Legends of the Old West - LITTLE BIGHORN Ep. 3 | “Reno’s Charge”

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

After the Battle of the Rosebud, the Native American village moves to the valley of the Little Bighorn River. Custer leads the Dakota column as it follows the trail of the village. General Terry leads the Montana column with the hope of trapping the village between the two armies. But everything changes when the village discovers Custer’s command. Custer orders a spontaneous attack and the Battle of the Little Bighorn begins. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Second Lieutenant Charles Varnum had only been asleep for an hour before one of his guides shook him awake. The guide, who was half Sioux, half French-Canadian, urged him to see the discovery. The young West Point officer dragged himself to the lookout spot at the top of the hill, where he joined more of his team. The group was about 15 men, a mix of Arikara couriers, Crow Scouts, and interpreter guides. Varnum was in charge of the group, and his job was to find the Sioux village for Custer.

The Crow Scouts were now signaling that they'd done it. But when Varnum laid down on the grassy hilltop next to the others, all he could see was more grass and hills. The Crows pointed at someplace in the distance and used sign language to explain what they were seeing. One of the interpreters looked through his spyglass and nodded his confirmation. Apparently, the scouts saw thin wisps of smoke from early morning cook fires, and they saw horses. But all Varnum could see was landscape. He'd have to take the word of the scouts. Not only were his eyes not trained to look for the right things,

they were bleary and red from exhaustion and dusty from the trail. The team had been in the saddle for 24 hours straight. They finally reached this spot in the early morning hours, and Varnum immediately collapsed into a deep sleep for only an hour. As the faintest hints of sunlight grew brighter, Varnum scribbled a note about the discovery. The village was about 20 miles away, probably in the valley of the Little Bighorn River. Varnum handed the note to the Arikara couriers. Red Star and Bull jumped on their ponies and rode back to Custer's camp. Bull's smaller horse lagged behind, so Red Star had the

honor of delivering the important message. The village was in sight. Custer found his opponents. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system, so wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's

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the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is Episode 3, Reno's Charge. creek that fed into the greasy grass river, which the whites called the Little Bighorn. When the warriors returned from battle, the village moved to the valley of the Little Bighorn River. Villagers honored the dead and celebrated the victory, and then the village moved up the river for the final time. The chosen spot was perfect. It was in a kind of half-moon-shaped loop of the river. On the side of the river where the camp was located, it was flat and expansive. It was a great blend of short grass for the horses and trees for firewood. On the other side, the river and the village were guarded by cliffs and ravines. If enemies secured firing spots on the cliffs, they could do damage to the village,

but a charge down into the village, on horseback or on foot, would be very difficult. And by late June, the village had grown to a minimum of 4,000 people, and some estimates range as high as 8,000. The soldiers expected anywhere from 800 to 1,500 warriors. There were about 660 men in Custer's column, but the American commanders weren't overly concerned about the numbers. Custer assumed his 7th Cavalry could handle anything, and Terry was more concerned about stopping the escape of the village during an attack,

not the attack itself. In just a few days, all the theories and assumptions would be put to the test. On the morning of June 22, 1876, General Custer, as his men called him, rode out at the head of the 7th Cavalry in his famous white buckskin uniform. head of the 7th Cavalry in his famous white buckskin uniform. His rank was technically Lieutenant Colonel, but his men called him General in honor of his battlefield promotions during the Civil War. Custer had graduated at the bottom of his class from West Point right before the war, but after just two years of fighting, he had risen from Lieutenant to Brigadier General. He was only 23 years old, and he proved there was

more to being an officer than good grades in the classroom. But when the war ended, the army didn't need legions of generals. At the time of the Confederate surrender, the Union Army had more than 500,000 soldiers in it. The vast majority were wartime volunteers. When the fight was done, they mustered out. The new peacetime army had just 25,000 soldiers, and the officers who remained in uniform had their ranks adjusted. Technically, Colonel Samuel Sturgis commanded the 7th Cavalry, but he'd been marooned in St. Louis on recruiting duty for a long time, so his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Custer, was the de facto leader of the unit. And now, in late June, Custer finally had his chance for glory. When he'd first heard about

a possible mission on the northern plains, he likely assumed he'd have full command of at least one of the armies in the field. But then politics in Washington happened, and General Terry was forced to personally lead the campaign, and Custer felt restrained for more than a month. But not anymore. Now he and the 600 men of the 7th Cavalry Strike Force rode down the Rosebud River in search of the Native American village. Custer was probably feeling the thrill of the hunt, but two of his senior officers were not. Last night, as Custer relayed the plans to the officers, he'd gotten into an argument with his senior captain, Frederick Benteen. Custer and Benteen had had a strained relationship since the campaign against the Southern Cheyenne in Kansas in 1868.

Benteen's unit made a charge that he thought would be supported by Custer, but it wasn't. And now, eight years later, the old enmity flared up again. And Custer had been in a war of words with Major Marcus Reno for nearly as long. in a war of words with Major Marcus Reno for nearly as long, and it had flared up again a few days ago when Custer learned that Reno didn't attack the village when he might have had the chance. So, for some in the 7th, it was a tense beginning to a new mission. And according to one source, Custer was the only man in the column who knew General Terry's full strategy of the two columns working together in a coordinated attack. If so, then the men of the 7th Cavalry must have thought they were riding out on their own,

with the sole responsibility of fighting an army of warriors that outnumbered them two to one. The 7th Cavalry left the base camp at noon, and had an easy half-day ride down the Rosebud on June 22nd. And when it departed, Custer and General Gibbon supposedly had one of those moments that is passed into legend. Months after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Gibbon recalled a memory from the day the Dakota Column rode away. He said he called out to Custer and said, Now, Custer, don't be greedy, but wait for us. And Custer supposedly replied, No, I will not. While Custer rode south down the Rosebud,

Terry and Gibbon and the Montana column rode west along the Yellowstone, shadowed by the paddle steamer, the Far West. On the second day of the march, June 23rd, they made it to the junction of the Yellowstone and the Bighorn. At that point, the Yellowstone continued west and the Bighorn turned south. The Far West ferried the soldiers across the junction to the eastern bank of the Bighorn River. That gave them access to all the river valleys between here and Custer's men on the Rosebud. As they continued to march down the Bighorn on June 24th, Terry's plan was going smoothly. It was impossible to know the exact location of the village because villages moved so frequently, but if Custer was

doing his job, he would come in from the south and the east, and the Montana column would block escape routes to the north and west. But that plan had two massive caveats. It assumed that the two columns would actually be able to coordinate a simultaneous plan of attack at a moment's notice, and it assumed Custer wouldn't attack on his own. An unwritten rule in the West was that if an army commander had an opportunity to attack a village, he took it, even if it contradicted direct orders. Custer certainly lived by that rule, and everyone knew it. It was part of the friction between he and some of his officers, and it also gave General Terry an out

clause to cover his own backside. His explicit orders to Custer were to march down the Rosebud, almost to the Wyoming border near the site of the Battle of the Rosebud that they still didn't know about. Then Custer was supposed to turn north again and hopefully find the village. If he did, he was supposed to send word to Terry so they could coordinate an attack. But everyone knew that if Custer found the village, he was going to attack. There was no way he was going to wait to develop a tedious strategy. attack. There was no way he was going to wait to develop a tedious strategy. And some people who were at the planning session said even though Terry's explicit instructions were to wait, he gave Custer his blessing to attack if conditions were right. And with that, Terry,

the master of double talk, had covered himself. If Custer stuck to the explicit plan, they might all share a glorious victory. If Custer attacked by himself and succeeded, Terry could claim he had given authorization. If Custer attacked and failed, Terry could claim he had violated orders. But obviously, the idea of failure never entered Custer's mind. While Terry and the Montana Col column marched to the junction of the Yellowstone and the Bighorn and spent the day crossing the rivers, Custer continued down the rosebud. And after his spat with Ben Teen two nights earlier, he designed Ben Teen's company to be one of the three that guarded the pack train at the rear of the column.

The pack train of mules was a problem right from the beginning. Many of the animals had been on Reno's scout the previous week, and they were exhausted. As a result, the pack train lagged way behind the rest of the column, and the soldiers who rode with it endured the misery of eating the dust from hundreds of horses in front of them. endured the misery of eating the dust from hundreds of horses in front of them. Ironically, Custer's attempt to insult Benteen may have saved Benteen's life and the lives of his company. That day, June 23rd, the column saw its first signs of the village. Evidence of a village was more than two weeks old, but it verified Reno's scouting report. The column camped along the

Rosebud again and began its march at 5 a.m. the next day. At 7.30 a.m., the soldiers found the site of Sitting Bull's Sundance that happened three weeks earlier. There were remnants of a village, the most grisly of which was the scalp of a white man that was hanging from a lodge pole. As the soldiers followed the clear trail of the village away from the site, they could see that it was massive, and they also saw the trails of people who were joining from reservations. By the time the column stopped for the day on June 24th, the trail of the village was larger and fresher. Custer's scouts thought it could be in a valley that was just beyond a ridge of small mountains to the west. Custer was excited. He didn't want to waste any time.

He gathered his officers and told them to prepare their men for a night march. They were going to ride through the night and make camp at the base of the mountains. Then the next day, June 25th, they would scout the village throughout the day and night. The attack would happen the following day, June 26th. The weary, probably grumbling soldiers paused near the rosebud and then resumed their march. And way out in front were the advanced scouts under the direction of 2nd Lieutenant Charles Varnum. They were the first to make it to the ridge of mountains, which were basically just high hills. As Varnum dropped his worn-out bones to the ground to get some sleep sometime around 3 a.m., a couple of his Crow Scouts crawled up to a spot that became known

as the Crow's Nest. From there, they waited and watched. And as the faint gray light of dawn grew in the east, they spotted what Varnum later called a tremendous village on the Little Bighorn. Varnum wrote a message and handed it to the Arikara couriers. Two young men raced back to Custer's camp, which wasn't hard to find because the smoke from the army's cook fires was clearly visible against the morning sky, and that made the Crow Scouts furious. If the Scouts could see the smoke from the village, then the village could certainly see the smoke from the fires of the army camp.

As it turned out, the smoke was a non-issue, because the army was about to make first contact with Native American hunters. When a Rickeraw courier's Red Star and Bull rode into Custer's camp around 7.30 in the morning, they found 600 exhausted men. The column had only stopped its march an hour or two earlier. Most of the soldiers, including Custer, passed out immediately. Others began cooking breakfast, which produced the smoke that irritated the Crow scouts. The animals were worn out, too. They'd all been traveling for more than a month, and many had spent the previous week on Major Reno's scout on the Powder and Tongue Rivers.

Now they were expected to be the heart of the fast-moving strike force. But in an effort to maximize the speed of the strike force, the soldiers didn't pack as much food for the animals as they normally would have. They probably assumed the animals could graze on grass along the way. And now the soldiers discovered a problem. There was no grass. The column was following the trail of the village and camping near spots where the village had camped. The thousands of horses that were attached to the village had already eaten all the grass in the area.

So now the army's horses were worn out and hungry. And that was a bad way to begin the longest day of all of their lives. Custer woke up and read the message about the village. He met with some members of his inner circle, which included his closest confidant, his younger brother Tom. Two of Custer's brothers were in the unit, Tom and Boston, and Tom had some accomplishments that could rival those of Custer. He was the only soldier in the Civil War to earn two Congressional Medals of Honor, and to date, he's one of only 19 men who hold the distinction of earning two. Custer ordered the column to be ready to march at 8 a.m., and it was on the move by 8.30. Around 9 a.m., Custer, at the front of the column, approached the Crow's Nest lookout spot where Lieutenant Varnum's scouts were still hidden. Custer scrambled up to the top of the hill and peered out over the

landscape toward the valley of the Little Bighorn. Like Varnum earlier that morning, he couldn't see anything but grass and hills. The scouts and interpreters assured him that there was a huge village out there, but Custer couldn't see it until he used a set of field glasses. Even then, all he could see was a large dark spot that represented a massive herd of horses. But that was enough. The village was definitely there, and now Custer had to make a choice. His original plan was to spend the second half of the day and part of the night moving closer to the suspected location of the village and doing a thorough scout before an attack. But his scouts and interpreters now told him that was impossible.

The 7th Cavalry had been spotted. The scouts said they'd seen a man and a boy who could have seen the army column. Right after that, a group of seven riders had definitely spotted the soldiers. Custer's scouts told him they couldn't wait. They had to attack immediately, before the village could mobilize for defense. At first, Custer refused to believe that his command had been compromised. But eventually he conceded. Even so, he stayed at the hilltop lookout for another hour.

Even so, he stayed at the hilltop lookout for another hour. When he did finally go back to the column, he heard confirmation that the element of surprise was gone. His brother Tom told him that a soldier had mistakenly left some personal items at the campsite. The soldier rode back to get them with three other men, and in the process, they saw some warriors in the distance who were opening boxes of food that had fallen off a mule. The soldiers fired at the warriors, and the warriors disappeared. Then there was another report.

One of Custer's guides said he saw two more riders in the vicinity. They quickly rode away, and they would be alerting the village any minute. The situation was evolving rapidly, and Custer needed to organize a plan. And in the growing frenzy, there was another facet that would register in hindsight. The guide who saw the two riders was an old-time frontiersman. He had one job on this mission. At the appointed time, he was supposed to ride from Custer's Dakota Column on the Rosebud River over to the Montana Column on the Bighorn River. He was supposed to communicate Custer's position

and any intelligence that might help coordinate a plan between the two armies. But the appointed time was yesterday. When Custer's Col column reached the spot where the frontiersman was supposed to split off, Custer refused to let him go. So now, General Terry, with the Montana column, didn't know if Custer would make the scheduled rendezvous at the Little Bighorn on June 26th. And he definitely didn't know that Custer was hot on the trail of the village, and now it was too late. There was no way the frontiersmen could make it all the way to the Montana column in time to coordinate forces. The fight was going to happen now, on June 25th, a Lakota man and his son rode out of the village on the Little Bighorn River.

The previous day, when the village had moved to this spot, the boy had been forced to leave behind a horse because it was too tired to travel. The man and his son now headed out to retrieve the horse. Within a short time, the boy spotted dust clouds over on the other side of a ridge of small mountains. Typically, those were made by large numbers of traveling people, and soldiers were thought to be in the area. Around the same time, a group of seven Lakota were out tracking horse thieves. As the group moved up that same ridge of mountains, they were startled to see a whole column of white soldiers below them. As they moved along the ridge, shadowing the soldiers, they met a small group of Cheyenne.

The Cheyenne were headed for Sitting Bull's camp, and they'd stumbled into evidence of soldiers the previous night. And just a little while ago, a couple of their number had been opening a box of food that had fallen off of an army mule, and the soldiers had fired at them. Those were the three groups who raced back to the camp to notify the others. And at the same time,

Custer laid out a hastily constructed battle plan. Two of Custer's guides warned him that this was the largest village they'd ever seen, or ever heard of. No one knew the exact size or the exact location, but they could already tell that it was unprecedented. And a village of that size would have an enormous herd of horses. Later estimates put the size of the herd at 15,000 to 20,000 animals. If it was 20,000, that would have been the same size as the populations of San Antonio, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah in 1876. Custer divided his scouts into two groups and sent them ahead.

Their mission was to capture as many horses as possible to prevent the warriors from mobilizing. Then Custer assigned roughly 130 soldiers to stay with the mule train to protect the supplies and extra ammo. That meant he was going to charge headlong into the largest village anyone had ever heard of with an attack force of a little over 500 men. And at this point, those men were tired, hungry, and saddle sore. The column began its ride toward the valley of the Little Bighorn. It moved as one body for the time being, and cut

through a notch in the mountains near the lookout spot called the Crow's Nest. On the other side, the column followed a little creek that ran toward the Little Bighorn. At about noon, Custer stopped the march. He conferred with one of his officers about the next step of the plan. They were still at least 15 miles from the village, according to anyone's best guess. Even at this point, with the assumption that the village was gigantic, Custer's chief concern was that the villagers would scatter at the first real sign of an attack. If they did, it might be impossible to achieve the victory he wanted. The theory had merit, at least on a smaller scale. It happened over and over again in the history of the West.

So, he divided his 500 men into two wings. The right wing, which he would command, was larger. It would ride along the creek and then up through the hills and around to the far side of the camp. He would station part of his force there to prevent an escape. The other part would attack the camp and force the villagers to flee downriver, straight into the arms of the left wing of the column. The left wing would ride down the opposite side of the creek, then cross the little bighorn where

the creek met the river and make a direct attack on the village. If all went according to plan, the left wing would attack from one end of the village and the right wing would block escape attempts and attack from the other end. Right before the two units moved out, Custer added one last wrinkle. Captain Frederick Benteen, who thought his company was about to lead the left-wing attack, had to take a scouting party up to some nearby bluffs and look for more camps. From experience, Custer probably wanted to make sure there were no smaller villages in the area. He'd seen it before. A camp that was reported to be one village was actually a long series of separate villages. But in Benteen's mind, he thought he was being

punished. Right before the main event, he was being sent away on a meaningless scout, and he would have to just fall in behind the main strike force of the left wing. And that meant that the honor of leading the left wing fell to Major Marcus Reno. When the 7th Cavalry finally split up, Custer led five companies down one side of the creek. Reno led three companies down the other side. And Benteen led two or three companies

way off to the left to scout the bluffs. Benteen might have been mad about his assignment, but in short order, Reno's companies were about to ride into the scariest sight they had ever witnessed. For an hour, Custer's companies walked up one side of the creek and Reno's companies walked up the other. Out in front, the scouts hurried to stay ahead of the advancing columns. In the rear, the exhausted mules of the pack train fell farther and farther behind, which meant thousands of rounds of extra ammo also fell farther behind. Then the columns arrived at a large campsite along the

creek. There were only two teepees left. One was still standing and the other collapsed. Dead bodies were in both. That part of the camp appeared to be a gravesite. The ashes of campfires were still warm, and as Custer looked out into the distance, he could see a cloud of dust. About 50 warriors who had been at the campsite the night before now raced toward the main village. Custer sent a message across the creek to Reno and ordered him to chase the warriors and begin the attack. Reno's 175 men picked up their pace to a fast trot. A half an hour later, they crossed the Little Bighorn River,

and now they were on flat ground with a direct line to the village. They still couldn't see it because it was tucked behind a big loop of the river and hidden by a screen of trees, but it didn't matter. They would never get that far. matter. They would never get that far. As Reno's companies forded the Little Bighorn and began trotting across the flatland toward the village, Custer watched from above. His trail led up onto some bluffs, and before long, he finally saw the village. And it was, in fact, the largest village anyone had ever seen. And even then, he still couldn't see the whole thing. Some and it was, in fact, the largest village anyone had ever seen. And even then, he still couldn't see the whole thing. Some of it was hidden by trees and bluffs. But in the part that he could see, there was frantic activity. Women and children ran everywhere,

and over on one end, a cloud of dust was building. Around the same time, Custer's scouts told him that the cloud of dust was from warriors, which Custer had already guessed. This was what he'd assumed. The village was panicking and scattering. But his scouts said no. The dust cloud wasn't from people who were fleeing. It was from warriors who were charging. They were charging Reno's companies.

As Custer watched, Reno's men picked up speed again. They moved from a fast trot to a slow gallop, and an epic scene looked like it was going to develop. Two armies on horseback were going to slam into each other. It was the kind of glorious battle that Custer would have loved. But that wasn't what happened. Probably to Custer's astonishment, Reno stopped his men and ordered them to dismount. Lots of things could have factored into Reno's decision. An easy one was that he might have been drunk. He'd been taking pulls off a flask of whiskey for a while now. But the deeper issues were that he didn't

have the daring sense of courage that Custer had. He also didn't have the experience against native warriors. He'd missed all the big engagements of the 7th Cavalry over the last few years, and his men were wildly inexperienced. Custer had kept all the battle-hardened veterans with him and given the young guys to Reno. And as Reno advanced toward the village, he lost fighters. Some of his scouts raced off to steal horses, as instructed by Custer. Others were stuck back at the river crossing. Their smaller ponies were simply worn out and couldn't go any farther. So Reno's 175 men were down to something like 150, and he aborted the direct charge. His men dismounted and set up a skirmish line, but someone had to hold the horses, and by the time some of the soldiers moved the animals out

of the way, there were less than 100 men in the skirmish line. They faced an oncoming horde of hundreds of warriors who would fight to the death to protect their families. But Reno's inexperienced men had one advantage, their breech-loading Springfield rifles. The soldiers opened fire when the warriors were still 500 yards away, and a kind of odd calm before the storm settled in. Reno's scanty force was holding its own. The men were gaining confidence. Some laughed and smiled. Their horses were picketed in some timber behind them near the river, and though they were out here on their own, they were doing well. For about 15 minutes. At that point, the volume of warriors increased significantly. The soldiers never knew what drove the increase, and even if they had been

right in the middle of the village and had heard the shouting, they wouldn't have understood the words. The frightened people were cheering, and their cheers translated to this. Crazy horses coming. Next time on Legends of the Old West, all of the assumptions about the Native American response to an army assault on the village turn out to be wrong. Reno's charge turns into a flight for survival, and Custer's attack turns into a desperate retreat. Custer's last stand is next week on Legends of the Old West.

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