Legends of the Old West - LITTLE BIGHORN Ep. 6 | “131 Days”

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

The Montana Column arrives at the battlefield in the Little Bighorn Valley and helps the survivors of the siege of Reno Hill. The fate of Custer’s command finally becomes clear and the news will soon shock the country. Weeks after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, thousands of U.S. troopers conduct one more large-scale campaign, but they fail to find the villages of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The famous chiefs and their followers remain free for a little while longer. Visit Lighstream.com/oldwest for a credit card consolidation loan! 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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Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Headline July 6th 1876 Helena Weekly Herald Helena Montana the Custer Massacre

The Custer Massacre Headline, July 6th, The Boston Evening Transcript The Indian Campaign, General Custer's Terrible Fate Column 2, The Custer Massacre, Sensation at the War Department The Indian Slaughter Headline, July 7th, Daily Record of of the Times Wilkes Bar, Pennsylvania Death of General A.G. Custer Reports of the Indian Massacre at the Little Bighorn confirmed Headline July 7th

The Daily Memphis Avalanche A Terrible Slaughter Headline July 7th San Francisco Chronicle Brave Custer's Fate His Last Engagement with the Sioux July 7th, San Francisco Chronicle. Brave Custer's fate. His last engagement with the Sioux. Headline July 7th,

The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas. The Indian War. Report of a disastrous engagement with the Sioux. Headline July 9th, The Chicago Tribune. General Terry's report of General Reno's disastrous fight. Subhead, Sitting Bull, not one of your treaty-making Indians. Headline, July 9th, The New York Times.

Custer's last fight. General Terry's official report. Headline, July 10th, The Charlotte Democrat, Charlotte, North Carolina. Terrible battle with Indians. General Custer, 15 officers, and every man of five companies slain. Headline, July 11th, the Kansas City Times. Custer's death. The Herald's special report from the field of battle. Graphic pictures of the arrival at the scene of the disaster. Where the yellow-haired leader lay in the embrace of death. Reno's desperate fight against overwhelming odds.

Deeds that shall go sounding down through the ages. And on and on it went. The news of Custer's final fight was on the front page of virtually every newspaper, big and small, in every corner of the country. And then it traveled the globe. 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.

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From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a six-part series about one of the defining events of American history, the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is Episode 6, 131 Days. On June 23rd, two days before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Montana Column reached the junction of the Yellowstone River and the Bighorn River. At that point, the troopers were about 40 miles north of Sitting Bull's village. The paddle steamer far west ferried the men across the junction so they could ride south along the banks of the Bighorn. The next day, June 24th,

the column reached the creek where General Terry expected to meet the old frontiersman who was supposed to ride from Custer's column to this spot. The messenger would report Custer's location and any other relevant information. A group of Crow scouts ranged far ahead of the column, and when they returned, they had seen no sign of the frontiersman or Custer or the village. They had seen no sign of the frontiersmen or Custer or the village. General Terry grew nervous, but he continued to lead the column south. Terry pushed the column hard on June 25th. He was supposed to meet Custer's column on the 26th,

at the point where the Little Bighorn split from the Bighorn. Even though Terry hadn't heard from Custer, he had to proceed as if Custer would be there. On June 25th, the Montana Column endured the longest march it had ever experienced. By 7 o'clock in the evening, the infantry soldiers couldn't go any farther. They stopped and camped. Terry allowed the cavalry to rest for a couple hours, and then they continued their trek until midnight. When they finally stopped to sleep, they were only a mile and a half short of the rendezvous point, but they were still about 20 miles north of the

battlefield. And of course, they didn't know there was a battlefield. As they went to sleep that night, they didn't know that almost half of the Dakota column was dead, including Custer. They didn't know that the other half was trapped on a hill and even at that moment was building barricades to try to survive a siege the next day. All Terry knew was that the following day, June 26th, it would be a quick march to the meeting spot.

He'd told Custer he would be there on the 26th, and at least some of his men would be. When the sun rose on the 26th, Terry sent a group of Crow Scouts forward. A couple hours later, the Scouts ran into three of their tribesmen. The three Crow Scouts had been at Reno Hill the day before, and they wanted no more of the fight. Now they were the first messengers to tell the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. They told the scouts of the Montana column that the Sioux had killed all but a small group of Custer's men, and the survivors were trapped on a hill above the river. When Terry's men brought the news back to the rest of the cavalry, no one believed it. It was possible that Custer had run

into trouble, but the crows were saying the fighting Seventh had been completely whipped. No way, they had to be exaggerating. By that point, the infantry had been able to march through the early morning hours and rejoin the cavalry. Terry ordered everyone forward. They marched down the Little Bighorn, with the scouts ranging ahead of the main column. They were on the same side of the river as the village, though they didn't know it yet. But late that afternoon, they saw their first real sign, and it was an eerie one. The advanced column spotted a group of warriors who stood in a skirmish line that was the hallmark

of the American army. Behind the skirmishers, there appeared to be 300 or 400 cavalrymen, but as the advanced column continued forward, the men realized that the hundreds of cavalrymen in the distance were not American soldiers. They were warriors who were wearing cavalry uniforms. The advance column rushed back to the main column and reported the sighting. It was late in the day on June 26th, and Terry ordered the column to stop and make camp. That night, rumors swirled through the column. Most of the infantry officers believed the story from Custer's Crow Scouts. The cavalry officers did not. The story was still too crazy to believe.

Early the next morning, June 27th, the warriors dressed like cavalrymen were gone. The Montana column continued its march down the Little Bighorn, and the advance column found the site of an enormous village. Now they understood the site of the warriors the previous day. The warriors were the rear guard that protected the village as it moved out. As the first American soldiers entered the camp, they found an array of scary signs. The grass around the camp had been burned, and some of it still smoldered. A few lodges still stood, but in each, there were dead Sioux and Cheyenne. All kinds of personal items were

everywhere. They had been left behind in the haste to move. And there were cavalry saddles, uniforms, and boots scattered around the camp. And then they found the heads, the decapitated heads of three soldiers. And it only got worse from there. As the main body of the Montana Column moved through the village toward the river, it found the dead bodies of more soldiers. All had been mutilated, and then the advanced scouts returned from exploring the hills on the other side of the river, and they had terrible news. The leader of the scouts told General Terry and the others

that they had found the bodies of 197 soldiers. The junior officer had never met Custer, but he said one of the bodies resembled a photo of the famous general. But before the information could be fully processed, two riders appeared in the distance. They hurried toward the column, and when they drew rein, they turned out to be two lieutenants from Reno's battalion. The two men pointed up the river and told Terry that their position was near a bluff along the water. They said the last they'd seen of Custer,

he'd waved his hat at them right before they charged the village. General Terry struggled to hold back tears as he informed the two men that they'd found Custer. At the base of Reno Hill, the survivors of the siege had watched the cloud of dust in the distance. That morning, June 27th, they thought the warriors were returning to finish the battle. But as they scrutinized the dust

cloud, they recognized two columns of soldiers. That was when joy and relief spread through the men. Their long ordeal was finally done. But now the question was, who were the soldiers? It was either the Montana column, or Custer's command, or maybe General Crook and his Wyoming column. Then two doctors rode into Reno's camp and reported that the dust in the distance was from the Montana column. The doctors had been sent ahead to help Dr. Porter with the wounded. And now that one question had been answered, the next one was, where was Custer? The doctors reported the news that they'd heard from the scouts. Shortly thereafter, the Montana column made it to Reno Hill.

The survivors gave several cheers, even as they tried to grapple with the news about Custer. Some, like Captain Frederick Benteen, still didn't believe. Some, like Captain Frederick Benteen, still didn't believe. General Terry ordered him to take his company four miles into the hills and see for himself. Benteen and his men rode toward the site of Custer's last stand with the junior officer who originally found the battleground. When they reached the site, the destruction was beyond anything they'd seen on the plains. Dead bodies littered the hillsides for more than a mile. Nearly all were stripped naked and violated in appalling ways. The body of Custer's brother, Tom, was so badly mangled that he could only be identified by a

tattoo of his initials on his arm. General Custer escaped the worst of the mutilations. His body experienced minor disfigurement, but it was nothing compared with Tom. Custer's body had been stripped naked, and he leaned in a half-sitting position against two other soldiers. He had not been scalped, and there were clear bullet wounds in his chest and head. Bentine looked down and confirmed the identity, and then he told his men to return to Reno Hill. The Montana Column set up a new camp near the timber that had been the site of the first stage of retreat after Reno's charge. The rest of that day, June 27th, was dedicated to helping the wounded and burying the dead from Reno's command. The following day, detachments of the 7th Cavalry rode to Custer's battlefield to bury their comrades.

After hours of grim work, they had buried 204 soldiers. But an accurate count was impossible. Too many bodies had been dismembered. And, bodies were caught in places that went unnoticed. For the next 50 years, the remains of the fallen soldiers of Custer's command were discovered on the battlefield. During the experience, there were very few things that could be viewed as silver linings. Probably the only two involved Captain Miles Keogh. He was one of, if not the only, trooper who was not mutilated in any way. And his trusty horse, Comanche, was the only survivor of Custer's last stand. Comanche was found wandering the battlefield.

He had been wounded seven times, and three were serious. But Comanche lived. In fact, he lived for another 14 years. When the storied animal finally passed away, a taxidermist preserved his body. Over the next 140 years, it was restored and refurbished. And now, it stands in a museum at the University of Kansas, if you're inclined to visit. Starting on the evening of June 26th, the village of nearly 8,000 people moved south as one body. The besieged soldiers on Reno Hill watched them leave with a mix of relief and cautious optimism. The soldiers of the Montana Column were just a few miles north of the village campsite,

and they drew close enough to see the warriors of the rear guard. For the next few days, the village continued south. Then, near a place where the Little Bighorn River split into three smaller creeks, the group split as well. One group followed Sitting Bull east to the Powder River and then north to Canada. The other followed Crazy Horse northeast to the Upper Powder River and then back down to the Black Hills region. As usual, the villages moved around for the rest of the summer. There would be more clashes later in the summer, but for now, the villages were once again free to roam Montana Territory and beyond. On June 29th, probably around the time the village split into two groups,

the combined Montana-Dakota column began its journey home. It was slow going as the troopers had to take special care of the severely wounded. As they trudged past the vacant village site for the final time, they spotted the body of Mark Kellogg on the other side of the river. Kellogg had ridden a mule for five weeks as he followed Custer's command in search of a big story. He was a newspaper correspondent for the New York Herald, but he was contracted for the job through the newspaper in Bismarck. Bismarck was basically the headquarters of the 7th Cavalry, and the publisher of the Bismarck Tribune had not wanted to go on the campaign himself,

so he offered the job to Kellogg. The publisher would learn of Kellogg's fate soon enough, and he would play a critical role in telling the world about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Early in the morning on June 30th, the column spotted the paddle steamer far west on the Bighorn River. Soldiers moved the injured on board, and they took special care to get the warhorse Comanche onto the boat. The troopers viewed him with a special reverence. The next day, the Far West began its trip back to Bismarck. General Terry and General Gibbon led the rest of the soldiers on foot or horseback. The next time the boat stopped, the man with the first official news

of the battle began his ride. He rode west to Fort Ellis, the headquarters of the Montana Column. He carried a bag of letters and telegrams that had been written by the soldiers, including two very short messages from General Terry to General Phil Sheridan in Chicago. from General Terry to General Phil Sheridan in Chicago. When Terry, Gibbon, and the Montana Column arrived at the same spot two days later, Terry wrote his first long-form report about the final stage of the campaign. Terry had set up a win-win situation for himself as far as his reputation was concerned. His explicit instructions to Custer were to find the village and then coordinate an attack with the Montana Column.

But everyone, including Terry, knew that if Custer found a village, he was going to attack. If Custer did so and won, Terry could claim later that he'd given Custer the blessing to do it. If Custer attacked and failed, Terry could show that Custer had disobeyed orders. And that's what Terry did now. And he used his famous double talk to insulate himself. He told Sheridan that Custer had disobeyed orders. But he was careful to say that Custer's errors should not be held against him. Custer paid the ultimate price, and that was a tragedy. But if he had just followed Terry's instructions, they surely would have been successful. At that point, July 2nd, the column began a lengthy stay in camp while it waited for resupply.

But the Far West hurried down the Yellowstone toward Bismarck with the wounded. West hurried down the Yellowstone toward Bismarck with the wounded. Captain Grant Marsh docked the Far West at Bismarck at about 11 p.m. on July 5th. That night, someone woke up Clement Lounsbury, the publisher of the Bismarck Tribune. Captain Marsh, Dr. Porter from Reno Hill, and others dumped out a suitcase full of messages, reports, and dispatches from the field. They told Lounsbury about the tragic loss of his correspondent, Mark Kellogg, and Lounsbury spent the night organizing the mountain of information and writing a story. When the telegraph line opened the next morning, the operator started to transmit Lounsbury's story to the New York Herald. The operator didn't stop typing for 22 hours.

At about 7 a.m. on July 6th, as news of the battle buzzed across the telegraph lines, Libby Custer learned of her husband's death. Three men knocked on the door of her quarters at Fort Lincoln a few miles south of Bismarck. They conveyed the sad intelligence, and she seems to have taken it in stride. She felt it was her duty to join the men as they continued through the post. She wanted to be there for the other wives. Several hundred miles away on the Yellowstone River, the combined Montana-Dakota column spent the rest of the month in camp. Then it marched to the mouth of the Rosebud and settled into a new

camp near a trader's store. The store must have thought it won the lottery. Hundreds of soldiers with nothing to do camped right next door, and the soldiers started to drink. Lots of them indulged, including Benteen and Captain Weir, but Major Reno was in a class by himself. He bought an amount of whiskey from the store that could only be described as impressive. In the first 22 days of August, he bought 11 gallons of whiskey. Now, it's impossible to know if he drank it all himself, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility. And somehow he must have made a few of those purchases while he was on the road, because on August 8th, the troopers went back on the hunt.

because on August 8th, the troopers went back on the hunt. By mid-August, the Montana column had been in the field for four months. The Dakota column had been in the field for three months. And now they were, once again, heading out to find the hostiles. By now, they were reinforced by six companies of the 5th Infantry under Colonel Nelson Miles. The new army called itself the Yellowstone Column. The column rode down the Rosebud for two days until it connected with General Crook's long-lost Wyoming Column. The Wyoming Column had been attacked by 700 warriors in this same neighborhood two months ago, and it hadn't set foot in Montana since. But now it was back, and it was led by the scout who would become

America's first real celebrity, Buffalo Bill Cody. The Wyoming column and the Yellowstone column merged into an army of 4,000 soldiers. The army turned east and marched toward Dakota territory, but it didn't stay together very long. There was friction between General Crook and General Terry, and one morning near the end of August, Crook simply took his men and left. They rode out early in the morning and didn't tell Terry they were leaving. But it was worse for Crook's men. Crook was so confident that he would quickly find the warriors who killed Custer that he left his supply wagons behind. The troopers only had two days of rations, and soon they were hungry and plagued by days of rain. They were forced to kill and eat some of their horses, and they referred to the ordeal as the Starvation March. Then, on September 8th, a detachment of 155 men who had been sent ahead

to find food stumbled into a mini-conju camp of about 40 lodges. It was the camp of Lakota Chief American Horse, the man who had killed Captain Fetterman in the infamous Fetterman Fight, or Fetterman Massacre, ten years earlier. The soldiers attacked the camp at dawn the next day and ransacked the village. Some of the villagers ran to get help, and they returned with hundreds of warriors, including Crazy Horse. By that time, the main body of Crook's 2,000 troopers had arrived, and the two sides settled into a standoff. The soldiers took thousands of pounds of meat from the village, and now that they weren't going to die of starvation, they were in no mood to die in battle. They'd also found a pair of heavy gloves that belonged to Captain Keogh and the military flag of Keogh's Eye Company of the 7th Cavalry.

That was enough for now. A few days later, the Wyoming column straggled into Custer City, a mining camp about 40 miles south of Deadwood. They considered their work done, though all they'd managed to do was overrun a small village. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the main camps were still on the loose, and they weren't going to be caught by General Terry's Yellowstone column either. A few days after the Wyoming column left, the Yellowstone column called it quits. On September 5th, General Terry ordered all units to return to their posts.

On the way, they were supposed to be on the lookout for a large group of Sioux who were supposedly moving north, but the soldiers never saw the travelers. Those travelers were Sitting Bulls people, and they were heading north to Canada to spend the next few years evading the U.S. government. north to Canada to spend the next few years evading the U.S. government. After four months on the trail and the loss of hundreds of comrades at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the 7th Cavalry finally headed for Bismarck. Captain Thomas Weir put it best with one of the all-time great sarcastic lines. He said, as the Sioux have failed to find us, we are going home. The 7th Cavalry returned to its post at Fort Lincoln, south of Bismarck, on September 26,

on September 26, 1876, 131 days after it departed. There were no cheers, no parades, no bands playing the regiment's anthem, Gary Owen. Many of the women and children who had lost husbands and fathers had left the post. Their quarters were now empty and painted black in mourning. The campaigns against the tribes of the Northern Plains continued for the rest of 1876 and most of 1877. Slowly but surely, American troops forced the various bands of the various tribes onto reservations, or killed them in the attempt. After 1877, only Sitting Bull and his dwindling group remained at large in the freezing north of Canada. In mid-August, while the Yellowstone and Wyoming columns launched their second campaigns into southern Montana, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that took the Black Hills from the Lakota.

U.S. Congress passed a bill that took the Black Hills from the Lakota. Congress used the Battle of the Little Bighorn to justify the confiscation of basically all Native American land on the High Plains. It was the last gasp of the original free peoples of North America. Throughout the summer of 1876, newspapers churned out stories about the campaign of May and June. Official and unofficial reports were published. The survivors told their stories. President Grant and Generals Sherman and Sheridan were forced to weigh in.

They all expressed shock and grief over the tragic loss of American soldiers. But ultimately, the U.S. got what it wanted, the Black Hills. And in the process, Sitting Bull became one of the most famous people in America. He surpassed the exalted status of other leaders like Tecumseh, Red Cloud, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and Quanah Parker. And for the first time, the general public learned the name Crazy Horse. His name was known to soldiers, but he had never attended a peace conference, never spent time on a reservation, and never interacted with other parts of white society. Even after his role in Red Cloud's war in the

late 1860s, he was still unknown to the vast majority of Americans. But not anymore. And with an awesome name like Crazy Horse, it was easy to grab headlines. Even if Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were just two random Lakota men with no accomplishments to their names, the names themselves would still be great. And of course, as the names Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

achieved legendary status, so did the name George Armstrong Custer. He was flamboyant, courageous, cocky, caring, loving, obsessive, headstrong, naive, and adventurous. And he's forever tied to an era of American history unlike any other. An era with more names that need to be remembered. Thanks for listening to the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn here on Legends of the Old West. Next season, it's the saga of one of the most famous lawmen of all time, Wild Bill Hickok. If you're listening along with us in real time, it begins November 10th, 2021.

We'll see you then on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. Original music by Rob Valliere.

I'm your writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, Once Upon a Crime, and many more. Thanks for listening. Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada