For decades, the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn has been told as a heroic last stand, with General George Armstrong Custer and his men fighting bravely against overwhelming odds. But a rarely discussed deathbed account from Rain in the Face, a Lakota warrior who fought in the battle, tells a very different story. His testimony, given late in his life and recorded by a witness, directly challenges the myth that has surrounded the battle for more than a century. Rain in the Face was a Hunkpapa Lakota warrior known for his fierce reputation, and rumors that he had killed Custer himself were so widespread that the poet Longfellow even wrote about it.
For years, army officers and government officials tried to persuade him to tell his side of the story, offering kindness, promises, and even threats. He refused to speak until, during a council at Standing Rock with leaders like Sitting Bull and Gall present, a man named Harry asked him a provocative question that finally broke his silence. Harry, referring to a popular drawing of the battle, challenged Rain in the Face by asking how Tom Custer, a smaller man, could have defeated him. The taunt struck deeply.
Rain in the Face rose to his full height and delivered a detailed account of his life, the battle, and the events that led to his most infamous act. His testimony, as recorded, becomes a sharp contrast to the sanitized version of history. The story he told began two winters before the famous fight. He was camped with his people, enjoying good times of dancing and racing, until a girl taunted him, daring him to prove his bravery by riding to Fort Lincoln and killing a white man.
Despite his warnings about the danger, she mocked him as a coward, and his pride would not let the insult stand. He blackened his face, took his weapons, and rode forty-five miles to Fort Lincoln under cover of night. He waited for two days, passing up easier targets because he wanted a soldier’s brass buttons to bring back. At dawn, he saw his chance when a veterinarian rode toward a spring, followed by a soldier with long yellow hair riding about a hundred paces behind.
Rain in the Face charged, struck the veterinarian, and cut off his buttons, but the shot was heard. The soldier with the yellow hair galloped back, forcing Rain in the Face to flee. He led a desperate chase to the Cannonball River before being captured, bound, and thrown into a cell at Fort Lincoln. He spent the winter chained, given only a thin blanket in a freezing guardhouse, and treated with deep humiliation.
During his captivity, he made a grim vow to the officer he called Little Hair, Tom Custer. He told him that if he ever broke loose, he would tear out his heart and eat it. With the help of an accomplice, he escaped back to Sitting Bull’s camp. Later, to prove his word, he sent Tom Custer a drawing on a buffalo hide as a final promise.
Soon after, he found himself on the battlefield facing the soldiers again. When Rain in the Face finally described the battle, he was dismissive of the famous artists’ drawings that showed the warriors armed only with bows and arrows. He insisted those pictures lied. The warriors had stronger weapons, and their rifles fired only once before the cartridges jammed.
He described seeing dozens of guns on the ground with shells stuck inside, a detail he repeated with emphasis. He described the tactical reality of the fight. The Lakota and Cheyenne had set up empty lodges to deceive Custer’s scouts, making the village seem smaller than it was. Sitting Bull had performed a medicine ritual and returned with a prophecy that the soldiers would come but they would be crushed.
When the soldiers’ advance stalled, the warriors cut off their retreat and closed in from all sides. The soldiers made a grave mistake by breaking their line. The warriors surged like waves around them. Every fourth soldier held the horses, and the attackers shot the holders and panicked the animals with blankets.
The soldiers’ rifles jammed after a single shot, and they were finished with war clubs. Rain in the Face said some soldiers begged for mercy but none was given. In the chaos and smoke, he got separated from the main action and lost sight of the long-haired commander. He was overwhelmed by the fighting, his lungs filled with gun smoke, driven by blind rage.
Then he saw the man who had chained him. Tom Custer was not in uniform that day, and his hair was short, but Rain in the Face recognized him immediately, and the officer recognized him back. He laughed, cried out, and closed the distance. Tom Custer fired his revolver, but the shot went wide.
What followed was done with a war club and a knife. Rain in the Face carried out the vow he had sworn in the frozen cell, dismounting and taking the heart from the man who had humiliated him. He bit a piece of it and spat it in the dying man’s face. Satisfied and spent, he did not scalp him, saying his vow was fulfilled and that was enough.
The victory did not bring complete unity. When Sitting Bull returned to the camp, he stood proudly before the warriors, but Gall rose and argued with him over command. Gall claimed that Sitting Bull had made medicine while the warriors had made war, and their quarrel split the camp. This dispute may have prevented them from finishing off the last soldiers on the hill.
After the battle, the women came to finish the wounded and gather spoils. They searched for the scalp of the long-haired commander but never found it. When word arrived that more soldiers were marching with cannon, the great village moved north and crossed the border into Canada. Rain in the Face stayed behind until Sitting Bull returned, and together they came back home.
His testimony, given late in life and recorded in the presence of other leaders, stands as a direct refutation of the romantic legend that has been passed down for generations. Rather than a noble Gallant charge, he described a tactical masterpiece, a decisive victory born of strategy, spirit, and the brutal reality of close-quarters combat. The myth of Custer’s last stand, told through his eyes, becomes a much darker story of unfulfilled revenge, honor, and a promise kept in the heat of war.