The discovery of George Armstrong Custer’s body on June 27, 1876, did not match the heroic image later cemented in American memory. He was found naked except for his socks, propped against fallen soldiers as if sleeping. The reality was far grimmer. Chest and head wounds indicated he had been shot, and his brother Tom lay nearby, gutted, scalped, and identifiable only by a tattoo.
The official account told the public that Custer died bravely, untouched by the horrors around him. That account was false. The army lied to his widow, Libbie, and to the nation. The details were deliberately softened to protect reputations and spare grieving families from the truth of what happened on the battlefield.
For the victorious Lakota and Cheyenne, the first act after the fight was looting. Weapons, uniforms, badges, and horses were taken as rightful spoils of war. Lakota warrior Brave Bear recalled boasting among the warriors over captured guns, coffee, and tobacco. The process was brutal for the dead. Nearly every soldier was stripped and left exposed under the Montana sun. In some cases, feet were severed to remove boots more easily.
Scalping was customary among the Lakota and Cheyenne, and the field was no exception. For hours, warriors took scalps as trophies. Women also joined the desecration. Cheyenne women later said they had driven awls into Custer’s ears. Years afterward, it was revealed that someone had forced an arrow into a degrading place on Custer’s body, a detail the army hid to protect his widow.
Not all the dead were truly dead. Lakota warrior Ironhawk recalled seeing two elderly women strip a man who had been pretending to be dead. When they began cutting him, the soldier leaped up and fought them off. He was quickly killed, but Ironhawk admitted the sight of a naked man battling two old women struck him as strangely comical.
Sitting Bull’s reaction is uncertain. His visions had promised victory but warned of a curse if the dead were disturbed. Accounts of his opposition to the mutilations came years later, and he may have been distancing himself from acts condemned by outsiders.
The battle was not over for everyone. Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen had fortified on what became known as Reno Hill. Sitting Bull’s warriors harassed them through the night of June 25 and throughout June 26, breaking off only on June 27 when scouts reported U.S. reinforcements approaching.
Reno and Benteen were too focused on their own defense to know what had happened to Custer. It was General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon’s forces who uncovered the scale of the catastrophe. Scouts first found bloodied uniforms abandoned in an empty camp. Soon after, another scout delivered worse news. He had counted 197 dead bodies lying in the hills. When asked if they were white men, he replied, “Yes, white men.”
Terry and Gibbon feared the entire Seventh Cavalry had been destroyedasia, but scouts soon located Reno and Benteen’s survivors. Benteen and part of his men were sent to find Custer. The scene was horrific. Corpses lay rotting after two days in the heat. They first found the bodies of Company L, led by Custer’s brother-in-law, Lieutenant James Calhoun, still arranged in the defensive line where they had fallen at Calhoun Hill.
Another cluster of bodies lay on the slope that became known as Last Stand Hill. Private Jacob Adams was the first to spot the fallen commander. He called Captain Benteen, who confirmed, “By God, that’s him.” Custer’s body was found near the top of the hill, just 20 feet from his brother Tom. Like the rest, he was stripped naked save for his socks. Unlike Tom, he had not been scalped. His body was propped as if seated against fellow soldiers, his expression strangely peaceful.
Lieutenant James Bradley later wrote reassuringly that about 200 bodies were scattered between the hills and the river, and that the fallen had not been badly treated. That was false. Private Charles Windolf later admitted Bradley’s words were intended to spare families. In truth, the mutilations were shocking. Some bodies were mutilated beyond description. Isaiah Dorman, the Black Scout, had been so badly defiled that a kettle of his blood was left beside him as an insult.
Most soldiers had been scalped, riddled with arrows, or struck with axes and war clubs after death. Custer’s body officially showed two gunshot wounds, one to the chest and one to the head, along with a knife wound in his thigh. The more degrading details were deliberately concealed from the record.
Tom Custer fared worse. Scalped, skull crushed, and disemboweled, he could only be identified by a tattoo. Two days in the summer heat had left the bodies decomposing, the smell unbearable. Colonel Gibbon admitted the scene was overwhelming.
Among the corpses, Private Adams and others heard a faint noise. It came from a horse. Comanche, a gelding belonging to Captain Miles Keogh, lay wounded but alive beside his dead rider. Struck by multiple bullets and arrows, parched and exhausted, the horse had endured days without care. Soldiers quickly tended to him. Comanche recovered, became the Seventh Cavalry’s mascot, and lived until 1891, honored with a full military funeral.
On June 27, soldiers counted and tried to identify the dead. Many could not be named with certainty. Nineteen bodies were never recovered. Over the years, remains continued to be found in the hills, suggesting some soldiers fled the hill only to be hunted down later.
The following morning, burials began. Benteen counted 208 dead. Bradley counted 206. Time was short and danger lingered. Fearing renewed attack, soldiers dug shallow mass graves or buried men where they fell. Custer and Tom were laid side by side in a makeshift grave at the base of the hill, wrapped in canvas, with stones placed to deter scavengers. Who dug the grave remains debated.
The column marched toward the Big Horn River, where the steamer Far West awaited. Medics treated the injured as best they could, amputating limbs when necessary. Some still died on route.
The psychological toll was severe. Major Reno drowned his pain in alcohol, purchasing 11 gallons of whiskey within weeks. Captain Benteen also turned to drink, eventually quarreling with Captain Thomas Weir, who accused him of abandoning Custer. Benteen challenged him to a duel, which Weir declined. Racked with guilt, Weir died later that year in his New York hotel room.
The Far West sped up the Missouri River with 38 wounded and the devastating news. In under three days, it traveled 710 miles back to Fort Abraham Lincoln. At dawn on July 6, Libbie Custer awoke to the sound of the ship’s arrival. Hours later, officers delivered the news to her and her sister-in-law, Maggie. Both women collapsed in grief.
Libbie, married to George for 12 years, quickly turned to duty, accompanying officers to console the 26 other widows at the fort. For the rest of her life, she defended her husband’s legacy, blaming Reno and Benteen for the disaster until her death in 1933.
The public first learned of the defeat on July 7, only three days after celebrating America’s centennial. The shocking news dominated the press, sparking debate over blame. Custer’s recklessness. Reno and Benteen’s failures. Or both.
The tragedy is not only that hundreds of men died that day. Their deaths were quickly recast into legend, their suffering softened to spare families and preserve reputations. What does it say about a nation when the truth of its greatest battlefield defeat must be buried under carefully crafted lies? Custer was remembered as a hero. Whether he was manufactured into one remains the uncomfortable reality history leaves us with.