Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors (39 page)

3. George Armstrong Custer, in his West Point graduation photograph, 1861. He led a monk’s life at the Academy, where he learned a little mathematics, some civil engineering, a smattering of natural science, and a great deal about discipline.

4. A Sioux encampment along the Platte River in western Nebraska, with Chimney Rock in the background, in a painting by William de la Montaigne Cary (1840-1922). As a boy, Crazy Horse frequently lived in small camps like this one along the Platte.

5. Custer, the boy general of the Civil War, in a typical formal attire. Throughout his life, Custer was constantly changing his hair style. When he wore it short, he liked to slick it down with cinnamon oil, which led his friends to nickname him “Cinnamon.” When he wore it long, they called him “Curly.”

6. Pawnee Killer, the southern Oglala warrior who was beside Crazy Horse at Fort Phil Kearny, then went south to Kansas, where throughout the summer of 1867 he led Custer on a merry chase.

7. Custer in the outfit he wore during the Washita campaign in Texas and what is now Oklahoma 1868. He drove his men, and himself, very hard to get in shape for the campaign, and it paid off as they made prodigious marches through deep snow without complaint.

8. Elizabeth Bacon Custer—Libbie—in the late 1860s, when her husband was fighting Indians on the Plains and telling her to join him at the frontier forts. “Come as soon as you can,” he commanded. “I did not marry you for you to live in one house, me in another. One bed shall accommodate us both.”

9. Custer in 1874, after the Black Hills expedition. He is wearing his only civilian suit; he could afford no more. When he and Libbie made a trip to New York the following year, they stayed in a boarding house to save money and went on forty different occasions to see their actor friend Lawrence Barrett in
Julius Caesar,
because they could get in free.

10. Touch-the-Clouds, the seven-foot-tall war chief of the Miniconjous. A tower of strength and dignity, Touch-the-Clouds fought beside Crazy Horse until the very end. He was respected by both red and white men and much feared by his enemies.

11. Captain Tom Custer, the bravest of the brave, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War. Custer often said that Tom, not he, should have been the general. Tom idolized his older brother and followed him everywhere, even to the very end at the Little Bighorn.

12. Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, usually called simply Young Man Afraid (his full name, in Lakota, meant that the enemies of the Sioux were afraid even of his horses). His father, Old-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, was a big chief among the Oglalas. Young Man Afraid was probably the most intelligent Sioux leader of the period. Never a lackey for the whites, he was nevertheless an advocate of peace after 1868, when he realized that the red men could not win a war with the whites. He worked thereafter for the good of his people, with some success.

“Be ready,” the warriors called to each other. “Are you ready?” And others would call back, “We are ready.” With a whoop they charged, clubbing to death any whites who were still alive. Captains Brown and Fetterman, at the last minute, placed their pistols against each other’s temples, counted quickly to three, and fired. The battle was over.
²³

There was a temporary quiet on the battlefield. The Indians stared in wonderment at what they had done. Eighty-one soldiers lay dead before them, at a cost of ten Sioux, two Cheyennes, and one Arapaho, many of them victims of arrows. Most of the soldiers had been killed by arrows, too; only four of the eighty-one had been hit by bullets, an eloquent commentary on how many firearms the Indians possessed.

A dog belonging to one of the dead soldiers came running and barking out of the rocks. A Cheyenne warrior cried, “All are dead but the dog. Let him carry the news to the fort.” But another warrior said, “No. Do not let even a dog get away,” and he shot the animal through with an arrow.
²⁴
The incident relieved the tension, and the warriors began screaming, dancing, lifting scalps, congratulating each other, working themselves into a frenzy. They stripped the soldiers, then mutilated the dead in every imaginable way. In his official report, Carrington described what they did: “Eyes torn out and laid on rocks; noses cut off; ears cut off; chins hewn off; teeth chopped out; joints of fingers, brains taken out and placed on rocks; entrails taken out and exposed; hands cut off; feet cut off; arms taken out from sockets; private parts severed and indecently placed on the person; eyes, ears, mouth, and arms penetrated with spearheads, sticks, and arrows; ribs slashed to separation with knives; skulls severed in every form, from chin to crown, muscles of calves, thighs, stomach, breast, back, arms and cheek taken out. Punctures upon every sensitive part of the body, even to the soles of the feet and palms of the hand.”
²⁵