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Sinds gisteren vertonen sommige foto's een Magenta zweem in -op lichte delen van de foto
Wie weet oorzaak of een oplossing zie foto
Help Emmet escape from the Melting Room.
The LEGO Movie Melting Room set 70801 includes Emmet, Wyldstyle, Robo SWAT and tilting, rotating laser machine with control dashboard and adjustable laser.
My sister bought this shirt for me and she bought herself one too! All proceeds go to helping Japan.
our car appears to be stuck in this blizzard.
edit: so i posted this 10 minutes into the snow, and we got out just now, so i made a big fuss about nothing since that only totals 40 minutes of trying to get out of a snowdrift. #whitepeopleproblems?
POSTED FROM MY IPHONE GUYS
The child was diseased at birth, stricken with a hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean poverty--the most deadly and prevalent of all diseases.
Tech Details:
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 7.4 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
La prima a sx potrebbe essere la ballerina vestita di azzurro?
E la penultima a dx potrebbe essere la birthday fun at McDonald?
E le altre 2 chi sono?? Help :-))
This is something I've never done before, but my family and I are finding ourselves in a tough situation. We are having to move about 220 miles to a larger city for job opportunities, and have a lot of fees involved. We are having to break our current lease, and that plus the new place fees are adding up. We had no choice as my husband was unable to find a job in our current location, but he has one in the new place. We also have fees to bring our furbaby, Tito, along with us We have set up a GoFundMe for help, and anything from shares to something as small as $5 will help. I'm asking for support from my fellow pet lovers and anyone who's found themself in a tight spot. Thanks guys!
Is this Taractrocera papyria?
Western grass dart in my garden.
Taractrocera papyria on Scaevola crassifolia
Damage to Plan Haiti Country Office building in Port-au-Prince. (Photo:
Plan/Marc Antoine Lefedor)
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This huge piece of equipment was setting along the highway in Hawaii, and I am still trying to get help as to what it was or did.
Hello everyone! My boyfriend and I have started an indiegogo campaign page for my Cocker Spaniel Hollie. She needs your help! She desperately needs to have surgery on her left ear due to chronic ear infections over time. She now has end stage ear disease :( Ear flush and medicated ear drops don't treat her infections anymore, her condition requires Ear Canal Ablation surgery. I know we have been absent on here for a long time now and I'm sorry for that. Hollie and I both would appreciate any help we can receive from the largest to the smallest. Please share Hollies indiegogo page with others you know especially other animal lovers. It would mean the world to me!
You can visit her page link below and donate right on the site if you're able to! Thank you so much! <3
igg.me/at/helphollie/x/4263773
So far we have raised $1,500 but we need $1,300 more to pay for her surgery and recovery. Every dollar counts and it will mean the world to her family and friends if you help!
About the Surgery:
End-Stage Ear Disease requires Ear Canal Ablation surgery. The first step for Hollie will be a consultation at Cornell. This will cost $100 for Hollie to receive tests and other pre-surgery procedures.
The surgery itself will cost $2,400. This cost doesn’t include any medications for her recovery. It will take close to 2-weeks for Hollie to recover from her surgery. She will then have a progress appointment with the vet to assess her healing and recovery. In anticipation of the cost of medications and follow-up appointments we are asking for an additional $300.
If You Aren't Able to Help Hollie's Funding Goal:
Please share what we’re doing for Hollie on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks! Thank you for your help!
More Information:
See photos of Hollie on Instagram: instagram.com/bree343
For any questions or concerns please contact us at HelpHollie@yahoo.com
Jas, Simon and myself know a beautiful young boy (5 yrs old) who unfortunately has Cerebral Palsy. He has just had a operation that hopefully will change his life, however the cost for this and the ongoing care/physio etc to enable him to have a normal life in the future costs a small fortune. We are hoping to help towards this cost, by cycling 180 Miles around London, to raise as much money as possible to help the family through these difficult times.
This excerpt from a book published in 1900 is a product of its times, lacking a balanced historical perspective.
From Then and Now; or, Thirty-Six Years in the Rockies by Robert Vaughn, 1900, pp. 305-328 [public domain] :
GEN. GEORGE A. CUSTER, U. S. A.
The Hero of Little Big Horn
It is plain that Custer laid his plans to win the fight, and at once. From the position in which the dead were found it is also clear that, having found themselves entirely outnumbered and beyond the reach of help, they took position as best they could in a sort of triangle on the rough, hot hill side, and there died in battle. Custer’s brother, Colonel Tom Custer, held one corner of the triangle, and down nearest the river his brother-in-law, Calhoun, another, while the general held the higher ground, so as to see and direct the battle to the end. The men fell almost in line. The officers, Calhoun and Crittenden, fell in their places, as if on parade.
Two years afterwards Robert E. Strahorne, a particular friend of mine, who was all through the campaign with General Crook, sent me the following statement in regard to this Indian war:
“I was, during the trying days of 1876–77, the representative of an Eastern journal and attached to the expeditions which Brigadier General George Crook led against the hostile Sioux and Cheyennes, then commanded by Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Dull Knife and Little Wolf.
“In this campaign we were obliged to go without clothing or bedding, save such as we carried on our backs, and without food, except the scantiest allowance possible of bacon and coffee. In this one point, Crook is without a rival in the regular army; he subjects himself to just the same discomfort and hardships as his men have to endure and cuts loose from his wagon train for weeks and months at a time. His wagons are never allowed to become receptacles of luxuries and toothsome delicacies for himself and officers; they carry only grain, ammunition and the necessary articles of daily food.
“At the engagement on the Rosebud, Montana, June 17, 1876, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull ‘bounced’ Crook with a force of painted and feathered red devils numbering well up307 in the thousands. Poor Custer met his fate at the hands of these same warriors only a week later. Crook’s forces were not much, if any, superior to Custer’s whole command, but he was fortunate in keeping them undivided. He withstood the attack with great skill and courage, although for a while things certainly looked very blue. On this day, a little company of Montana miners, who had been out in the Black Hills prospecting and had joined Crook while on their way back to Montana, did splendid work with their Sharp’s sporting rifles. Crook and Terry, those grand soldiers, after poor Custer’s command had been wiped out, united their forces on the Yellowstone. How Terry then took for his share the task of cleaning out any hostiles to be found north of the Yellowstone, while Crook, like a bull-dog, hung to the trail which led to the south; how he followed it without bedding, without shelter, without food other than horse meat and berries found in captured villages, and in spite of the pitiless rain which beat down upon us (for I was one of those who camped on the trail), day after day, during the entire march from the mouth of Powder river to the Black Hills.
“I could write a book about our trials and tribulations on those marches, and sometime in the future the half-formed fancy of the present moment may take shape. One thing I wish to impress upon the minds of present and future Montanians, and that is the fact that the campaigns of General Crook and brother officers and men in 1876 and 1877 had the positive result of opening to their permanent occupation and use those vast and beautiful regions drained by the Yellowstone, Big Horn, Rosebud, Tongue, Powder, Musselshell and Judith rivers—regions which up that time had swarmed with the most powerful, vindictive and treacherous tribes of savages America has produced. I went into those campaigns knowing little of the regular army, and indeed somewhat308 prejudiced against it; I came out satisfied that the mass of its officers and men, the ‘youngsters’ especially, were brave, intelligent, patriotic, ambitious and courteous—men of whom any country should be proud.
“Closing this reminiscence of an arduous season of toil and danger, I am glad to say that among the lieutenants with whom I faced the red foe, and for whom I formed a great attachment, was the witty, bright and brave Schwatka, whose successes as an Arctic explorer have since made him world famous; Bourke, who besides being an officer of exceptional gallantry and good judgment, has devoted himself, with great patience, to the collection of memoranda upon the manners and customs of the aborigines; Carpenter, noted as an entomologist, and dozens of other officers—Eagan, Charles King, Schuyler, Allison, Chase, Lemley, McKinney (since killed), Delaney, Randall, Sibley, Nickerson, Henry, as brave and intelligent as any men can be—in the army or out of it.
“As Sherman’s army had an important element following and surrounding it—‘the bummers’—so this hard-worked force that Crook commanded had attached to it a force of correspondents whom I compare, and in all kindness, to the ‘bummers’ whom Sherman led to the sea. They were an exceptionally fine lot of men. There was Jack Finerty of the Chicago Times. I have always had a notion that he stepped out from some place in Lever’s novels; he was brave to rashness, and devoted to the interests of his great journal. Joe Wason, of the Alta California and the New York Tribune, always on the skirmish line after ‘pints.’ His red head shone like the danger signal of a freight train, but in spite of his red head he was one of the best fellows I ever knew. T. C. MacMillan of the Chicago Inter Ocean, and J. J. Roche of the New York Herald, both physically weak, but intellectually strong, and so on through the list. Readers of the Boston309 Advertiser, New York Herald and Tribune, Alta California, Philadelphia Press, Washington Star, Denver News, Omaha Republican and Herald, Cheyenne Sun, and other papers represented at various times during that campaign of seventeen months’ duration, never imagined while they were reading our letters at their comfortable breakfast table, and growling at the dashed correspondents because they ‘didn’t make ’em more full,’ that the ‘dashed correspondent,’ dressed in rags, soaked through with rain, and almost crazed with want of food and rest, was writing his letters on a cottonwood chip or a piece of flat stone, and often at the risk of his life from a stray bullet.”
There is now in this state one witness of the Custer battles, who is perhaps the only one living. He is William Jackson, an intelligent and well educated half-breed, who now lives at the Blackfeet reservation sixty-five miles from here.
After a long life as government scout, he has turned his attention to farming and cattle raising, and in this pursuit he has been quite successful. He was in this city a few days ago on his way from Helena, where he had been as a witness in a trial which was held in the United States court. A correspondent of the Anaconda Standard, at this place, had an important interview with Mr. Jackson, which is as follows. He says: “Mitch Bouille, William Cross and myself were acting as guides and scouts for the Custer-Terry expedition against the Sioux and Cheyennes who were under the leadership of the wily old Sitting Bull. The battle, as you know, took place on June 25, 1876. On the morning of that day the troopers had made an early start and we, the scouts, had gone ahead on a reconnoitering expedition. When we returned to report we met the command crossing the divide between the Rosebud and Little Big Horn rivers, General Custer rode at the head of his command, the Seventh Cavalry, and Captains311 French and Benteen and Major Reno were in command of other divisions.
“We had discovered the hostiles camped near the Little Big Horn and about seven miles straight ahead of the soldiers. We so reported to General Custer, and he, calling a halt, summoned the officers under him for a council. The troops were shut out from view on the part of the hostiles by a ridge of land, and it was at the base of this that the council of war was held. It lasted but a few minutes, and Custer’s desire for an immediate engagement carried the day. The soldiers were divided into three battalions. Major Reno with three companies and all of the scouts was to advance rapidly and from a commanding ridge make a charge upon the upper end of the Sioux camp, first gaining a patch of timber about six hundred yards from the enemy. In the meantime General Custer, with five companies, would deploy around the edge of the ridge where they were now halted and attack the lower end of the village and cut off all retreat on the part of the Sioux. Captain Benteen, with four companies, would take up a position on the east bank of the Little Big Horn, overlooking the village and protecting the pack train and baggage.
“As the officers left the council they quickly gave orders to the men, and in an instant all were busy inspecting and loading their pistols and carbines, filling their ammunition belts, tightening saddles and looking to every detail preparatory to the fight. Soon the bugle sounded, ‘Prepare to mount; mount, forward!’ Custer and his men went to the right, Reno to the left, toward the ford of the Little Big Horn. The horses went forward at a sharp trot, and in the moment of waiting on the bank of the stream I looked back and saw Custer with his five companies charging upon the village, Custer fully fifty yards in the lead. That was the last time I ever looked upon that heroic soldier alive or his gallant men. We312 were soon busy in making the ford, which was somewhat difficult, and then we advanced up the ridge, taking the position assigned us at the council. Up to that time there had been no incident of interest. The troops were dismounted and the horses left in the care of every fourth soldier. Everything was ready for the fight to begin and the wait was not long.
“The hostiles had discovered us at once and took the initiative by making a vicious charge up the hill. Their main body gained a vantage ground behind an elevation sufficient to protect them and just in front of our position. As they charged they drove in our skirmish line, which took a position just inside the timber. The fight was furious for a time, the Indians outnumbering Reno’s command at least ten to one. A second charge from the hostiles drove us still higher up the ridge, at least one mile further from the village, and it was in our retreat that we first heard the sounds of firing in the lower end of the village where Custer was engaged. It could not have been very heavy, as he met but few hostiles at the first of the engagement, but it was sufficient to draw the attention of the Indians away from us and turn it upon the unfortunates who were attacking them in the rear. This was between 3 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon and from that time the fighting in the lower end of the Indian camp was hot and heavy. The sound of firing increased steadily until it became a roar, and then it died gradually away until there was only the scattered reports of single shots. All this took place in the space of two hours, and when the June sun set behind the Little Big Horn mountains the Custer command had been entirely wiped out.
“Of course we did not know this at the time, but wondered how the fight had gone. Soon we suspected that something was wrong, for the Indians again turned their attention to313 Reno, and from that time there was no opportunity to think of anything save what we saw going on about us, and in which we were vitally interested, for the onslaughts of the painted warriors became desperate. Inflamed by their success in killing the Custer command, they now determined to sweep away the rest of their enemies, and time and again they charged up the hill to capture Reno. Only the strength of our position prevented our meeting a fate like that of Custer, and it was after dark before the hostiles gave up their attempt to dislodge and slaughter us. My personal interest in the fray was strong. I had been in the skirmish line, and when we were driven back by the hostiles we retreated slowly, protecting the withdrawal of the main body of Reno’s command. In doing this fourteen of us were cut off from the command and had to take to the brush and hide. Before we could conceal ourselves ten of the fourteen had been killed, leaving only Lieutenant Deridio, F. F. Gerard, Tom O’Neal and myself.
“Fortunately we were not discovered, and at midnight, after all danger of the enemy was past, we slipped from our covert and made ready to join our command. We stripped the blankets from the bodies of dead Indians, which were plentifully strewn through the timber, and wrapping these about us we filed Indian fashion up the bank of the stream. We did not know just where Reno was camped and our first desire was to get outside of the ‘dead circle,’ or picket line, of the Sioux. We advanced cautiously and making as little noise as possible, but in spite of that we suddenly ran into a body of fifteen Sioux pickets. To hesitate was to be suspected, and suspicion on their part just then meant death to us. We advanced steadily and without exhibiting surprise. We had partly passed the party when one of them demanded who we were. I could speak Sioux as well as my own tongue, and without delay replied ‘Us.’
314 “‘Where are you going?’ was the next question, and my answer to this was, ‘for our horses.’ This satisfied the interrogators, and we had escaped the first danger.
“We had succeeded in crossing the stream and following the trail along the bank, faint in the dim moonlight, when we came to an opening in the dense cottonwoods, and there we ran into a camp of several hundred Indians. Gerard immediately took them to be our men and belonging to Reno’s command. He shouted: ‘Don’t shoot, boys; we are friends.’ The startled Indians cried out: ‘Lay non; wa-see-cha ah-he-pe ah-lo!’ (It is the enemy; the evil bad snows are upon us!) At this I dropped my blanket and ran, getting into the brush and away from the trail. Some one followed me closely, and I made up my mind that if he ever caught me there would be a fight to death between us. I could actually feel the knive thrust between my ribs in my highly excited imagination, and when I reached the river bank I turned to face my pursuer. Then I found that it was none other than Gerard, who had chosen the same path as myself. We waited a minute or two and listened. Then we heard four shots, and we were sure that our companions were lost.
“We waited no longer but plunged into the stream and gained the opposite bank, following it as far as we dared. Dawn was breaking and through the day we lay hidden in the willows, watching the battle which followed between the Indians and Reno’s command. As the sun arose we could see the Indians circling about the camp and occupying every adjacent hill. A scattering fire was maintained until 9 o’clock, when the Indians made a savage assault upon the east side of Reno’s position. The soldiers appeared to be very cool and poured in a murderous fire, which forced the hostiles to fall back with heavy loss. An hour later they made a second desperate charge, and so fierce was this that they actually315 fought with the soldiers over the breastworks, hand to hand. But again the discipline of the soldiers was more than a match for the fanatical frenzy of the Sioux, and they were driven back the second time. The soldiers had lost but few in this conflict, while their savage foes were strewn all over the side of the hill. From that time until noon there was only firing at long range. Then came a third charge, easily repulsed. From that time until 4 o’clock in the afternoon each side rested on its arms. About that hour, sheltered by a hill and not more than one thousand yards distant from the soldiers, the Indians held a council of war. In a few minutes there were evidences of departure in the Indian village, and it was then that the strength of the foe appeared. They could be seen by the thousand, scurrying about through the camp, taking down the lodges, loading the ponies with packs and with travois, and when the baggage train was finally completed, hurrying off to the north under a strong escort of warriors, making for the Big Horn mountains. At sunset all of them had disappeared and we dared venture out from our hiding place.
“Approaching Reno’s position cautiously, for fear of being shot by the sentinels in the darkness, we were fortunate in getting inside the lines in time to meet Major Reno himself with members of his staff. To them I related what we had seen and heard, including the story of the loss of our companions, but before I had finished a challenge was heard, and into the camp came an orderly with Deridio and O’Neal. We were overjoyed, but there was little time for congratulations. Mounted on the best horse remaining in the command—for the long range fighting had killed many of those in the troop—I was sent with dispatches to Generals Custer and Terry.
“Three miles down the Little Big Horn I came upon the battlefield and it was a most grievious sight. Scattered or heaped up on the plain were the bodies of 237 men, every316 one save that of Custer mutilated in the most horrible manner known to the Indian mind. Not one had a vestage of clothing upon it; all had been stripped off and carried away by the exulting fiends. In Custer’s body there were the marks of two bullet wounds, and undoubtedly I was the first man to look upon the terrible sight. It was too much for me and I turned and rode swiftly away down the river, shortly afterward meeting General Terry and his soldiers. To him I gave my dispatches and was immediately sent back to Major Reno with instructions to bury the dead. This was completed about 1 o’clock in the afternoon of the 27th. The wounded in Reno’s command were taken to the mouth of the Big Horn river, and thence conveyed down the Yellowstone on the steamer Far West to Bismarck. The next day we gathered up large quantities of pemmican and other provisions and camp utensils left by the Sioux in their hurried flight, and burned them. Although I was but a youth when this occurred, it made an impression upon my mind that I shall never forget, and the details of those horrible two or three days are as fresh now as they were at the time of occurrence. Five years ago I went over ‘The Custer Battlefield,’ where the soldiers are buried, with Mrs. Eustis, whose son Jack, then a recent graduate from West Point, had been one of the victims under Custer. She had cherished a hope of recovering his bones, but although we had with us a number of Sioux and Cheyennes who had taken part in the fight, and each tried his best to recall all of the fearful scene, we were unable to help her, and she was obliged to return to her Eastern home with frustrated hopes. The incident, however, called up in mind all of the gruesome details of the battlefield as I saw it on that memorable morning, and I shall never care to repeat the experience.”
General Terry, in his official report dated Camp on Little Big Horn, June 27, 1876, noticed the military movement in317 the direction where Custer and his men had fallen, and submitted for the information of the war department the following important explanation:
“At the mouth of the Rosebud I informed General Custer that I should take the supply steamer Far West up the Yellowstone to ferry General Gibbon’s column over the river; that I should personally accompany that column, and that it would in all probability reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn, on the 26th inst. The steamer reached General Gibbon’s troops, near the mouth of the Big Horn, early on the 24th, and at 4 o’clock in the afternoon all his men and animals were across the Yellowstone. At 5 o’clock the column, consisting of five companies of the Seventh Infantry, four companies of the Seventh Cavalry, and a battery of three gatling guns, marched out to and across Tullock’s creek, starting soon after 5 o’clock on the morning of the 25th. The infantry made a march of twenty-two miles over the most difficult country I have ever seen. In order that scouts might be sent into the valley of the Little Big Horn, the cavalry with the battery was then pushed on thirteen or fourteen miles further, reaching camp at midnight. The scouts were sent out at 4:30 on the morning of the 26th. The scouts discovered three Indians, who were at first supposed to be Sioux, but when overtaken they proved to be Crows, who had been with General Custer. They brought the first intelligence of the battle. Their story was not credited. It was supposed that some fighting, perhaps severe fighting, had taken place, but it was not believed that disaster could have overtaken so large a force as twelve companies of cavalry. The infantry, which had broken camp very early, soon came up and the whole column entered and moved up the valley of the Little Big Horn. During the afternoon efforts were made to send scouts to what was supposed to be General Custer’s position, and to318 obtain information of the condition of affairs, but those who were sent out were driven back by parties of Indians, who, in increasing numbers, were seen hovering on General Gibbon’s front. At twenty minutes before 9 o’clock in the evening the infantry had marched between twenty-five and thirty miles; the men were very weary and daylight was falling; the column was, therefore, halted for the night at a point about eleven miles in a straight line above the mouth of the stream. Next morning the movement was resumed, and after a march of nine miles Major Reno’s intrenched position was reached. The withdrawal of the Indians from around Reno’s command, and from the valley, was undoubtedly caused by the appearance of General Gibbon’s troops. Major Reno and Captain Benteen, both of whom are officers of great experience, accustomed to see large masses of mounted men, estimated the number of Indians engaged at not less than twenty-five hundred. Other officers think that the number was greater than this. The village in the valley was about three miles in length and about a mile in width. Besides the lodges proper, a great number of temporary brushwood shelters were found in it, indicating that many men, besides its proper inhabitants, had gathered together there.”
William Sellow, who now lives in Teton county, Montana, also one of the scouts who served under General Custer, contributes the following to the Dupuyer Acantha, July 15, 1899:
“Quite often, especially of recent years, I have seen articles in papers and magazines relating to the actions and motives of General Custer that led up to the massacre of his historic band. Most of these do grievious wrong to the bravest and best officer the United States government ever sent out to fight Indians on the frontier. Books, too, go so far as to call him a suicide and murderer for going at the head of his men into the battle of Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.
319 “At that time I was in Custer’s employ as a civilian scout, and had known him for a long time. I knew his ways of attacking Indians, and knew his unbounded confidence in his men. I had known him to win Indian fights against greater odds than his last one. For instance, at Wichita, he routed them with a force that numbered ten to one. Had he, in his last fight been supported as he could and should have been, he would have won the day, and then the Sitting Bull war would have ended and not have lasted until it cost much money and many lives. Not until the buffalo were killed and other game became scarce were the Indians satisfied to accept government rations and spend their honeymoon at home. An Indian’s heart is never good until he is hungry and cold.
“Custer has been accused by would-be historians of going contrary to orders in his last campaign, and to refute these charges I write to follow him as far, or farther, than anyone else is truthfully capable of doing. That he did not go contrary to orders in his last movements the captain acting as General Terry’s adjutant at the time, if he is alive, will gladly, doubtless, testify. Unfortunately, I have forgotten his name. He will remember the greater part of the orders.
“After we, the scouts, delivered to Custer his last orders, I know he had no opportunity to receive any more, and as I recount the events as nearly as I can remember them at this length of time, it will be seen that I am correct.
“General Terry started myself and another scout to overtake and join Custer. After leaving the supply train and headquarters on about June 22, 1876, we reached the camp that night and delivered our message. The reader will see that in those stirring times when a scout was given a message it was in duplicate, one for the perusal of the scout and one for the receiver. These precautions were taken for fear one or both might be lost en route. In the first case the open one could be delivered, and in the second the scout might deliver320 the message from memory. I have yet in my possession the extra copy of this message, but unfortunately, it is so old and pocket-worn as to be only partially decipherable. From this, aided by memory, I give the message:
“‘To Lieutenant Colonel Custer, Seventh United States Cavalry:
“‘The brigadier general commanding desires that you proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians, whose trail was discovered by Major Reno’s scouts a few days ago. Of course, it is impossible for me to give definite instructions with regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so, the department commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy and ability to wish to impose upon you orders that would conflict with your own judgment and which might hamper your actions when nearly in contact with the enemy. I will, however, indicate to you his ideas of what your movements should be and he desires you to conform to them unless your own judgment should give you sufficient reasons for departing from them. He thinks you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found that it turns toward the Little Big Horn he thinks you should still proceed southward as far as the headwaters of Tongue river and then toward the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn, keeping scouts out constantly to your left, so as to prevent the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank. The column of Colonel Gibbons is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up as far at least as the forks of the Big Horn and the Little Big Horn. Of course, its future will be controlled by circumstances as they exist. But it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Big Horn, may be so nearly enclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible.
321 “‘The department commander desires that, on your way up the Rosebud, you should have your scouts thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock’s fork, and that you should endeavor to send scouts through to Colonel Gibbon’s command with the result of your examination. The lower part of this will be examined by Colonel Gibbon’s scouts.
“‘The supply steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the Big and Little Big Horn, if the river is found navigable that far.
“‘The department commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbons, desires you to report to him there no later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the meantime you receive further orders.’
“After sleeping about two hours that same night we got fresh horses and Custer started us with instructions to go to the east of Tullock’s fork and to follow it down to its mouth at Tullock’s creek and to keep a sharp lookout for any signs of Indians, and to report to him again that night if possible. This we did, seeing nothing but the trail of a small war party going toward the Big Horn.
“We had been rolled up in our blankets but a few hours when Charlie Reynolds and a half-breed Sioux scout, Bill Cross, came in with a report which caused Custer to send for us again. After getting fresh horses we were given a dispatch to carry to Colonel Gibbon’s command. We reached the river, which we crossed by the aid of our horses’ tails with our clothes tied so as to keep them as dry as possible. We reached the command that day. The next morning I was sent back to the supply train, which was still at Powder river, and my companion was sent to join Benteen’s command. He was with the latter during his engagement with the Indians, and he gives Colonel322 Benteen great credit for bravery. The colonel, he says, when the men behind the breastworks ran short of ammunition, with his own hands carried it and threw it over to them, being all the time exposed to the deadly fire of the enemy.
“In twenty-four hours I reached the supply train and was afforded another opportunity to fill up and get some sleep. On the 26th we met a Sioux scout, Bloody Knife, coming in badly scared and he seemed to think that Custer had been killed, although he had not seen him. Another scout, George Mulligan, and myself had been sent out to find Custer.
“We had not gone far when we met Bill Cross and eight Ree Indian scouts. They had a few Sioux ponies which they said they had captured. They told us that Custer and his command were killed, but they did not seem to know much about it. They could not tell us just where the fight took place, hence we took little stock in their story. We learned afterward, however, that when Custer made the charge they gathered up the Sioux horses that had strayed out on the hills, and pulled out for a more healthy climate. Scout Reynolds had the same privilege, but chose to go into the battle, and was afterward found in the same deadly circle with General Custer with many empty shells around them as evidence of a desperate fight.
“Reynolds well knew of Custer’s ability to deal with the Indians against fearful odds, for he had previously fought with him. He also knew the odds he had to face that day, as we spoke of it when we last met and he proved by his actions that he could not have been aware of any wrong-doing on the part of the general when he, of his own free will, followed him that day.
“After leaving Cross and the Ree scouts we met Curley, the Crow Indian scout, who was with Custer at the beginning of the fight. That pock-marked villain and liar, Rain-in-the-Face,323 says Curley is a liar, that he was not there, but I know for a fact that Rain-in-the-Face had never met Curley, nor to the best of my knowledge has he ever seen him since. I have heard Rain talk and he will never get into the happy hunting grounds if veracity is to be his passport.
“When we met Curley he was so badly scared that I doubt if he would have known himself. He had a Sioux medicine or war pony in full paint and feathers, a Sioux blanket and part of a war bonnet that he wore in his escape, and which he got from a dead Sioux medicine man who was killed near him in the first attack. The blanket had some blood on it. His own horse was killed and he appropriated the medicine man’s property, and instead of trying to run the gauntlet he moved along with the enemy, trusting to his disguise to deceive them. When he saw an opportunity he dropped out of his bad company and escaped. When I last saw him with Custer he had his Crow clothes on and had his own pony, and he had no other chance to get the outfit. Had he been a white man he would not have had any chance of escape even with that rig. He does not claim to have tried to fight, but only to escape, and his first account of the affair is no doubt the correct one, as anyone acquainted with the Indians and their mode of fighting will admit its feasibility.
“I understand that there was an ex-soldier at the World’s Fair in Chicago, who posed as a soldier in the Seventh cavalry, who escaped from the fatal field. He was an impostor, for none but Curley left the ground alive. He may have dreamed it and believes in dreams.
“When the Seventh cavalry rode away from Fort Lincoln with the White Horse company, the band belonging to it played one of Custer’s favorites, ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me.’ Ever after that, when I heard the familiar tune on the plains, my mind was carried back to the parting scene at the fort,325 and in the foreground of memory’s picture stands, with tear-dimmed eyes, a sad, brave woman. Well might her heart nigh break, for she knew, as no one else did, that her brave husband was going on an expedition fraught with untold, hidden dangers, and not upon a summer outing.
“Crazy Horse and Goose, each with a band of Cheyennes, fought against Custer. In fact, the former was looked upon as the head war chief, Sitting Bull being more of a medicine man and prophet. The prevalent belief is that Sitting Bull was the worst Indian and head war chief. This is a mistake. There were several worse than he and more treacherous, but as most of them are dead and good Indians, I will not take the trouble to name them or to recount their good (?) deeds. Gall was the head man among those who fought Reno and Benteen, and would have got away with them only for the personal bravery of the latter.
“When General Terry left the field and General Miles took command all Terry’s and Custer’s scouts who were alive went to work for the new commander, except George Mulligan and Jimmy-from-Cork. But there were only five of us left—Bob and Bill Jackson, Vick Smith, Cody and myself. However, Miles re-enforced us with several others.
“Scout Billy Jackson was with Custer on the morning of the 25th, but left before the engagement to join Reno, and knew nothing of the terrible conflict until the next day. On the 27th they came to the battlefield, and Jackson, with four other scouts, identified the remains of General Custer and Scout Reynolds. His report of the battlefield may be vouched for, as he was ever known as a brave, cool, clear-headed and truthful scout, whom General Miles said he could always depend upon. He, too, maintains that Custer did not go contrary to orders.”
327 Custer had divided his force into three parts. Benteen had orders to sweep everything before him to the left, and Reno was to drive right at the enemy. But it seems that neither he nor any other officer who was in this campaign had an idea that the Indian forces were as strong as they proved to be. There were at least eight Indian warriors to one soldier; neither did he know that they were so well supplied with arms and ammunition. Here is where Custer was deceived, or likely he would have kept his men together and won the battle.
On the arrival of General Gibbon the dead were buried and the wounded men of Reno’s and Benteen’s commands were given attention. After Gibbon and his men returned to Fort Shaw, I had an interview with the general and with many of the soldiers who were on the battlefield and assisted in burying the dead. They said that all the men, except Custer, were horribly mutilated and divested of all their clothing.
Again we return to Sitting Bull. Soon after the death of Custer, Sheridan, who was at the head of the war department, called out troops and fought him the balance of the season almost continuously, but the great chief always avoided open battle. In October General Miles drove him across the Missouri river, killing some Indians, capturing two thousand men, women and children, and destroying many of their supplies. The warriors who remained were scattered and discouraged; skulked back into the mountains, while Sitting Bull, with his followers crossed the line into the British possessions. In the meantime Generals Crook and Terry fought and defeated Chief Crazy Horse on the Rosebud towards the close of the year.
To give an idea of the vastness of the country where the hostile Indians had established their camps, I will give the approximate area, which was 125 by 200 miles, or 25,000 square miles. The Yellowstone river is about 350 miles long,328 200 of which was included in this area. The length of Powder river is 150 miles; the Tongue river the same, the Rosebud 125, the Big Horn about of similar length. With all of the tributaries of these rivers, and with the hills and mountain passes, the Indians were familiar; in this respect they had the advantage over the military. To go into details of those campaigns, extending over this great territory—the fearful severity—the long marching for months at a time through an untrodden wilderness, and sometimes a scarcity of food, clothing and bedding—the many battles that were fought, to which I have made no reference; burying the dead and taking care of the wounded—to tell all this would make a book in itself. But one thing I will insert here: That monument in Custer county, which marks the graves of those who have given their lives for this mountain land, and are peacefully sleeping at the base of it, will be kept erect by the Montanians as long as those everlasting peaks which overlook this sacred spot from the mountain tops near by shall remain.
Robert Vaughn.
July 24, 1899.
Sign for the Helper Emporium, 124 South Main Street, Helper, Utah. The Helper Emporium, now closed, was located in this 1924 building that also house The Toggery and the Dalpiaz Hotel.
Now for a few doubles from the yurt. (And I swear this is the last time with this sign. I'm obsessed with it. I saw one out in the field yesterday up here on the Boise National Forest and slammed on the brakes so I could shoot it, but then remembered I already had, three times.)
Because I’m such a hopeless retro addict, I just had to try this chiffon Ted Baker skirt with a petticoat beneath. If anything, this has made it even swishier!