Theodore W. Golden was a soldier of the Seventh Cavalry who carried a secret for decades. As one of the last men to see General George Armstrong Custer alive, his personal testimony is a rare prize.
In 1904, he provided his account in a letter, offering a firsthand look at the events leading up to and following the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Golden served with Custer from 1873 until the general’s death. In the spring of 1876, his battalion moved from Louisiana to Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. Custer had been delayed in Washington, where he was giving evidence before an inquiry committee.
He joined the regiment just days before the column departed.
The command marched from Fort Lincoln to the Yellowstone River, where they prepared a supply camp. Major Marcus Reno had left on a reconnaissance mission days earlier, planning to reunite with the main force near the mouth of the Tongue River on June 17. The regiment reached that spot on the same day General Crook fought a violent battle with the Indians on the Rosebud.
All day, the men watched distant dust clouds, hoping they signaled Reno’s return. Hearing nothing, they broke camp on the morning of June 18 and moved up the valley, finally uniting with Reno soon after noon.
Golden noticed that Custer’s behavior had changed. He appeared sullen, dissatisfied, and tense. But when Reno arrived with his report, Custer experienced a transformation.
His usual energy and resolve returned as he quickly assembled the command and started for the Rosebud, where General Terry had already gone ahead on a supply steamer to meet General Gibbon’s command.
The march continued long into the night. The next morning, they saw Gibbon’s wagon train moving up the river, followed by the steamer. Messengers were sent to report Reno’s finding of a major Indian trail.
The regiment camped near the mouth of the Rosebud, where a war council was called to examine Reno’s report thoroughly.
A final council took place on the steamer on the night of June 21. Custer received his last instructions. When General Gibbon was asked when he could reach the mouth of the Little Bighorn River, he answered, “Not before noon on the 26th.”
At this meeting, Custer was reportedly offered the second cavalry battalion and artillery, but he refused both. He stated his confidence in his own command and worried that artillery would slow their movement near the enemy. Many officers believed this was part of a pre-arranged scheme to secure an independent command.
His wish was approved.
On the afternoon of June 22, the regiment paraded before Generals Terry and Gibbon and started on the trail Reno had outlined. From that time forward, they followed the trail until Reno found the Indian village, straying only when needed to find appropriate camping spots.
Against their instructions, no attempt was made to scout the surrounding area or send a messenger to General Gibbon, even though they had a scout, George Herrendine, assigned for that purpose. The marches were long and fast until the night of June 24, when they left the trail, apparently stopping for the night. This was only a trick to mislead the Indians, as the men had been told to stay saddled and ready for a night march.
From the time they left the Rosebud, Custer’s behavior changed again. His former lively energy returned, and he seemed entirely focused on finding and fighting the Indians. The trail they followed came from the direction of the Missouri River.
Based on the estimates of Bloody Knife and the Crow scouts, it showed a group of about 1,000 to 1,200 Indians, almost entirely warriors.
About 11:00 that night, the men were told to saddle up and form a line. A scouting group made up of Crows, Ree, and some officers, including Lieutenants Varnum and Hare, had gone ahead to scout the trail across the divide and find the Indians.
The rough landscape and trouble scouting the trail slowed their advance. Dawn found them in a ravine at the bottom of a range of high bluffs, unsure of their distance from the river. During the night, Custer had gone forward to join the scouts.
Just after sunrise, they told him they had found the village in the valley of the Little Bighorn. Custer was doubtful and questioned their statement.
It soon became clear that their presence had been detected. A lost box of ammunition was found by a detachment sent to retrieve it, who came upon Indians trying to open it. Upon receiving this report, Custer seemed to choose an immediate advance.
As the command was being split, Mitch Bouyer, a half-breed Crow interpreter, warned Custer that he would find more Indians in the valley than he could manage with his command. Custer asked Bouyer if he was scared to go on. Bouyer responded that he was ready to go wherever Custer went, but cautioned that if they went into the valley, neither of them would come out alive.
Just before the advance, Golden was assigned by Lieutenant McIntosh to report to Custer for duty as an orderly. The general told him to ride with Lieutenant Cook, the regimental adjutant, and carry out any duties he might give.
During a short stop, the men lay on the ground, most of them sleeping, while the horses ate grass among the sagebrush. Custer commanded the advance, ordering that each battalion first ready should take the right of the line. In a few minutes, they were all mounted and prepared.
Instructions had been given for Captain Frederick Benteen’s battalion to move off to the left, scouting the country, driving any Indians before him, and sending word of any discoveries. Reno was to follow the trail while Custer, with five troops under his command, moved off to the right. Captain McDougall was left with the pack train to follow as best he could.
After a half hour’s difficult ride, the tough ground forced Custer’s column to turn left. They soon came upon Reno’s command, which was pushing ahead on the trail as fast as the rough climb allowed. After a hard climb, they reached the top of the ridge, where they saw a rolling plateau sloping toward the foothills of the river some five or six miles away.
From the top of the divide, they saw Reno’s column moving quickly down the trail, while Benteen’s command was visible several miles to the left. They followed Reno’s general direction, though at a distance and to his right.
Those near Custer saw that he was becoming impatient with their speed. He would sometimes gallop ahead, then stop and wait for their approach before rushing off again. At this point, they saw a huge dust cloud moving down the river valley, though they could not tell what it was.
Custer, accompanied only by his orderly trumpeter, rode toward the river and stopped on a high point. They saw him wave his hat in what seemed a greeting to someone in the distance. He then returned to the front of the column led by Captain Keogh and I Troop, veterans of many battles.
With eyes shining, Custer said to Keogh, “Those Indians are running away. If we can keep up the chase, we can afford to lose half the horses in the command.”
Keogh, with the calm of a dress parade, turned in his saddle and replied, “General, we will do all that man and horse can do.”
Seconds later, the bugles sounded the charge, the first they had heard since leaving the Rosebud. They raced northward down the river, trying to get down into the valley below, though without success.
After about the third failed attempt, Custer talked briefly with Captain Cook, who quickly wrote a note on his pad, folded it, and called for an orderly. Golden was the first to answer.
Cook gave him the paper with the order: “Deliver this to Major Reno. Stay with him until we join together, then report to me immediately.”
With that, Cook was gone. A moment later, the back of the column raced past and disappeared into the ravines. Golden realized he was alone in enemy land.
He hurried toward Reno’s command, which he found by the dust cloud hanging over them. After a six-mile ride, he reached Reno just as Reno was getting off his horse to fight the enemy on foot. Golden gave him the dispatch, not knowing what it said.
Reno looked at it quickly and put it in his pocket.
Around this time, the scouts got scared and ran, not stopping until they reached the Powder River and the safety of the wagon train. It soon became obvious that the Indians were moving around their sides and closing in behind.
Reno’s men had to turn and try to push back the advances until they could get to the timber, during which several horses were shot and a few ran away. They finally fell back into the timber, where they had better cover and started fighting again.
Soon after, they saw Captain Moylan getting his troop ready for action. Lieutenant Wallace, standing close by on the skirmish line, called out to Captain French, commanding the center company, asking about the orders. French said he had received none but would try to find out.
Moments later, French shouted that he understood a charge was about to happen, though he had not received clear orders. He proposed they get on their horses and support the charge.
As they got ready to mount, they found that about 15 men were without horses, either because of the heavy firing or their horses running away. Lieutenant McIntosh had lost his horse and took one belonging to Trooper McCormack, who said sadly that they were all finished anyway, and he might as well die on foot as on horseback.
As they got into the saddle, they came out from the timber and were amazed to find that instead of charging the Indians, Reno was performing a charge on the bluffs on the other side of the river. Upon seeing this, the Indians gathered on their sides and fired heavily on the retreating column. Luckily, their shooting was poor, and the losses were fairly light at this point in the retreat, which had become a disorderly rush.
It has been said that Reno became so excited that he fired all the bullets in his revolver at the Indians and then threw the weapon away. Golden confirmed that this story was wrong, as the revolver involved was owned by General Benteen or his family.
During the retreat, Golden was riding on the left side of the column near the timber when his horse suddenly fell, throwing him into a patch of sagebrush. He had only small injuries. As he got to his feet, Lieutenant Wallace rode past him, telling him to run for the timber, warning that his horse had been killed.
Golden ran towards the timber and reached it soon after. From his hidden position, he saw the men pushing their horses into the river, making them cross the rock-filled stream.
He saw Lieutenant Hodgson’s horse jump into the water and the lieutenant struggling as if hurt. Hodgson got himself free from the stirrups and held onto the stirrup strap of a passing trooper, using it to help him cross. Upon reaching the bank, it was clear that he was wounded, but he bravely continued.
The trooper tried to help him onto the saddle but did not dare to stop his horse. In the next instant, Hodgson seemed to be hit again, losing his hold and falling to the ground. He got to his feet unsteadily, looking for help from another comrade who stopped to help him.
Just as it seemed he was safe, the second trooper threw up his arms, staggered in the saddle, and fell heavily to the ground.
Hodgson tried to move toward the ravine up which the command was vanishing, stumbling forward a few steps before falling again. Apparently knowing further retreat was hopeless, he turned to face the Indians, took out his revolver, and started firing. An instant later, three or four shots sounded from Golden’s side of the river, and he saw Hodgson stagger and fall.
As the men successfully crossed the river and went up a nearby ravine, Golden found himself alone. He stayed unseen and undisturbed as the Indians were busy stripping and mutilating the bodies of the fallen along the riverbank.
Around this time, he heard the far-off sounds of heavy firing downriver and guessed that Custer was fighting the enemy. From the quick looks he had of the village, he was afraid Custer was as greatly outnumbered as they had been.
Most of the Indians near him suddenly left, rushing to join their comrades at the lower end of the village. Golden saw the scout George Herrendine nearby and called to him. They soon found each other.
Herrendine told him that the 15 dismounted men from their outfit had gotten to a spot in the timber about 200 yards away. However, their attempts to cross the open space to get nearer to the river were met with Indian fire.
Before leaving, the Indians had set the river bottom on fire, seemingly to hide their movements or force out the wounded. This smoke turned out to be their saving, as it let them get to the river under its cover. They crossed the river with some trouble and came upon one of the Crow scouts, who pointed them to the place of their command, which they soon joined again.
Upon joining the command, they found that Benteen’s battalion had arrived, but there was no news of where Custer was. They told their story of the events they had seen.
Soon after, a white flag was seen waving from the riverbottom near where Golden and Herrendine had hidden. Lieutenant Hare bravely risked his life to crawl to a lookout point on the bluffs, signaling to the party below that they were friendly forces. They carefully made their way across the river and joined the group, showing themselves to be the dismounted men who had been left behind during Reno’s retreat.
In the confusion of the retreat, Golden had noticed Lieutenant McIntosh on McCormick’s horse riding several rods ahead of him. His lariat had come loose and was dragging on the ground, the picket pin hitting sagebrush and other things, creating a dangerous situation. Several men tried to warn him, but he seemed not to hear.
Moments later, his horse fell. Golden could not see if he was shot or not. As he went by, he saw the lieutenant lying still, either dead or unconscious.
They found him in the same place the next day after the Indians had left, and it looked like he had indeed died.
As Golden stood on the bluffs looking out into the valley, he heard an angry conversation nearby. Captain Weir shouted, “By God, if you won’t go, I will. And if we ever get out of this situation, someone will answer for it.”
Weir walked off, and soon after, Golden saw D Troop get mounted and move into the valley towards the far-off firing. Without clear orders, the whole command followed except for Benteen’s and Godfrey’s troops, which kept some appearance of military order.
They went down the valley until they met Weir’s troop in retreat, overrun by a much larger force of Indians. They quickly formed a line, holding back the advancing crowd until Weir’s command had passed through their lines and reformed behind them. With their help, they were able to pull back and reorganize again.
As they kept retreating, Colonel Benteen, who seemed to have taken charge in their area, turned to Lieutenant Wallace and said, “Wallace, there’s no point in falling back anymore. Form your troop with your right side secured here, and we will make a stand.”
Wallace smiled slightly and replied, “I don’t have a troop, only two men.”
Benteen laughed harshly and answered, “Form yourself and your two men, and I’ll tell you about our situation once I figure it out myself.”
This small group formed the center of their defensive line. Others joined soon after, and they took cover behind sagebrush, quickly building rough barricades and starting to fire. They were able to hold the Indians back until nightfall, when darkness gave them a welcome break.
During the night, they changed their position, set up a corral and hospital, and dug in as well as they could. At dawn, the battle started again, continuing without stopping until about 3:00 in the afternoon, when the Indians suddenly started to take down their teepees, pack their travois, and leave up the river valley, sadly out of rifle range.
On two occasions during the afternoon, volunteer groups went out to get water, drawing Indian fire both times. Unfortunately, Madden of K Troop was hit during the second trip, receiving bad leg injuries that required amputation. They took him to the hospital, where his leg was cut off that night.
The next day, General Terry and General Gibbon arrived, bringing help and news of their friend’s fate in the other battalion. On the 28th, after moving their wounded across the river, they went to the battlefield and buried the remains of Custer’s men.
Except for General Custer himself, they found few bodies that had not been subjected to some kind of mutilation. Yet, as Golden remembered, their fallen leader’s body showed no such signs.
In talking about the engagement with different army officers and frontier veterans, the general agreement appeared that three main factors led to this disaster.
First, the splitting of the command into four separate columns about 15 miles from the battlefield without exact knowledge of the enemy’s position or strength caused a crucial lack of support between the forces.
Second, Custer’s early arrival on the scene nearly 24 hours ahead of plan was harmful.
Third, the loss of horses and extra ammunition badly limited the command’s effectiveness.
Golden’s experiences with Custer made him see the general as dangerously brave, inclined to take chances without completely considering the odds against him. He always thought that one potential reason for Custer’s actions, despite the orders he received, could be his strong feeling of perceived shame from the president’s treatment of him.
Custer may have wanted to clear his name with a bold and decisive win similar to his victory at the Washita, thus restoring himself as a leading figure and Indian fighter in the public’s view.
Whatever his reason, Golden concluded, they must all admit that Custer fought with bravery and finally gave his life with the comrades who had ridden with him to success in many previous battles.