On the afternoon of June 22, 1876, the Seventh United States Cavalry was encamped on the banks of the Yellowstone River near the mouth of Rosebud Creek when their commander, General George Armstrong Custer, took his leave of General Alfred Terry and led the regiment up the Rosebud, intent on making short work of Sitting Bull and his band. Private August L. DeVoto, a soldier of B Troop assigned to the regimental pack train, remembered the moment well. The command carried no wagons, trusting instead to some 150 pack mules, and the soldiers themselves did the packing and cared for the animals.
They marched up the Rosebud all day until near darkness, and on June 23 they set out again at five in the morning and traveled until dark once more. On the 24th, they moved upstream and struck an Indian trail that grew broader with every step. That afternoon they camped near the headwaters of the Rosebud. Between midnight and one o’clock, the regiment broke camp.
The darkness was so profound that DeVoto could barely see the man riding before him; his mule carried camp kettles strapped to the saddle, so DeVoto simply followed the clatter they made. They moved that way until nearly daylight, halted to rest for perhaps an hour, and then started out again on the morning of June 25. B Troop was in the advance under Captain Thomas M. McDougall.
After coming within some ten miles of the Indian camp, the column halted for a half hour’s rest, and the officer’s call was sounded. Here, DeVoto believed, Custer formed his final plan of attack. He took five troops under his own direct command, assigned three to Major Marcus Reno, three to Captain Frederick Benteen, and left one troop, B Troop, as the rear guard. Before the command moved, men from each troop were detailed to take charge of the pack train, and DeVoto was one of ten from his troop.
Because they had been the advanced guard, their mules were placed at the front of the train. Custer rode ahead with his five troops, as did Reno and Benteen. The plan, as DeVoto understood it, was to catch the Indians between two fires. Reno crossed the river above the camp and made the first attack with his three troops, while Custer rode farther to the west.
The Indians, of whom there were a vast number, must have dismounted and hidden themselves in a dry ravine, for when the soldiers later buried Custer’s men, DeVoto noted that there were no dead Indian ponies on that field. The pack train moved at a lively pace. The men passed a teepee holding a dead Indian, and presently they began to hear firing. Soon they met a Crow Indian coming from the direction Custer had taken.
He spoke little English, but when they asked about the soldiers, he made motions with his hands, indicating that many soldiers were down, no doubt meaning killed. Next they met a soldier from Custer’s command, sent with a message for Major Reno; the fight had evidently not yet started when he was sent, for he said nothing of it. Coming into plain view of the Indian camp, the men looked down from a hill and saw the camp, beautiful in the green valley below. Moving a little closer, they could see Major Reno and his command slowly climbing up a hill.
DeVoto spoke to a man of G Troop named McGonagal and asked what had happened. McGonagal said Reno had retreated from the Indians and lost a good number of men. Lieutenant Donald McIntosh was killed, Lieutenant Benjamin Hodgson was missing, and the doctor, Dr. James DeWolf, had been killed just as he reached the hilltop.
He was the first dead man of their command DeVoto had seen. In the meantime, Captain Benteen came up with his three troops, then the pack train, and finally B Troop, the rear guard. Shortly after the rear guard arrived, a lieutenant, Sergeant Criswell, two other men, and DeVoto were detailed to find Lieutenant Hodgson. They had gone about halfway down the hill toward the river when an orderly told them to return.
When they got back, the whole command was strung out, but Benteen soon came back at a charging gate. The officers must have seen that they were being surrounded. The command moved east about half a mile and dismounted. The ground was well chosen, near the edge of a hill with a good lookout toward the river on the south and east, while the north and west was open country, giving the Indians no place for concealment.
A depression in the ground gave some protection to the horses and mules. Almost before the troops were formed, the fight commenced and kept up until dark. Shortly after the firing ceased, someone sounded taps, but not from the camp. DeVoto believed it was a ruse of the Indians to make them believe Custer was camped nearby.
Later, when they buried Custer’s men, they found his chief bugler’s body about a mile from the battlefield, all alone and stark naked, in a kneeling position with his back stuck full of arrows. On the morning of June 26, the fight began at daybreak and was swift and furious. The soldiers fought until about noon, and DeVoto believed the Indians were growing short of ammunition. The wounded began calling for water, and about a dozen men volunteered to go to the river.
They went down a ravine that protected them from exposure, but at the bottom there was an open space of some twenty feet to the creek bank, dangerously exposed to fire from the opposite side. Each man carried as many canteens as he could. One of the soldiers had brought down a big camp kettle, and DeVoto realized it would be safer to wade into the stream, fill the kettle, and then run back under cover to fill the canteens. He did this.
One man named Madden tried to fill his canteen at the creek and was shot in the leg. His leg was amputated the next day by Dr. Plumer, the only doctor left, as the other had already been killed. Around four that afternoon, the Indians moved away, and the soldiers did not follow.
That evening they watered the horses and mules for the first time since the fight began, took up more ground, and had bacon, coffee, and hardtack, their first meal since the morning of the 25th. The next day, June 27, some of the men were detailed to go over Reno’s battleground to find the missing or dead. DeVoto, with Sergeant Criswell and three others, went to look for Lieutenant Hodgson. They found his body on the bank about twenty feet from the water, naked, shot in the temple and the groin.
Nearby lay several dead members of G Troop, including First Sergeant Botzer. They laid Hodgson’s body across their carbines, carried it to camp, dug a grave, wrapped him in a blanket, and buried him on the hill, planting a sapling to mark the spot. All this time they did not know what had become of Custer and his men, never thinking that he and all of them had been slaughtered. Along about noon, they saw a cloud of dust in the west and thought the Indians were returning.
They prepared to receive them, but it turned out to be General Terry and his command. Terry brought them the sad news that Custer and all his men had been killed. The next day, the soldiers went over Custer’s battlefield and buried the dead. It was a sickening and sad duty.
Afterwards, they went over the ground where the Indian camp had been. Two teepees were left standing, full of dead Indians. DeVoto looked in as he rode past and saw them piled up like cordwood. One of them looked very much like a white man, with white legs, but he had no chance to make a close investigation.
The men then skinned a number of dead horses and mules, cut the hides into strips, chopped down young saplings, and made litters. That evening they put a mule in front and one behind, placed the litters on their backs, and with two men leading them, transported the wounded, about fifty men, to the mouth of the Little Bighorn River, where the steamer Far West waited to take them to Fort Abraham Lincoln. They traveled all night along the banks of the Big Horn. After sending the wounded away, they traveled down the Big Horn to the mouth of the Yellowstone, crossed by boat, and camped at a place called Fort Pease to get new supplies.
They traveled down until they were opposite the Rosebud, crossed the Yellowstone again, drew clothing and rations, and started out once more. On their second day out, they met General George Crook’s command, with Buffalo Bill as his chief scout. The Seventh Cavalry and Crook’s command moved together for about three days, when it was discovered that the Indians had dispersed, some having gone into Canada. The two commands then separated, with the Seventh Cavalry going to the mouth of the Tongue River on the Yellowstone, where they camped for about three weeks.
About a week later, they made a short trip down the river to Standing Rock, took a lot of ponies from the Indians, and drove them to Fort Lincoln. So ended DeVoto’s account of the Little Bighorn expedition.