It was a September day. The hoarfrost had written the alphabet of the
coming winter—there was promise of snow. With Chief Two Moons and his
interpreter we climbed the dreary slopes leading to the monument and
graves of the Custer dead. Chief Two Moons took his position by the stone
which reads: “Brevet Major General George A. Custer, 7th U. S. Cavalry,
fell here June 26th, 1876.” A tiny flag waved by this stone, marking the
spot where the hero made his last stand. The hills all about us wore a
sombre hue; the sky kept marriage bonds with the scene. Cold, gray clouds
hung over the ridges along which Custer rode with the daring Seventh.
They draped the summits of the Big Horn Range on the far horizon in gray
and purple. The prairie grass had come to the death of the autumn and it
too creaked amid the stones. The heart beat quick at the sight of Chief
Two Moons, a tall and stalwart Roman-faced Indian, standing amid the white
slabs where thirty-three years before, clad in a white shirt, red
leggings, without war-bonnet, he had ridden a white horse, dealing
deathblows to the boys in blue, and with these deathblows the last great
stand of the Red Man against the White Man. The battle echoes are heard
again as Two Moons tells his story:
“Custer came up along the ridge and across the mountains from the right of
the monument. The Cheyennes and the Sioux came up the coulee from the
foot of Reno Hill, and circled about. I led the Cheyennes as we came up.
Custer marched up from behind the ridge on which his monument now stands,
and deployed his soldiers along the entire line of the ridge. They rode
over beyond where the monument stands down into the valley until we could
not see them. The Cheyennes and the Sioux came up to the right over in
the valley of the Little Big Horn. Custer placed his men in groups along
this ridge. They dismounted. The men who had dismounted along the ridge
seemed to have let their horses go down the other side of the ridge.
Those who were on the hill where the monument now stands, and where I am
now standing, had gray horses and they were all in the open. The Sioux
and the Cheyennes came up the valley swarming like ants toward the bunch
of gray horses where Long Hair stood. I led the Cheyennes up the long
line of ridge from the valley blocking the soldiers, and I called to my
Cheyenne brothers: ‘Come on, children; do not be scared!’ And they came
after me, yelling and firing. We broke the line of soldiers and went over
the ridge. Another band of Indians and Sioux came from over beyond the
ridge, and when I got over there, I got off my white horse and told my men
to wait, and we loaded our guns and fired into the first troop which was
very near us. At the first volley the troop at which we fired were all
killed. We kept firing along the ridge on which the troops were stationed
and kept advancing. I rode my horse back along the ridge again and called
upon my children to come on after me. Many of my Cheyenne brothers were
killed, and I whipped up my horse and told them to come on, that this was
the last day they would ever see their chief, and I again started for the
bunch of gray horses on the hilltop. The Indians followed me, yelling and
firing. I could not break the line at the bunch of gray horses and I
wheeled and went to the left down the valley with the line of soldiers
facing me as I went, firing at me, and all my men firing at the soldiers.
Then I rode on up the ridge to the left. I met an Indian with a big
war-bonnet on, and right there I saw a soldier wounded. I killed him and
jumped off my horse and scalped him. The Indian I met was Black Bear, a
Cheyenne. I then rode down the ridge and came to a group of four dead
soldiers; one of them had on a red flannel shirt, the other three had red
stripes on the arm, one had three stripes, the other had three stripes and
a sword. They all had on good clothes, and I jumped off my horse and took
their clothes and their guns. When I turned back I could not see anything
but soldiers and Indians all mixed up together. You could hardly tell one
from the other. As I rode along the ridge I found nearly all the soldiers
killed. I again rode up to the ridge along which Custer’s troops had been
stationed. I found two or three killed and saw one running away to get on
top of the high hills beyond, and we took after him, and killed him.”
“The whole valley was filled with smoke and the bullets flew all about us,
making a noise like bees. We could hardly hear anything for the noise of
guns. When the guns were firing, the Sioux and Cheyennes and soldiers,
one falling one way and one falling another, together with the noise of
the guns, I shall never forget. At last we saw that Custer and his men
were grouped on the side of the hill, and we commenced to circle round and
round, the Sioux and the Cheyennes, and we all poured in on Custer and his
men, firing into them until the last man was shot. We then jumped off our
horses, took their guns, and scalped them.”
“After the fight was over we gathered in the river bottom and cut willow
sticks, then some Indians were delegated to go and throw down a stick
wherever they found a dead soldier, and then they were ordered to pick up
the sticks again, and in this way we counted the number of dead. It was
about six times we had to cut willow sticks, because we kept finding men
all along the ridge. We counted four hundred and eighty-eight with our
sticks along the ridge. We were trying to count the dead there in the
valley when General Terry came up from the other side, and we fled away.
After the battle was over the Indians made a circle all over the ridges
and around through the valley to see if they could find any more soldiers,
as they were determined to kill every one. The next morning after the
fight we went up behind the Reno Field and camped at Black Lodge River.
We then followed the Black Lodge River until we came back to the Little
Big Horn again. Then we camped at the Little Big Horn, moving our camp
constantly, fearing pursuit by the soldiers.”
“Before the Custer fight we went over on the Tongue River and found a camp
of soldiers. We rushed upon them and took all their horses away, and the
soldiers ran into the brush. We knew there would be other soldiers after
us; we knew about where they were, and we felt they would pursue us. At
Powder River the soldiers attacked our camp and destroyed everything, and
that made us mad. When the soldiers came after us, on the day of the
Custer fight, we were ready to kill them all. The soldiers were after us
all the time, and we had to fight.”
The lonely stretches of prairie, the lonelier graves, the pathetic remnant
of Red Men—victors on this field—the hollow silence of these dreary hill
slopes, the imperishable valour of two hundred and seventy-seven men who
laid their lives on a blood-red altar, until the one lone figure of the
great captain lifted his unavailing sword against a howling horde of
savage warriors—glittering for a moment in the June sunlight, then falling
to the earth baptized with blood—is the solemn picture to forever hang in
the nation’s gallery of battles.