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

any need for silence.

    A s if to insist that the tension of the last few hours had failed to trouble him, Custer was lying casually on the grass as the officers gathered around him. He began by recounting Keogh’s report about the Indians finding the lost hardtack box as well as the two other instances in which Lakota scouts had been seen. He had hoped to postpone the attack till the next morning, “but our discovery,” Godfrey wrote, “made it imperative to act at once, as delay would allow the village to scatter and escape.” The other possibility was that the Indians might choose to attack them. In that case, Custer said, “I would rather attack than be attacked.”
    Custer ended the meeting by ordering each company commander to detail one noncommissioned officer and six men to the pack train. The commanders were also to inspect their troops and report to him as soon as all was ready. “The troops would take their places in the column of march,” he announced, “in the order in which reports of readiness were received.”
    The last officer Custer expected to hear from first was Frederick Benteen. The night before on the Rosebud, Benteen had been so slow getting his boots back on that he hadn’t even made it to officer’s call. But Benteen, who knew that the first troop in the column was the most likely to see action, had a trick up his sleeve. As it so happened, his men were positioned next to where Custer had convened the meeting. He had no more than started back to his company when, after a nod from his second-in-command, Lieutenant Francis Gibson, he about-faced and reported to Custer’s adjutant, Lieutenant Cooke, that H Company was ready.
    Ever since their last night on the Yellowstone, when he had complained about Custer’s lack of support at the Battle of the Washita, Benteen had done his best to antagonize his commander. And now, as the regiment prepared to march into the valley of the Little Bighorn, he’d managed to place himself exactly where Custer did not want him to be.
    Obviously taken aback, Custer stammered, “Colonel Benteen, you have the advance, sir.”

CHAPTER 9

    Into the Valley
    S pirits were high as the regiment prepared to mount up. A soldier in C Company claimed that it would all be over “as soon as we catch Sitting Bull.” Another laughingly responded that Custer would then “take us with him to the Centennial.” “And we will take Sitting Bull with us!” added another.
    There was one company, however, that found little pleasure in the impending attack. Captain Thomas McDougall, the son of a general, had fallen asleep prior to officer’s call and had been the last to report to Adjutant Cooke. As a consequence, McDougall’s B Company was to guard Lieutenant Mathey’s slow-moving pack train and had virtually no chance of sharing in whatever glory lay ahead. McDougall could at least take consolation in knowing that his good friend Frederick Benteen was at the head of the column.
    The newspaper reporter Mark Kellogg rode his mule over to the interpreter Fred Gerard and the Arikara scouts, who were preparing for battle by covering themselves with a paste of saliva and dirt from their home beside the Missouri River. Kellogg asked Gerard if he could borrow his spurs. Kellogg’s mule was beginning to tire and he wanted to keep up with the scouts, since he was “expecting interesting developments.” Gerard, who rode a big black stallion, handed over the spurs even as he advised the reporter to stay back with the command.
    Before moving out, Custer decided it was time to change horses. After two trips up to the Crow’s Nest, Dandy was already lathered in sweat. Custer told his striker, John Burkman, to saddle Vic, a chestnut-colored Kentucky Thoroughbred with a blaze on the face and three white fetlocks. Burkman held Vic by the bridle as Custer prepared to mount. “Appears like I ought to be going along, General,” Burkman said hopefully. Custer leapt into the saddle and placed his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. For the last three nights Burkman had been on guard duty. “You’re tired out,” Custer said. “Your place is with McDougall and the pack-train. But if we should have to send for more ammunition you can come in on the home stretch.”
    Custer rode off, and before his two staghounds, Bleucher and Tuck, were able to follow along as usual, Burkman had them by their collars. The two dogs barked and whimpered, but Burkman held fast until their master was