"Taken prisoner at the Little Big Horn!" Topic

Hello everyone,

Personally, here is what I find to be a little-known aspect of the battle…

Acts of torture were committed against rare prisoners brought back to the village, as attested by the Hunkpapa "Little Knife":

"A soldier with stripes on his arm (probably a sergeant or corporal chevron) was taken prisoner. He was was performed during a dance that took place late at night.

A young Lakota or Santee named "Round Fool" recounts how a soldier who was hiding in "berry bushes" near the river was found during the night by warriors and "burned alive.".

It is unknown if this happened in the village or in the woods.

The Northern Cheyenne chief "Two Moon" also spoke of torture ceremonies in the village. He later recanted, no doubt aware that his revelations could get him into trouble.

Major Marcus Albert Reno said: "With my binoculars, I could see from the hill the Indians engaged in a dance around three captives tied to poles." On June 27, Sergeant John Ryan saw "human bones" and "pieces of uniforms" scattered in the village, discoveries confirmed by Lieutenant Winfield Scott Edgerly and General Alfred Howe Terry in particular.

Three heads of soldiers, half consumed and showing signs of violence, were found in the village, impaled on stakes arranged in a triangle. The head of a corporal of "G" Company was discovered in a cauldron, while the body of Sergeant James Bustard, of "I" Company, lay in the middle of the village site.

On Reno hill, hidden in the shadow of a thick sage bush, Jean-Baptiste Désiré Gallenne, 27 years old former student in Lorient, will transmit his diary to a priest on July 5, "The only lights that we The fires of the Indian camp can be seen. The drums are still resounding, like a funeral march, while the terrible cries of the captives tortured by the victors rise in the night. The soldiers and their Bunkies have gathered. Some are sobbing, others went to vomit near the little ravine.".

It's strange, because on December 21, 1866 the Indians massacred the entire detachment of Captain William Judd Fetterman without capturing anyone and even behaved admirably with a bugler, whom they simply killed and respected his remains, while they could have captured him and taken him to their village and then…

Yours aye

Paskal

War is h***.

I sometimes see Lt Sturgis mentioned in this context. Bloodstained clothes found in the village, and I believe he's the only officer casualty whose body was not identified by his fellow officers.

I don't see it as particularly strange. For one thing, it had been a rough ten years.

When the pictures and reports get back east, people are filled with horror at what they hear, and it awakens an even greater hostility towards the American Indians. This was called Custer's Last Stand, but it became the Indians last stand. After this the government went after them even harder.

There's a reason this poem (which I believe was adapted from other versions) dedicated to the cavalry ends the way it does:
Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen. And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers' Green. Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen. Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines, For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green. Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene. No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen. And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green. And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen, Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean, And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen, And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.

What strange customs to want to take prisoners to torture them, to kidnap women to rape them, to massacre their children in front of them because they cry and it disturbs their executioners…

Practices carried out even against other Indians and certainly before the arrival of the whites.

In the westerns of my childhood, there was rarely any question of this kind of practice which means that everyone "preferred" the Indians…

But obviously I suppose that it is forbidden to blame the Indians for this without being accused of racism etc…