THE CUSTER MASSACRE. The arrival at Fort Lincoln, on the Missouri River, of a party of Indians in 1874, who offered gold dust for sale, was the beginning of the cause that led to the great Sioux war in 1876, in which General Custer and his devoted soldiers were massacred on the Little Big Horn River on the 25th day of June of that year. The gold which the Indians brought to Fort Lincoln, they said came from the Black Hills, where the gulches abounded with the yellow dust. The consequent rush of white men into that region was, in fact, a violation of the treaty of 1867, when Congress sent out four civilians and three army officers as peace commissioners, who gave to the old Dakota tribes, as the Sioux were then called, the vast area of land bounded on the south by Nebraska, on the east by the Missouri With the advent of the gold seekers in 1875 the Indians saw that the greedy encroachments of the white man were but faintly resisted by the United States government, and that sooner or later it meant the total occupation of their country, and their own annihilation, and so with the traditional wrongs of their forefathers ever in mind, they determined to make a stand for their rights. The scene of General Terry’s campaign against these Indians lay between the Big Horn and Powder Rivers, and extended from the Big Horn Mountains northerly to beyond the Yellowstone River. A region barren and desolate, volcanic, broken and ofttimes almost impassable, jagged and precipitous cliffs, narrow and deep arroyas filled with An army in this trackless waste was at that time at the mercy of guides and scouts. The sun rose in the east and shone all day upon a vast expanse of sagebrush and grass and as it set in the west cast its dull rays into a thousand ravines that neither man nor beast could cross; to go north or south could only be decided by personal effort. An insignificant turn to the wrong side of a little knoll or buffalo wallow would ofttimes lead the scout into ravine after ravine, or over bluff after bluff, until at last he would stand on the edge of a yawning canon, hundreds of feet in depth and with perpendicular walls. Nothing was left for him to do but to retrace his steps and find an accessible route. Custer had been ordered by General Terry to proceed with his command, numbering 28 officers and 747 soldiers, up the Rosebud River, and if the trail of the Indians was not found at a given point, to then follow the The point where the little armies separated, many of their men never to meet again, the river wound its silvery course for miles in the narrow valley as far as the eye could reach; its banks were fringed with the elm and cottonwood, whose foliage hid from view a thousand Indian tepees beyond the river. Sharp eyes had noted the advancing columns, and quick brains had already begun to plan their destruction. That night the three divisions made a silent bivouac beneath the stars which must have looked down like pitying eyes. In the grey light of the morning, and with Reno proceeded to the river and crossed it, charged down its west banks and met with little resistance at first. Soon, however, he was attacked by such numbers that he was obliged to dismount his men, shelter his horses in a strip of woods and fight on foot. Finally, finding he would soon be surrounded, he again mounted his men, charged the enemy and recrossing the river, took a naturally fortified position on the top of a bluff. Benteen, returning from his detour, discovered his position and drove away the Indians and joined him. Soon the mule train was also within his lines, making seven companies under his command. Reno engaged the Indians soon after noon on the 25th and did some hard fighting until the evening of the 26th, when the enemy withdrew. After congratulations with their reinforcements the question uppermost in every mind was: “Where is Custer?” They had heard heavy firing on the afternoon of the 25th and saw the black cloud of smoke settle like a pall over the valley, but Reno had his wounded to care for, and to Meanwhile the supply steamer, Far West, with General Terry on board, steamed up the Yellowstone on June 23rd and overtook Gibbon’s troops near the mouth of the Big Horn on the morning of the 24th. At 5 o’clock on the morning of the 25th, Gibbon’s column was marching over a country so rugged as to tax the endurance of the men to the utmost, and the infantry halted for the night, meantime General Terry pushed ahead with the cavalry and a light mountain battery. On the morning of the 26th, some Crow Indians reported to General Terry that a great fight had been going on the day before, and later scouts reported that a dense, heavy smoke was resting over the southern horizon far ahead, and in a short time it became visible to all. So broken was the country and progress became so difficult that it was not until the morning of the 27th that Terry’s relief column found the trail of Custer. They had passed cautiously through a dense grove of trees and the head of the column entered upon a beautiful level meadow about a mile in width extending along the west side of the stream and skirted east and west by high bluffs. It was apparent at sight that this meadow had been the site of an immense Indian village and showed signs of hasty abandonment. Hundreds of lodge poles with finely dressed buffalo robes, dried meats, utensils and Indian trinkets were left behind. In a large tepee still standing were the stiffened forms of ten dead Indians. Every step of the march from here on showed signs of a desperate struggle. The dead bodies of Indian horses were seen; here and there were cavalry equipments, and soon the bodies of dead troopers, beside their frantic and still struggling, wounded horses gave evidence of a disastrous battle, and farther on was revealed a scene calculated to appall the stoutest heart. Here was a skirmish line marked by rows of slain with heaps of empty cartridge shells before them, and their officers lay dead just behind them. Still farther on men lay in winrows, their faces still drawn with the awful desperation of a struggle When the fight was at the hardest a Crow Indian with Custer wrapped himself in a dead Sioux Indian’s blanket and made his escape; as he left the field he saw the squaws and Indian children rifling the dead of their trinkets and going about with their stone battle axes beating out the brains of the wounded; they danced about over the dead and dying, mutilating their bodies and singing the wild, weird strains of their battle songs. When the welcome news of relief came to Reno’s besieged command, strong men wept like children. Among the first of his men to search among the fallen for a dead friend was one Charles Wilson, a blue-eyed, beardless trooper, a mere boy whose heart seemed to fairly break as he contemplated what must have been the awful death of his comrades. The man he was seeking was Jim Bristow, a tall, dark private whose last words to the young trooper were: “Charley, my hour has come. We shall ride into this fight and you will come back alone. I want you to promise to take a little trouble for me when I am gone. You will find her face here in this locket upon my breast. I had thought to some day make her my wife, and that thought has gladdened my lonely life. Write to her, Charley, and tell her where is my resting place and that my spirit will wait for hers in that borderland twixt heaven and earth.” The boy answered, and his voice was low with pain. Just then the bugle sounded, and for an instant eye met eye and hand touched hand, and Jim Bristow rode away with Custer |