How many died with custer

The Indigenous warriors were spread out. They rode fast ponies and knew the terrain better than Custer ever could. Little did Custer know at the time the two Indigenous leaders would play a role in his death a few years later.

In , the U. However, after gold was discovered in the Black Hills in , the government had a change of heart and decided to break the treaty and take over the land. Custer was tasked with relocating all Native Americans in the area to reservations by January 31, Those that could, left their reservations and traveled to Montana to join forces with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at their fast-growing camp. Thousands strong, the group eventually settled on banks of the Little Bighorn River.

The U. Army dispatched three columns of soldiers, including Custer and his 7th Cavalry, to round up Indigenous people and return them to their reservations. Crook was delayed but Terry, Custer and Gibbon met-up in mid-June and after a scouting party found a trail headed toward Little Big Horn Valley, they decided Custer should move in, surround the Indians and await reinforcements.

Instead of waiting for reinforcements, however, Custer planned a surprise attack for the next day. He moved it up when he thought the Native American forces had discovered his position.

Custer divided his more than men into four groups. He ordered one small battalion to stay with the supply train and the other two, led by Captain Frederick Benteen and Major Marcus Reno, to attack from the south and prevent the Indians from escaping. Custer would lead the final group— men strong—and planned to attack from the north.

Come on, Big Village, Be quick, Bring packs. Bring packs. The photograph was taken by S. Custer and his men were left to face scores of Native American warriors alone. No one knows when Custer realized he was in trouble since no eyewitness from his troops lived to tell the tale.

The Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse attacked with Winchester, Henry and Spencer repeating rifles as well as bows and arrows. Boston, born August 24, , enlisted to serve under his older brother George who was commander of the 7th Cavalry.

To add to the trauma for Emanuel and Maria, the name of their grandson was also on the casualty list. The young soldier was born April 27, and was only 18 years old when he met his fate at Little Big Horn. The teenager served his uncle George Custer as probably the youngest soldier in the 7th Cavalry.

And the fifth and final name on the Custer Family casualty list handed to Emanuel and Maria was that of their son-in-law James Calhoun who was married their daughter Margaret.

James and Margaret had been married on March 7, , just a little over four years before his tragic death at Little Big Horn. Some of the Indians quit fighting to chase them. The fighting was intense, bloody, at times hand to hand. Men died by knife and club as well as by gunfire.

The Cheyenne Brave Bear saw an officer riding a sorrel horse shoot two Indians with his revolver before he was killed himself. Brave Bear managed to seize the horse. At almost the same moment, Yellow Nose wrenched a cavalry guidon from a soldier who had been using it as a weapon.

Calhoun Hill was swarming with men, Indian and white. But the soldiers were completely exposed. Many of the men in the skirmish line died where they knelt; when their line collapsed back up the hill, the entire position was rapidly lost. It was at this moment that the Indians won the battle. In the minutes before, the soldiers had held a single, roughly continuous line along the half-mile backbone from Calhoun Hill to Custer Hill. Men had been killed and wounded, but the force had remained largely intact.

The Indians heavily outnumbered the whites, but nothing like a rout had begun. What changed everything, according to the Indians, was a sudden and unexpected charge up over the backbone by a large force of Indians on horseback. The central and controlling part Crazy Horse played in this assault was witnessed and later reported by many of his friends and relatives, including He Dog, Red Feather and Flying Hawk. He had time to reach the mouth of Muskrat Creek and Medicine Tail Coulee by , just as the small detachment of soldiers observed by Gall had turned back from the river toward higher ground.

Flying Hawk said he had followed Crazy Horse down the river past the center of camp. This was one style of Sioux fighting. Another was the brave run. Typically the change from one to the other was preceded by no long discussion; a warrior simply perceived that the moment was right. All the soldiers were shooting at him but he was never hit. After firing their rifles at Crazy Horse, the soldiers had to reload. It was then that the Indians rose up and charged. Among the soldiers, panic ensued; those gathered around Calhoun Hill were suddenly cut off from those stretching along the backbone toward Custer Hill, leaving each bunch vulnerable to the Indians charging them on foot and horseback.

The instinct of Sioux fighters was the opposite—to charge in and engage the enemy with a quirt, bow or naked hand. There is no terror in battle to equal physical contact—shouting, hot breath, the grip of a hand from a man close enough to smell. The charge of Crazy Horse brought the Indians in among the soldiers, whom they clubbed and stabbed to death. The skirmish lines were gone. Men crowded in on each other for safety. Iron Hawk said the Indians followed close behind the fleeing soldiers.

The boom of the Springfield carbines was coming from Indian and white fighters alike. But the killing was mostly one-sided. In the rush of the Calhoun Hill survivors to rejoin the rest of the command, the soldiers fell in no more pattern than scattered corn. In the depression in which the body of Capt. Myles Keogh was found lay the bodies of some 20 men crowded tight around him. But the Indians describe no real fight there, just a rush without letup along the backbone, killing all the way; the line of bodies continued along the backbone.

Another group of the dead, ten or more, was left on the slope rising up to Custer Hill. Between this group and the hill, a distance of about yards, no bodies were found. The mounted soldiers had dashed ahead, leaving the men on foot to fend for themselves. Perhaps the ten who died on the slope were all that remained of the foot soldiers; perhaps no bodies were found on that stretch of ground because organized firing from Custer Hill held the Indians at bay while soldiers ran up the slope.

Whatever the cause, Indian accounts mostly agree that there was a pause in the fighting—a moment of positioning, closing in, creeping up. The pause was brief; it offered no time for the soldiers to count survivors. There was nowhere to hide. Back and forth in front of Custer we passed, firing all of the time.

Kill Eagle, a Blackfeet Sioux, said the firing came in waves. Exactly when custer died is unknown; his body was found in a pile of soldiers near the top of Custer Hill surrounded by others within a circle of dead horses. In their terror some soldiers threw down their guns, put their hands in the air and begged to be taken prisoner. But the Sioux took only women as prisoners. The last 40 or more of the soldiers on foot, with only a few on horseback, dashed downhill toward the river. One of the mounted men wore buckskins; Indians said he fought with a big knife.

These soldiers were met by Indians coming up from the river, including Black Elk. He noted that the soldiers were moving oddly. The Indians hunted them all down.

The Oglala Brings Plenty and Iron Hawk killed two soldiers running up a creek bed and figured they were the last white men to die. Others said the last man dashed away on a fast horse upriver toward Reno Hill, and then inexplicably shot himself in the head with his own revolver.

Since the Lakota leave their dead above-ground on scaffolds, in burial tepees or in trees, this would fit the One Bull tally closely. Some 10 to 20 women and children were also killed. The Arikara who were on the U.