On the morning of June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Winfield Scott Edgerly of the Seventh Cavalry was approximately fifteen miles from a large hostile Indian village along the Little Bighorn River. The entire command had gathered at that location when General George Armstrong Custer, accompanied by his scouts, climbed a ridge to survey the village below.
When Custer returned, he called his officers together. He informed them that the detachment had been discovered. His scouts had chased a small party of Indians, but the Indians escaped and fled toward the camp.
A surprise attack, originally planned for the following day, was no longer possible. Instead, the regiment would move forward quickly and, if feasible, fight the Indians in their village. Custer believed the Indians could not resist an entire cavalry regiment and would likely try to escape upon hearing of the advance.
Custer ordered troop commanders to mount their men and report readiness. Within a minute, every commander had done so. Custer and his adjutant, Lieutenant W.
W. Cook, divided the regiment into four battalions of three troops each. Command was given to the four senior officers: Major Reno, Colonel Frederick Benteen, Colonel George Kog, and Captain Yates.
Major Reno was directed to advance straight down the valley toward the village and begin the attack, with support to follow. Colonel Benteen was ordered to turn left at an angle of about 45 degrees from Reno’s course and attack any Indians he encountered. The expectation was that the Indians would flee either right or left.
Captain McDougall and his troop were assigned as rear guard to protect the pack train.
The precise orders given to Colonel Kog and Captain Yates were not known to Edgerly, but Custer accompanied them with roughly 250 to 300 men, advancing parallel to Reno’s route. That was the last time Edgerly saw Custer alive.
Benteen followed his orders and soon came upon a chain of high bluffs. He sent Lieutenant Gibson to the tops of several bluffs to look for signs of Indians. Gibson returned repeatedly, reporting no Indians in view.
Benteen then turned right and, after traveling five or six miles, came upon Reno’s trail and followed it.
After several miles, an orderly trumpeter sent by Custer arrived with a message: “We have found a big village. Move quickly. Bring the packs.”
The column continued on. When they were about three miles from the village, they saw evidence of fighting in the valley. Soon after, they observed a party of more than a hundred men running toward the bluffs on the east side of the Little Bighorn River.
The men crossed the stream and disappeared into the bluffs.
The orderly had told them that the village had been taken by surprise and that Reno was driving the Indians before him. Edgerly assumed the running men were Indians being chased by their own troops. They hurried toward the ford where Reno had crossed, intending to rush to his assistance.
As they approached the ford, a Crow scout named Half Yellowface appeared on their right and signaled for them to join him on the bluff. The column turned and climbed the bluff. At the top, they found Reno and his battalion along with several wounded men in urgent need of water.
To their astonishment, Reno’s force had been compelled to withdraw from the valley.
A few Indians were hiding behind rocks and hillsides, firing at them. A skirmish line was quickly formed, and the Indians were driven off within minutes. Soon after, Edgerly heard heavy gunfire coming from the direction where Custer’s command would later be found.
He could see clouds of dust and horsemen moving back and forth on the far side of the river, about four miles away.
Colonel Weir, Edgerly’s captain, approached him and asked what they should do. Edgerly said he believed it essential to hurry to Custer’s assistance immediately. Weir agreed, and the first sergeant voiced the same view.
Weir asked if Edgerly would go with him with only the troop if he could get permission. Edgerly said he would.
Weir went to Reno and Benteen. When he returned a short time later, he mounted his horse with an orderly and rode toward the direction of the gunfire, which by then had mostly stopped. Edgerly assumed Weir had received approval to proceed with the troop.
Weir later told him he had not, and had not even asked for it.
Edgerly mounted the troop and followed. After advancing a few hundred yards, he turned right and entered a small valley, likely the same one used by Custer or a route nearly parallel to it. They moved directly toward the large party of Indians they had seen from higher ground.
While moving down the valley, Weir, who was on a bluff to the left, saw a large group of Indians approaching. He signaled for Edgerly to redirect the troop toward his location. Edgerly did so at once.
Upon reaching the bluff, he saw Benteen, Captain French, and Lieutenant Godfrey approaching with their troops.
They moved along the bluff for a short distance when the Indians began shooting. The troops dismounted, formed a line on the summit, and returned fire. The shooting continued for about thirty minutes until Reno ordered the troops to fall back to their original position.
During the withdrawal, one man was killed and one horse was lost.
Upon rejoining Reno’s position, they found the other troops arranged along the crest of the hill. Weir’s troop and Godfrey’s troop aligned side by side to extend the existing line. Soon after they took this position, the Indians advanced and began firing.
Although the firing was heavy, only a few men were killed, as most shots went over their heads. The exchange lasted more than an hour and continued until thirty minutes after dark, ending the day’s fighting.
The next morning, just before dawn, heavy gunfire broke out again from the hills about 500 to 800 yards away. It persisted until about 10:00. After that, the firing decreased considerably, though small parties of Indians remained visible on the ridges.
In the afternoon, the Indians on the other side of the river took down their lodges, and around 4:00, they all left.
The regiment had sustained very few casualties while holding their position. They stayed there overnight. The next morning, Lieutenant Bradley from General Terry’s column arrived and told them that Custer and his entire command had been killed.
Soon after, General Terry arrived with his column and sent the regiment to bury the dead.
Edgerly, along with enlisted men from L Troop and Lieutenants Calhoun and Kittenden, were among the first to encounter the fallen troops. Their men’s bodies lay in a regular skirmish line, with the officers’ bodies lying directly behind their troops, where they belonged. Kittenden’s body had many arrow wounds.
Moving on, they came upon Colonel Kog and his troop. They appeared to have been retreating toward the hill where Custer’s body was found, fighting as they withdrew. The other men showed no sign of regular formation.
Their bodies were scattered over the ground, generally moving toward the hill where Custer lay.
They found the bodies of General Custer, Colonel Cook, Lieutenant W. W. Cook, Colonel Tom Custer, the adjutant, a number of enlisted men, and several horses on that hill.
Lieutenant Riley, Captain Yates, several enlisted soldiers, and horses were found around the base of the hill. Boston Custer, the general’s brother, and Reed, his nephew, were located about a hundred yards from the general’s body.
The only officers’ bodies Edgerly saw that had been mutilated were those of Colonel Tom Custer and Lieutenant W. W. Cook.
All the bodies had been stripped of their clothing. Most of the men were entirely naked, though several still wore undershirts, socks, and drawers.
The dead lay below the main village on the east bank, about four miles from where Reno had taken his position. When Edgerly went out with the troop on the afternoon of the 25th, he saw many Indians riding back and forth across the battlefield where the bodies were later found. They were shooting at objects on the ground, though he could not make out what those objects were.
When he first reached the crest of the hill where Reno was posted, he could hear heavy gunfire that lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes. After that, the gunfire ceased.
After burying Custer and his men on the eastern side of the river, the regiment crossed to the western side and interred the fallen soldiers from Reno’s command, about forty in number. During their search, they found two Indian lodges, one containing six bodies and the other five. These individuals were finely dressed and tied to a pole at the center of each tepee.
Chief Lo said this was an honorable way of treating those who had died bravely in battle, leaving their bodies for the enemy to take. Edgerly had never seen a similar practice anywhere else.
Near the tepees, there were as many dead ponies as there were Indians. The horses were placed in a circle around each tepee, facing it.
From what he saw, Edgerly estimated there were about 7,000 warriors present. He made this estimate by comparing the size of the Indian force to Terry’s command of about 500 men, a formation he knew well. Terry’s force seemed greatly outnumbered.
From the accounts given by the Indians, Custer’s trail showed that he traveled along the river on the east side, or right bank. The river was only about fifteen or twenty yards wide at that point. Reno, in contrast, had crossed the river and launched his attack from the west.
The riverbank was steep and high, making it difficult to descend from the bluff until reaching a spot a little over three miles from where Reno established his position after retreating across the river. At that place, Custer found a ford. It was generally believed that he tried to cross but was opposed and driven back to where his body was found.
Along the route from the ford to where Custer’s body was found, dead bodies were scattered.
Before starting the march, Custer, who usually wore his hair long, had it cut short. Though his body was naked, it bore no signs of mutilation.