Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/542

58 and draw fire, and was consequently the command to be supported, and not the one from which support could be expected. All I know of Custer from the time he ordered me to attack till I saw him buried, is that he did not follow my trail, but kept on his side of the river and along the crest of the bluffs on the opposite side from the village and from my command; that he heard and saw my action I believe, although I could not see him; and it is just here that the Indians deceived us. All this time I was driving them with ease, and his trail shows he moved rapidly down the river for three miles to the ford, at which he attempted to cross into their village, and with the conviction that he would strike a a retreating enemy. Trumpeter Martin, of Co. H, who the last time of any living person heard and saw Gen. Custer, and who brought the last order his adjutant ever penciled, says he left the General at the summit of the highest bluff on that side, and which overlooked the village and my first battle-field, and as he turned, Gen. Custer raised his hat and gave a yell, saying they were asleep in their tepees and surprised, and to charge. * * *

"The Indians made him over confident by appearing to be stampeded, and, undoubtedly, when he arrived at the ford, expecting to go with ease through their village, he rode into an ambuscade of at least 2,000 reds. My getting the command of the seven companies was not the result of any order or prearranged plan. Benteen and McDougal arrived separately, and saw the command on the bluffs and came to it. They did not go into the bottom at all after the junction. They attempted to go down the trail of Gen. Custer, but the advance company soon sent back word they were being surrounded. Crowds of reds were seen on all sides of us, and Custer's fate had evidently been determined. I knew the position I had first taken on the bluff was near and a strong one. I at once moved there, dismounted, and herded the pack train, and had but just time to do so when they came upon me by thousands. Had we been twenty minutes later effecting the junction not a man of that regiment would be living to-day to tell the tale."

Another writer attacks both Reno and Benteen, accusing one of incapacity and utter demoralization during the attack of the Indians, and the other of wilful disobedience. "That he (Benteen) should have, as his own testimony confesses, deliberately disobeyed