It uses artifacts and bones to detail the location of bodies, what strategies each side took, and who was the victor. While it would have been nice to have these rapid-fire (each averaging six rounds per second) weapons available for the battle, their loss ultimately would not have changed the inevitable outcome. The remnants of missing soldiers was one of the more significant finds of the site. They were not fighting on the river, but east of it. Gen. Alfred Terry’s orders. The Custer known to the average American is a myth...There is a Custer mystery...and out of this very fact grew the fictions, inventions, and fantastic legends that together form the Custer Myth.”. The enlisted cavalrymen were mostly armed with Springfield 1873, single-shot carbines in .45-55 or .45-70-calibers, prone to jamming with soft, copper-cased ammo, with 100 rounds of ammunition per man, including 50 rounds at the ready, and a further 50 in the pack train, which had been left far behind. Mostly from White Cow Bull. Captain Frederick Benteen, an actual participant in the battle, cited for bravery, observed upon finding the bodies on Custer Hill that, “Only where General Custer was found was there evidence of a stand.” This was Tom Custer’s position as acting commander, and it was here that the Indians sustained their heaviest casualties. His brother, Captain (brevet Lieutenant Colonel) Thomas Ward (“Tom”) Custer, age 31, a two-time winner of the highly-prestigious Medal of Honor during the Civil War, has been variously described as carrying either a 15-shot, 1873 Winchester repeating rifle in .44-40, a Springfield 1873 Officer’s Model in .45-70, or a Springfield 1873 sporting rifle in .45-70. Archaeologists Richard Fox and Douglas Scott did an amazing job with the excavation as they identified as many of the artifacts that were not stolen. “Sorry to miss this fight!” Crazy Horse laughed. (1985). The site has, and currently still is used as a monument to remember the fallen soldiers. “Where we were standing on the side of the hill we saw another troop moving from the east toward the north where the camp was moving,” he exclaimed. Neither Bobtail Horse nor any of the other Indians who were there mention anything of the sort – they don’t even say White Cow Bull was there. The bodies were decomposed, many beyond recognition, bloated and black; the effects brought about by three days of exposure from the intense sun thrashed upon the Montana prairie. You may visit his web site at: warrengray54.webs.com. Thompson was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Reno Hill the next day. When the archaeological record shows no sign of bodies, it ought to be matched with the appropriate historical record – that there were few, if any, bodies in the Deep Ravine. Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII by his third wife Jane Seymour. One, known as Magpie, shouted, “Get away as fast as you can, don’t wait for anything, the white men are charging!” Red Feather could see soldiers firing into Sitting Bull’s camp. One Bull found a vantage point on the hill and saw more troops coming from the south, leading what appeared to be pack mules. Had Crazy Horse gone on his mythical northern sweep, or done half the deeds ascribed to him, he could not have been fighting near Calhoun Hill in this phase of the battle. Young men, go out and fight them.”. For the first time he saw Custer and his men pouring over a hill. To snatch some semblance of victory from the jaws of a stunning defeat during the nation’s joyous centennial celebrations just two weeks after the horrific battle, the Army and most of the U.S. government literally abandoned their own after-action reports, assessments, and eyewitness testimony, in favor of perpetuating Libbie Custer’s fanciful myth that her flamboyant husband, George, “died with his boots on,” his long, blonde hair waving in the wind (even though he had cut it short before the battle), with a pistol in one hand and a saber (although no sabers were carried that day) in the other, heroically standing tall atop Last Stand Hill until the final bullet of the battle was fired. If they get in camp they will kill many women.” Bobtail Horse said that his “party had not advanced toward Custer, but were on the bank of the Little Horn on the same side as Custer.”. Or maybe not. Traditionally, the village on the Little Bighorn has been depicted as the largest ever seen in the West. Standing Bear said that the mouth of Muskrat Creek (Medicine Tail) was north of the Santee camp, which was the northernmost of the circles. Lights said the stand made at Custer Hill was longer than anywhere else on the field. With strong, narrative skill, offering broad context and narrow detail, Philbrick recounts a story and, in the process, dismantles old myths piece by piece.” Philbrick concluded that George Custer was shot very early in the battle, that Tom Custer probably shot his mortally-wounded brother in the head at the last minute to prevent his capture alive by the Indians, and that Tom Custer was the last soldier to die. They encountered many different obstacles when doing the excavation of the site, due to much of the site had been contaminated. While Major Marcus Reno attacked the southern end of the village, Custer made a flank march to the north along the river bluffs. Furthermore, the effects of weather and nature over a period of time had completely changed the battlefield. Good Voiced Elk said, “No stand was made until the soldiers got to the end of the long ridge….”. Historian Gregory Michno, who writes from Longmont, Colo., is a frequent contributor to Wild West. There were thousands of survivors. 1 Sporting Rifle in .50-70, literally a “buffalo gun,” and according to most descriptions, he wore a pair of nickel-plated, British-made, 1867 Webley RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) double-action revolvers, probably in .442-caliber, and carried an 1863 National Arms Company single-shot derringer in .41 Rimfire. Was one of the site, due to much of the village, Custer made a flank march to end. Custer and his men pouring over a Hill web site at: warrengray54.webs.com of the had! 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