June 2018 46 Custer Controversies continued from page 43 and dying like flies through the smoke, the screams, the ever-plunging arrows and the sheer horror of it all. The warriors first wrapping up the skirmish line set up by Custer's brother-in-law, Lieutenant James "Jimmi" Calhoun, approximately one and a half miles east of Last Stand Hill. Calhoun died alongside his men as the Indians rushed onward to overwhelm the company, led by the flamboyant Irish Soldier-of- Fortune Myles Keogh. Keogh had led a charmed life during the Civil War, fighting alongside John Buford in the opening stages of the Gettysburg battle, then being captured during Stoneman's aborted raid to free the Andersonville captives. Luck finally failed him on that last skirmish line before Last Stand Hill, when he was struck by a bullet that shattered his knee, he slid off his horse "Comanche" and died alongside his men. Contrary to popular belief, the Indians made no mass charge on horseback until almost the very end, allowing their numbers, the long arc of their arrows, and the rapid fire of their repeating rifles to decimate Custer's battalion before making those final horseback charges. "It was only a question of time until Custer will get us into a hole from which we will not escape," Captain George Yates, Custer's boyhood friend who fell nearby, had said to two fellow officers the night before the engagement. Time had finally run out on that small Last Stand Hill for Custer, his brothers Tom and Boston, his nephew Autie Reed, for Yates, Keogh, Calhoun, Cooke, Lieutenants Algernon Smith, James Sturgis, William Van Reilly, the Half- Breed scout Mitch Bouyer and 200 other men, plus another sixty or so who fell with Reno and Benteen. About 40 men died alongside Custer on Last Stand Hill and another 40 or so, mainly from the "Gray Horse" E-Troop, including the Scout Bouyer fled towards the river only to be trapped like rats in the sealed off Deep Ravine to the south of Last Stand Hill where they were killed. It was only Captain Keogh's noble horse, "Comanche" left standing alive on the blood-soaked battlefield. The men inside the Reno-Benteen faction spent the subsequent day under continuous fire with little to eat and drink, hearing that evening the chants of the Scalp Dance wondering what that meant. They were finally rescued on the 27th by the advancing column of Terry and Gibbon who told them, grim-faced, with tears running down their eyes what fate had befallen Custer and his battalion. So the question remains, how much did Custer share responsibility in the debacle that cost him his life, the lives of his immediate command, and the men who fell in Reno's retreat and on the perimeter? The way this writer sees it is that Custer's plan would have worked if he had capable subordinates and he did not. And if his men had been armed with the very repeating rifles Congress refused to fund and which the Army itself had scorned. The Gatling guns might have made a difference, then again, given their unreliability and the rough terrain, maybe not. It would also have worked if Custer had kept his command together, attacking mostly “en masse” on the encampment with company-sized flanking attacks to seize the high ground. If he had done so, and if Reno's men weren't so hasty in shooting down Sitting Bull's emissary, he just might have been able to pull it off. If Custer is faulted for anything that went wrong at the Little Big Horn it is these factors and perhaps not making a proper recon of the Indian encampment. What may be added is that the circumstances of that dropped box of Hardtack, the Indians discovering it and Custer's scouts discovering them, causing him to decide then and there an immediate attack, not waiting for the Montana column. And maybe, just maybe, relying on his luck, his daring, just one too many times more. Not to mention the willingness of the Indians to stand back, fight to defend their families, and take advantage of Reno's drunken, panicked retreat. At this point I should mention that this writer toured the battlefield in October 2011, My guide suggested (and I'm glad he did) after a brief drive around the perimeter of the entire battlefield that we begin at the site of the Indian encampment, and then go to where Reno's disastrous charge took place. Just going straight to Last Stand Hill does take much of the drama and the pathos out of the event. We also stopped at the private Custer Battlefield Museum in Garryowen, Montana, right on the banks of the Little Big Horn River itself and located almost exactly on the very site of where Major Reno's ill- fated charge on the Indian encampment took place. From my original notes: Garryowen really isn't a city, outside of the cabins and lodges of the Crow Indians who live on the reservation surrounding the battlefield itself. It is just a service station, a Subway, and of course this very interesting museum featuring original photographs of the 7th Cavalry at the time, portraits and possessions of the Sioux and Cheyenne leaders who fought Custer, some display cases of relics from the Cavalry and the Native Americans who fought on both sides (remember the Crow and Arickees were enemies of the Sioux and loyal to Custer). What is also significant about Garryowen is that it is located on the very site where Sitting Bull's camp was located and where Major Marcus Reno launched his ill-fated attack on the Indian encampment. When Reno did launch his prong of Custer's three-prong assault on the Indian encampment at approximately 3 p.m. on the afternoon of June 25, 1876, he had the element of surprise in his favor and if he had pushed forward, the battle itself might have taken a wholly different turn. But as the saying goes, "he who hesitates is lost." That is exactly what Reno who had been drinking copiously did - hesitate. Almost all Historical sources agree, even in works that despise Custer that Reno been drinking heavily that day, offering a swig of his bottle to those near him. Upon seeing Indians on horseback coming out of the village towards him, he ordered his command to dismount and form skirmish lines, removing the element of surprise and the impetus of the charge and in effect turning the strategic initiative over to the Indians. Fact is, Reno's men actually penetrated part of the village, and Sioux Chief Gall's family and others were killed in the initial penetration. It has also been said in a recent work (Nathaniel Philbrick's "Last Stand") that Sitting Bull, witnessing the attack was all set to put up a white flag of truce, until Reno's hesitation and the growing number of warriors riding out to do battle caused him to change his mind and urge that the white soldiers be driven out. I toured that Reno-Benteen perimeter for over an hour, viewing down across the river to where the Indian camp stood and from where the warriors rushed out after Reno's retreat, surrounding and attacking the perimeter. My guide and I drove on to Weir Point where it could be seen from the road the predicament Captain Weir faced wanting to ride on to succor Custer but unable to directly see what was happening three miles away to the West. From that point, we drove to where Calhoun and his adjutant Lieutenant Crittenden fell and died on that skirmish line, then on to where Keogh made his own last stand nearby. Finally a stop on Last Stand Hill itself, briefly visiting the National Park Museum on the Last Stand Hill grounds, the graves and marker where Custer fell (his remains are buried at West Point) and the relatively new Native American memorial monument. The total area of where the battle was fought could not be more than six miles, if you count the Indian Village (more like a city at the time), the Reno-Benteen Battlefield perimeter, Weir Point, and the area itself where the Last Stand occurred, i.e., Calhoun Ridge, Last Stand Hill, and Deep Ravine. Being there, one gets a perspective of how the battle actually played out, how it was so easy, even in the October cold, to visualize where the men on both sides fought desperately and died. How Custer actually came tantalizingly close to pulling off a victory that very well could have catapulted him, if not to the Presidency itself, to command the Army. How he wasn't the fool portrayed by revisionist historians but a calculating gambler who had won it all so many times in the past, but whose hand finally gambled on unreliable subordinates whom he couldn't replace, on equipment outdated, by a cavalry regiment that was arguably the best but a regiment that also included so many new and untrained recruits, and by an enemy this time willing to fight for their sacred Black Hills. Custer, a very capable and intelligent officer but interestingly enough a failed gambler, chose to gamble one more time and lost it all just a little over a month before his close friend and scout Wild Bill Hickok gambled his last hand less than 100 miles away in Deadwood. Where Custer fell, 5:30 p.m. June 25, 1876 - the black stone marked where Custer's remains were found. Photo by Alan Rockman, October 5, 2011