"Custer's Last Hour"
“Custer's Last Hour” [MANUSCRIPT], Written and illustrated by Antonio LaMotta (US Army Illustrator, 81-E), ©1980
3) Around 3pm, June 25, 1876, Custer’s crow-indian guide's returned with a news that: chief Sitting-Bull and chief Crazy-Horse’s hiding place is about several miles ahead….
7) …at about 3:10pm, they observed some warriors ahead (less than two dozens) that were grazing their horses…
9) Custer immediately dispatched Major Reno to subdue the band of warriors… and Reno deployed the formation: about 89-horses wide and 2-horses deep. …Without Cpt Bentene's 300 more mounted-soldiers, with the baggage train, about 20 minutes behind.
11) …while Custer took the right, crossed the shallow ford of the Little Bighorn, and raced up to circumvent the potential position of the village… with his cavalry of about 215 mounted soldiers.
13) Reno followed the band of warriors over the ridge and down. As Reno’s cavalry of light-gray horses descended over the ridge, they observed a small valley to the left, with about 3,000 horses coralled in it…. Soon after, around the thickets to the right, an enormous village of thousands of teepees appeared, as far as their eyes could see.
15) …the few band-of-warriors stopped briskly and turned 180° to face Reno's cavalry… By this time, thousands of mounted warriors started pouring out of every seam of the mega village. Reno, then ordered “Prepare to Fight - On Foot!”…an order that every fourth soldier will tend the bridles of the soldiers’ four-horses.
18) …it didn't look too far off before the thousands of mounted-warriors (that never seemed to stop coming out), would start to completely surround Reno’s position.
20) Sitting-Bull’s approach towards Reno was probably not recognized, as well as the imminent circumvention of their position…. Sitting-Bull’s favorite horse “Gray” was shot with two bullets. Turning into an onslaught, 60+ soldiers fell instantly with a number of wounded… with no casualty yet on the indians’ side….. Sitting-Bull was put on a replacement horse immediately.
22) …the acquisition of the 3,000 brand-new repeater rifles by the Indians, happened to have co-insided with the US Army’s rejection of them before the fact… further more, with the US Army receiving the delivery of about 5,000 .45 caliber revolvers around a year or so later……
25) At this moment, Reno ordered his troops to retreat into the tall trees to the right… and the Indians immediately (down-wind), started to smoke them out by shooting fire-arrows at the tall grass.
27) …in the thickets, Reno started the confusion to dismount and re-mount repeatedly. At the last time, as Reno’s Indian scout mounted, and he was shot in the head… and his brain splattered all on Reno's face (on the side of his face)… at that point Reno yelled “if you want to live, follow me!”.
29) …Major Reno rode his horse out of the thickets, galloped across the Little-Bighorn, and to the top of (what is now called “Reno's Hill”.
31) some of Reno’s soldiers who were un-able, who were wounded and didn't have a horse stayed in the woods… survived, and later accounted for the details in this matter.
34). At this time, Crazy-Horse has realized that Custer's army is on the other side of the thickets, across the river. A warrior named Big-Nose (with another female-warrior), anticipated Custer's descend from around the north-end of the thickets.
37) According to Pvt. Giovanni Martini (John Martin, who was Custer’s bugler), the only survivor of Custer’s “White-Horsed cavalry”….. Custer held a quick assessment at the top of the descent - assessing how empty-looking the village was, and advised 1st lieutenant Cooke to send the note: “Bentene come-on, Big Village, Be quick, Bring pack, W.W.Cooke, P.S. bring pack!” before he sounded the Charge.
39) …was probably the sound that made Boston Custer (the younger brother of Custer’s) to come to help Custer from the direction of Capt. Bentene's supply wagon-train. Boston and Giovanni met halfway “Boston was starting to get hit at that point, blood splattering (perhaps from the horses), and that Giovanni knew that this was probably Custer's last message…. Boston: “Where is the General?”
To Be Continued…..