in Hardorff’s Cheyenne Memories, p. 50, and that Standing Bear wore a skinned redbird and “vowed that I would make an offering if this bird should help me” is in DeMallie’s The Sixth Grandfather, p. 188. Iron Hawk told of how after being fired on by the soldiers, a Cheyenne warrior with a “hairy belt around his waist” shook out the slugs the belt had magically collected, in DeMallie, p. 189. Gall spoke of the Great Spirit on “a coal black pony,” in W. A. Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 91. Red Horse told of how the soldiers threw down their guns and raised their hands, in Hardorff’s Indian Views, p. 75. Iron Hawk remembered seeing the soldiers firing “wildly in every way,” in Hardorff’s Lakota Recollections, p. 66. Shoots Walking, who was just sixteen during the battle, told of shooting two soldiers who