On June 25, 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn ended in the complete destruction of five companies of the US 7th Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer. The outcome was absolute. Among the warriors present afterward was White Wolf, who later recounted how young men moved through the bodies of the dead soldiers, searching their pockets. They found square green paper currency, money unlike anything they had seen before.
The children repurposed it as saddle blankets for their toy mud horses. Silver coins were also recovered, and the Cheyenne used them to fashion silver buckles. Other warriors, including Wooden Leg, Little Hawk, and Bobtail Horse, reported finding bottles of whiskey among the fallen troopers. Two days after the battle, on June 27, cavalry troops arrived to witness the grim aftermath.
Lieutenant Edward S. Godfrey described the haunting sight of marble-white soldier bodies lying alongside the brown remains of horses and ponies scattered across the battlefield, particularly near what became known as Custer Hill. The dry reddish-brown grass contrasted sharply with the pale earth, creating a chilling image of death and desolation. He later said the scene was one he would carry with him forever.
Captain Tom Custer was discovered near the summit of the hill just north of the general, lying face down. His features were so distorted he was unrecognizable. His body was marked by numerous arrow wounds, including injuries to his back and head, where an arrowhead had bent and embedded deeply. His skull had been fractured, and nearly all of his hair had been scalped, leaving only a small patch at the nape of his neck.
In stark contrast, General Custer’s body remained unscathed. He was found lying on his back with his hands resting on his abdomen, a posture familiar to those who had marched alongside him, as they had frequently observed him napping that way. He had sustained two fatal injuries, one to the front of his left temple and another near his heart. Boston Custer, the youngest of the Custer brothers, was located approximately two hundred yards from Custer Hill.
His body was completely stripped except for his white cotton socks, which had their labels removed. Numerous bodies scattered across the battlefield bore remnants of bloody undershirts, trousers, or socks, yet in each instance, the names had been excised. The horrifying sight of the naked, mutilated corpses marked by lethal wounds created a scene of profound distress. Among the limited tools available were half a dozen spades and shovels, a few axes, and a couple of picks.
The soldiers endeavored to bury their fallen comrades as best they could. Using knives and tin cups, they quickly covered the bodies with a thin layer of soil, leaving them in the expansive wilderness, hundreds of miles from civilization and far from the comforting presence of their families. Trumpeter Giovanni Martini recalled witnessing a pile of dead soldiers in a deep ravine situated between Custer’s position and the river. Among them was a first sergeant whose body was adorned with torn fragments of approximately five hundred dollars in paper currency, money that had been entrusted to him for safekeeping by the men under his command.
Martini also noted that part of Adjutant Cook’s sideburns had been scalped, with the skin still attached. Seventh Cavalry scout George Herendeen reported that four soldiers’ heads were discovered in the Sioux camp, severed from their bodies, which could not be found on the battlefield or within the village. Lieutenant Charles Roe of the Second Cavalry noted that a white man’s head was located in the Indian village, bound to a lariat, having been dragged through the area until it detached from the body. Survivor Jacob Adams recounted that soldiers were lassoed from their horses and pulled into the center of the village, where they were bound to trees and burned alive.
These gruesome events were observed by their fellow soldiers from Benteen’s division, who were powerless to intervene. John Ryan later remarked that bones and fragments of blue uniforms were discovered at the locations where men had been tied to trees and stakes. Of the five guidons carried by Custer’s troops during their final stand, only one was retrieved shortly after the battle. It had been concealed beneath the body of a fallen soldier, Corporal John Foley, who had attempted to flee on horseback.
As he was pursued by warriors, Foley took his own life before being captured. The recovered flag later became known as the Culbertson Guidon, named in honor of Sergeant Ferdinand Culbertson, a member of the burial party that found it. The battlefield remained a stark monument to the destruction. The dead were left where they fell, covered only by a thin scrape of earth, far from home.
The items scattered among the bodies, the currency, the coins, the whiskey, bore witness to the clash between two worlds, one that had marched confidently into the valley, and another that had defended its ground with complete finality. The 7th Cavalry had been shattered, and the recovery of the dead did little to soften the scale of the loss. The Battle of the Little Bighorn stood as the most severe defeat inflicted upon the US Army during the Plains Indian Wars, and the images carried away by the men who buried the fallen would not fade.