Show in n the de t 0 nd and all lon A ANEW sup 4 lil a 1 4 at 8 V R I 1 40 re MAI va ha iq U X zm ta 20 M ahado Q by ELMO ELM 0 SCOTT WATSON FIVE years ago this month occurred a tragedy which shocked the whole country as had perhaps no other one since the assassination of abraham lincoln on june 25 1870 gen george armstrong custer a das dashing hing cavalry leader during the civil war attacked a big village 0 of sioux cheyenne and arapahoe indians indiana strung along the banks of the little big horn river in montana when the battle was over custer lay dead and around him lay the bodies of nt men and officers the entire personnel of five companies of his regiment the sixth cavalry several miles mile Is away six air other companies were besieged by the indians on the bluffs overlooking the river and it Is possible that only the timely arrival of the forces of generals terry and gibbon two days later saved them from the fate which had overtaken their commander and their fellow troopers but it was not until july 4 1876 when americans everywhere were engaged in a joyous celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the found ing of th the nation that word of this disaster came like the proverbial bolt from the blue to stun the public with its ill tidings and to cast a pall of sorrow borrow over the centennial festivities logically the news of the tragedy should not have surprised the amerlean american public for by that time it should have become accustomed to the blundering policy of our government in its relations with the indians a polley policy of allowing itself to become involved in unnecessary wars with the red man of underestimating both the desperation of his resolution not to submit tamely to white domination and nd the strength which he could assemble to resist that domination and of f sending a totally inadequate force of f soldiers to subdue the ho hostiles host stiles lles after r they had gone on the warpath karpath war path early in the history of the republic we had learned a bitter lesson f the folly of sending an insufficient force insufficient in both numbers num bersand and against con federated tribes t f hostiles lost ho stiles lles when the expedition the indians of the old rest ended in st clairs defeat the vorst disaster suffered by a white ans army since the days of the un ort rt braddock but that lesson a as forgotten until the series of fall res experienced during the long rawn out wars with the Semi seminoles noles 1 florida served to recall it and gain eala our government was short of lef emory flory so when gen henry B D car agton was sent to garrison and hold chain of forts forta along the trail to montana in the heart of the sioux auntry it turned a deaf ear to his aas for more men the result was at aleut col W J fetterman arched out from fort phil kearney U ie cold day in december 1860 with I 1 men and none of them came back live ive the fetterman massacre or ort phil kearney massacre so boiled ailed though the student of frontier chyi if he recognizes the word esaure Es acre at all as the correct one r this affair frair 11 Is less inclined to blame e warriors of tl the ie greot great sioux chief eu id d cloud than the government boffl than the government boffl lala als who ignored ons re quests bests horri horrified tied them the country for or a hort ort time tim years it had or gotten this just as tt it had other dlan disasters so BO the time vas was ripe or r still another tragic chapter and ie e hero of it was george armstrong ster tile he boy general of civil ar days several factors have entered into ang vang tile the tragedy of BB 55 years ago ich ch enduring fame while greater aes es have been forgotten one of them the striking personality of the lead who died there ouster custer the beau breur of the american army the ast at of the cavallars cavaliers Cava Caval liers lers I 1 as ho he has en called by a recent biographer a an all of vivid personality the hero bero of success story of th the kind dearly loved by americans not only had bad been an unusually successful cavry leader in the civil war but his than ian campaigns in kansas and ok homa hoina in 1867 GS M had bad added to tj his duration PUt Du atlon tAtion and perpetuated perpetuate 4 the bradl a of if custer luck so when this standing indian tighter fighter fell a vieta to the indians at last and did it ch dramata fashion it was only R MT k AR CAZZ 0 natural perhaps that it should make an impression upon the public mind which more than half a century has not erased af of the irony of fate which overtook this dashing cavalryman frazier hunt the biographer previously referred to has said to the millions of plain americans he is remembered not as a commander of a dashing and victorious division of cavalry that captured prisoners and 65 battle flags from a gallant and stubborn foe during the civil war but as an indian fighter who with a handful of troopers eleven years later galloped to a tragic death ile he had bad fought lee and stonewall jackson jeb stuart and tile the gallant pelham great and remembered soldiers but it was the naked sioux warriors of the plains who sent him to deathless fame the gods of battle have their own inscrutable way of making heroes if custer needed the aid of others besides the gods of battle to help make him a hero he found them in the persons persona of the government officials who had forgotten fetterman and ills his 81 men r for or in the last anal ysis responsibility for what took place on the little big horn goes back to them ouster custer himself during a conversation vers atlon with general carrington early in 1876 in regard to the pro 1 posed campaign against the hostile sioux and Clie remarked that it will take another phil kearney massacre bobring to bring congress up to generous support of the army although from his experience on the plains lie he knew full well of the task that lay ahead of the army he little realized how true his bis prophecy was nor that lie he was to make the same sacrifice Oce that fetterman Fetter roan had made the general plan of the camp campaign aien aign was to have three army columns converge from different directions upon the section in wyoming and montana where the ho hostiles stiles had taken refuge after their refusal to stay on the reservations set aside by the government for them one under general gibbon was to come eastward from western montana another under general crook was to advance northward from southern nebraska and the third under general terry was to proceed westward frum from fort Ab abraham L lincoln in what Is now north dakota the principal trouble with this plan was that it work it work because the combined three forces were not large enough for the task ahead of them even though the government had thought it might be large enough especially since the indians instead of waiting for the three armies to concentrate upon theu made use of some napoleonic strategy unconsciously perhaps and b by y operating on interior lines attacked two of the columns in severalty severally and defeated them in detail then too it work because in reality one department part ment 0 if the government govern mant was allied with the indians instead of with the army for it was the inefficiency to be extremely charitable of the indian department velch alch permitted the indians to go into the field much bet ter armed than the soldiers of crook and abd gibbon end terry and which allowed I 1 these three to start upon their expeditions grossly underestimating the strength of the hostiles host ho stiles lles from the beginning the re of 0 the campaign were unsatisfactory gen J J reynolds of crooks command attacked the village of the sioux chief crazy clorse on march 17 and fought a sharp engagement in which nil all the honors rested with the latter three months later ox OK june 17 crazy norse horse fought crooks force to a standstill at the battle of the rosebud and halted his forward progress indefinitely A short milne before this terry and gibbon successfully joined forces on the powder river and on june 17 major reno of custers Ou seventh cavalry which formed the principal part of terrys terra command went on a scout which took them within 40 miles of where crook was having ills his fierce battle with crazy horse clorse terry and gibbon were surprised at not finding any indians they did not realize that the hostiles host ho stiles lles were busy elsewhere fighting the battle battie which paved the way for their victory on the little big horn then on june 22 custer was sent to scout a troll trail that reno ileno had discovered and this led him to the banks of the little big horn and his waterloo the story of that battle in its main outlines Is a familiar one on e how custer marching rapidly reached the little big horn sooner than ban t was expected how lie he discovered the great indian village and not realizing the numerical strength of its warriors nor the fact that they were flushed with a feeling of victory over having stopped crook how he decided to attack at once without t waiting for terry and gibbon w who ho were to be on hand for a battle if custer found the indians by june 20 and finally how adopting the tactics which had brought him victory in other fight with the indians he made the fatal division of his command into three parts part a one led by major reno heno one by major bentena and the third by himself under th the e circumstances result was almost a foregone conclusion reno made his attack was met with a fierce ree resistance and outnumbered was driven hack back to tho the bluffs across the river liver suffering heavy losses as he r treated retreated benteen following the route designated for him got into impossible country and gradually worked back toward the route taken by reno so that he be arrived in time to help that officer hold his own against the whooping savages who were swarming about him meanwhile custer and his five companies not knowing that his plan of battle had already been broken up rode 0 on to hs death for the indians having put batio out of the fight concentrated on custer and within a short time had done him and his men to death that S tory story has been told and retold countless times over it has raged many a bitter controversy and around it has sprung up a gre great at mass of tradition myth misinformation information and just plain bunk |