General Custer was betrayed at Little Bighorn (and the story of the officer who tried to stop it)

Captain Thomas B. Weir was the commander of company B, in Captain Benteen’s battalion (one of the three columns that Custer sent against the Indians at Little Bighorn). On June 25, 1876, Weir followed Benteen in his scout on the South of the valley, looking for “satellite villages” (other Indian villages around the main one). __

When Benteen understood that the scout didn’t give any results, he came back on Custer’s trail. He had specific orders to follow Custer’s steps and to send him a note about the results of his scouts. Benteen didn’t send any note to Custer (disobedience of order) and moved on the trail with considerable slowness. He then stopped his column to water the horses at a name later called “the morass”. Shots were heard in the valley, a sign that the battle was beginning on Custer’s side. Private Jan Moeller and Sergeant Windolph heard the firing, as well as Lieutenant Godfrey.

Captain Thomas Weir became very impatient. Lieutenant Godfrey stated that many officers became “uneasy by the lengthy stay. One subaltern wondered why the “Old Man” (Benteen) was keeping them out of the battle for so long. Captain Weir’s anger grew. He said to Benteen: “We ought to be over there!” Benteen ignored him. Weir went to his company, mount up and moved towards the sound of the guns. It was a disobedience of orders, because, as Godfrey stated, “his position in the column was that of second unit.” Benteen eventually moved behind Weir. It was the first time Captain Weir was leaving his command because of Benteen’s indifference to the ongoing battle. It wouldn’t be the last.

_____________________________________________ Sources: Hammer, Custer in ’76, page 75 Hunt; I fought with Custer, page 81. Sklenar, To Hell with Honor, pages 224, 365 note 18

The battle was still on in the valley of the Little Bighorn. However, Captain Benteen’s battalion was still out of the fight. Benteen travelled at three miles an hour, when Custer’s other battalions did the same in an hour less time. Benteen was slow, and there is no explanation for this betrayal. He just acted as if no battle was going on. He just ignored his duty. He then met Daniel Kanipe, who was carrying a vocal order by Custer. Benteen learnt that Custer was asking for immediate reinforcements, but didn’t act at all. His battalion was still moving at trot. He even stopped in front of a lone tepee to examine it. He was wasting time, and didn’t care about it. Soon, another messenger appeared. Private Giovanni Martini was carrying a written order by General Custer: “Benteen, come on, be quick, bring packs.” The packs were not the entire pack train, as it is often stated, but the “extra ammunitions”. Every soldier knew it, as lieutenant McClernand clearly said in his articles and book. Benteen had to pick the extra ammunition up and then to go quickly towards Custer. Did he act as his orders urged him to? Not at all. He didn’t go at a gallop, but at a walk or a trot (Lieutenant Godfrey). Custer’s men had moved on the same ground on overall speed or fast trot. Captain Weir was outraged again. Ignoring Benteen’s orders once more, he moved quickly, left the command and reached Reno Hill the first. Again, Thomas Weir was the only one in Benteen’s troops who acted like a soldier.

_____________________________________________ Sources: Hammer, Custer in ’76, pages 75-76 Gray, Centennial Campaign, page 183 McClernand, On Time for Disaster, page 71-88

Benteen’s battalion reached Reno Hill, found Reno’s battalion, which had suffered of casualties after its commander had left it without any bugle in the woods. Benteen dismounted and stayed on the hill with Major Reno. Both never acted to support Custer at any kind. They had orders to “come quick” and knew that the main duty of any soldier is “to support the commander at any level” and to “go to the sound of the guns”. But nothing happened. They just stayed on the hills, while shots and volleys were heard in the valley, coming from Custer’s men.

Lieutenant McDougall testified: “It appeared to everyone that all should go to support of Custer”.

Lieutenant Godfrey wrote: “I thought General Custer was below us and we could join him that we gad no water and a few wounded; that we would have our casualties and burdens increased on the morrow.”

Journalist: “Were not some warriors left in front of these entrenchments on the bluffs, near the right side of the map? (Reno Hill) Did not you think it necessary – did not the warchiefs think it necessary – to keep some of your young men there to fight the troops who had retreated to these entrenchments (Reno’s and Benteen’s men)?”

Sitting Bull: “You forget that only a few soldiers were left by the Long Hair on those buffs (Reno Hill). He took the main body of his soldiers with him (Custer’s battalion) to make the big fight down here on the left (Medicine Tail Coulee).

Journalist: “So there were no soldiers (warriors) to make a fight left in the entrenchments on the right hand bluff (Reno Hill, Reno’s and Benteen’s position)?”

Sitting Bull: “I have spoken. It is enough. The squaw could deal with them. There were none but squaws and papooses in front of (Reno’s and Benteen’s men) that afternoon.”

Lieutenant Edward McClernand, of Terry’s column, arrived on the battlefield on June 27, 1876. He drew maps of the battlefield and wrote several articles on the battle. Here’s what he wrote on Major Reno, who was the senior commander of Reno Hill: “Some of (Reno’s) officers looking from the edge of the bluffs (from Reno Hill) at the large number of mounted warriors in the bottom below (the valley of the Little Bighorn), observed that the enemy suddenly started down the valley, and that in a few minutes scarcely a(n Indian) horseman was left in sight. Reno’s front was practically cleared of the enemy. It is not sufficient to say that there was no serious doubt about Custer being able to take care of himself. (Custer) had gone downstream with five troops, heavy firing was heard in that direction, it was evident a fight was on (…) Reno with six troops (…) still ignored the well known military axiom to march to the sound of guns.”

Weir was livid. Private John Fox heard this conversation between Captain Weir and Major Reno:

Weir: “Custer must be around here somewhere (shots were heard) and we ought to go to him.” Reno: “We are surrounded by Indians (it’s false. There weren’t any Indian around Reno Hill) and we ought to remain here.” Weir: “Well, if no one else goes to Custer, I will go.” Reno: “No, you cannot.”

Weir was so angered that he left Reno, mounted up and went towards the sounds of the guns with his orderly. Lieutenant Edgerly saw his commander leaving and followed him with the whole company D. As Edgerly understood afterwards, Weir had disobeyed orders. Both Benteen and Reno didn’t want to move.

_____________________________________________ Sources: Hammer, Custer in ’76, page 71 Gray, Centennial Campaign, page 183 McClernand, On Time for Disaster, page 71-88 Captain Michael J. Koury, Diaries of Little Bighorn, page 11 “Wild Life on the Plains”, in Cyclorama of General Custer’s Last Battle, compiled by A. J. Donnelle, Promontory Press, 1889, pages 21-23

Benteen eventually followed Weir, but only 30 minutes after him. The battle was still raging on, as Historian Gregory Michno shows in his book “Lakota Noon.” (he makes the timeline of Custer’s movements with Indian testimonies) Despite what countless books said, when Weir reached a peak named afterwards Weir Point, Custer’s battle was still raging. Little Bighorn specialist Wayne Michael Sarf admits that many officers on Weir Point “apparently saw more than they would later admit. There is little doubt that (Lieutenant) Edgerly destroyed the portion of a letter to his wife dealing with the Weir Point episode.”

Sergeant Charles Windolph remembered what he saw on Weir Point : “Way off to the north you could see what looked to be groups of mounted Indians. There was plenty of firing going on.”

Lieutenant Hare was interviewed by Walter Camp, who wrote: “While out in advance with (Captain Weir’s) Company D, the Indians were thick over on Custer ridge and were firing. (Hare) thought Custer was fighting them.”

Private Edward Pigford: “at first when looked toward Custer ridge the Indians were firing from a big circle, but it gradually closed until they seemed to converge into a large black mass on the side hill toward the river and all along the ridge.”

Captain Weir was watching his comrades battling without helping them, because Benteen and Reno were still on their hill. When Benteen eventually reached Weir Point, he put an American flag on the peak to “show my position to Custer. The bugle began to sound on Custer Hill, which means that Custer was watching the flag or the dust of the other battalions and was using the bugle as a signal. Custer’s men asked for help, after having waited for Benteen and Reno… during more than two hours!

Sitting Bull: “As (Custer’s soldiers) they stood to be killed they were seen to look far away to the hills in all directions and we knew they were looking for the hidden soldiers (Benteen’s and Reno’s soldiers) in the hollows of the hills to come and help them.”

A little band, led by warchief Low Dog, eventually attacked the men on Weir Point while the battle on Custer Hill was still raging (see Michno). Benteen decided to withdraw his troops, according to Private George Glenn and Lieutenant Francis Gibson. The troops fell back without any rear guard, just like Reno had done in the woods. Lieutenant Godfrey decided to deploy his men on his own initiative. He later said to the Reno Court of Inquiry:

Question by the court: “Was the engagement severe in and around (Weir Point)?”

Question by the court: “Was there much firing on the part of the Indians down at that point up to the time to command started to go back (from Weir Point to Reno Hill)?”

Question by the court: “State if the Indians drove (Weir’s and Benteen’s) command from that position (Weir Point).”

Answer by Lieutenant Edgerly: “They did not. The orders were to fall back and we fell back.”

400 men fell back without ever supporting the last stand. Custer would never have the support he had asked for during more than two hours. His heroic last stand would end at 6.20 p.m., almost at the time Reno had reached Reno Hill again. A betrayal had just happened at Little Bighorn. A betrayal that would be covered during a century, and which is still covered up by many scholars and historians.

Major General Thomas Rosser, cavalry officer during the Civil War, wrote in 1876: “As a soldier, I would sooner lie in the grave of General Custer and his gallant comrades alone in that distant wilderness, that when the last trumpet sounds, I could rise to judgment from my part of duty, than to live in the place of the survivors of the siege on the hills.”

_____________________________________________ Sources: The official recording of the Reno Court of Inquiry, 1879 Nightengale, Little Big Horn, pages 129, 184-185, 190 Unger, The ABCs of Custer’s Last Stand, pages 191-218 Sklenar, To Hell with Honor, page 302 Michno, Lakota Noon, page 233-287 General Thomas Rosser, Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1876

Captain Weir went back on Fort Lincoln with a look of a “broken man” (lieutenant Garlington). He perhaps even tried to commit suicide by jumping in a stream while the 7th was moving back to the fort. Captain Weir was so sad because he knew that his comrades, his friends, his brother in arms had been deliberately betrayed from start to finish. From Benteen’s dawdling to his refusal to leave Reno Hill, from Reno’s disastrous offensive to his cowardice in battle, everything was made to blow any chance of victory up. Captain Weir wrote to Libbie Custer: “I know if we were all of us alone in the parlour, at night, the curtains all down and everybody else asleep, one or the other of you would make me tell you everything I know.” Thomas Weir began to drink too much, and died on December 9, 1876. Cause of death: “melancholia.” The Army and Navy saluted his death:

(Brevet) Colonel Weir was in the prime of life, 38 years of age, and no preliminary announcement of illness preceded the report of his death, which occurred suddenly in New York on Saturday, December 9, of congestion of brain. Colonel Weir was buried on Governor’s Island with military honours on Wednesday, December 14.

The only loyal officer of Reno Hill, one of the greatest – yet not honoured enough – heroes of Little Bighorn, Thomas Benton Weir, was dead. He wouldn’t be at the Reno Court of Inquiry to tell his story and destroy Reno’s and Benteen’s perjuries. On March 22, 1879, Captain Benteen help a journalist to write an article in the Army and Navy Journal. He wrongly accused Weir of being drugs addicted, which should explain his anger towards Benteen and Reno.

Thomas Weir’s ghost still haunted the traitors of Little Bighorn. _____________________________________________ Sources: Army and Navy Journal, December 9, 1876 Army and Navy Journal, March 22, 1879 Son of the Morning Star, pages 284-285

No one can be exactly certain of the number of repeaters the Sioux/Cheyenne had however Sgt Mark Latham of the Canadian Police met a large Sioux band about a month after the massacre of Custer. He states every one of the Indians were armed with Winchesters and more importantly Henry Rifles. The Henry was a high velocity, heavy round that was easily fired and extremely accurate.

There is nearly absolute proof, both archeological and narative (there were far more live witnesses than usually thought), that the Indians fired two volleys from behind the crest of the hill. Loss of even 20% of Custers force (and it was probably more than that) in the first seconds of the battle would have been fatal to the 7th Cavalry. The Indians then attacked in their normal warrior method of fighting taking the fight among the troopers of the 7th hence the repeating rounds found among them. The 7th by that time would have been broken, disorganized, and doomed.

He did in fact refuse the Gatling guns, as he thought them impractical against Indians on horse back.

True. You will remember I said that Custer would have had to induce the Indians to attack him. This assumption is that Custer would assume a defensive posture and force the Sioux/Cheyenne warriors to attack him over ground of his choosing. Coupled with Gatling guns this would have almost certainly changed the outcome of the battle. Custer should have known this tactic since he saw the south use it repeatedly and very effectively during the Civil War.

I personaly think that he just was A. not smart enough and B. just totally enamored with the perceived glory of a classic cavalry charge.

Custer's downfall was that he learned to late that the Indians battlefield tactics had changed. He fought as he was use to fighting. The Indians did not, they adapted.

Precisely.

There were two volleys by the Sioux/Cheyenne into the 7th from behind the military crest of the hill. This is incidentally the same tactic that Wellington used against Napleon's Old Guard to such devastating effect. Almost no unit can take those kind of losses and pick up the pieces. The 7th was doomed within seconds of first contact.

There is consderable archeological as well as narative evidence to this effect. The rounds found closer among the troopers are there since the Indians held the discipline of a firing line for only the few seconds to fire the two volleys then resumed their normal warrior style fighting.

True. Actually a band of northern Cheyenne had attached themselves to Crazy Horse just prior to Redbud and were probably behind both victories.

Among that small band were about 30-35 members of the Dog Society (think Marine Recon or SEAL lifers) armed with Henry rifles. Futher at least three members of that band had served with the South during the Civil War. Indian naratives atribute plan and execution of the initial ambush of Custer to this small number of Cheyenne warriors.

Its not only likely but even certain that or something like that happened to not only change the usual way Plains Indians fought but to do so effectively. After the serious losses in the opening seconds of the battle the Indians piled onto the the doomed 7th.

“After crossing the Wolf Mountains and the Divide, Custer and his adjutant drew off to the side and figured on paper for a few minutes. When they returned to the head of the line they brought with them instructions on dividing up the regiment. The first assignment was given to Captain Frederick Benteen. The regiment was to be divided up into three battalions, a fourth battalion comprising of Company B and a mixed lot from all the other companies had already been formed earlier in the day. Custer would command one battalion while the only Major (Reno) in the regiment would command a second. But a third battalion would need a commander so Custer made the highest ranking company commander (Benteen) a virtual major. He was given companies D, K nad H, the second, fourth, and sixth companies in rank in the six-company Left Wing of the Seventh Cavalry. Benteen was to scout off to the left and alert Custer if Indians or camps were discovered in any valleys to the south.

The battalion company commanders were listed in rank first to third as...
Captain Thomas Benton Weir (D)
1st Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey (K)
1st Lieutenant Francis Marion Gibson (H)

Based on this list Weir should have led the scout due to his seniority. But based on information, usually overlooked, that formation never materialized. In fact this information suggests that Company H with the least senior officer (Gibson) led the scout. How can this be you say?”

Fox found no such archeological evidence of Indians firing "volleys." He found repeaters in Indian hands. But there was in fact no evidence whatsoever that ANYONE fired "volleys." It was sporadic, steadily infiltrating fire, which caused Keough to move TOWARD Custer. Moreover, Custer's men were never sufficiently coalesced for volleys to have been that effective. Evidence that (I might get my directions mixed up) he was far to the northwest of the village before returning, and began taking fire at the bottom of the hill/ravine, before gradually moving up to (and past) "Custer Hill."

Even allowing for substantial pilferage of cartridges, Fox's archaeological evidence based on the post-fire, newly revealed ground, would STILL have revealed SOME evidence of lines, or groups, of shell casings if there were volleys. But he found no such evidence.

I question this "change of tactics." Just previously, a battle where we have considerable evidence from both sides, Crook and Crazy Horse fought to a draw. Not a lot were killed on either side. But there were no reports whatsoever of Cheyenne using anything other than typical plains Indians tactics. Nor, afterwards, in any of the remaining skirmishes with Sitting Bull's forces, were they any reports of "volleys."

Moreover, it is utterly incomprehensible that the Indians would develop such a western European tactic virtually overnight, then only use it one time. Such a tactic took months of training, and even Muslim armies, well acquainted with it, never mastered it.

I must disagree.

Two points fairly recently several archeologist found a line of spent shells along the military crest of the ridge. of course there were only a few hundred of the shells which holds with the volleys.

Regrading the abilities of the Sioux/Cheyenne: Nonsense.

By 1880 several dozen memberss of the Sioux nation, not to mention Cheyenne, had served with the south (and Union to a lesser extent) during the war. Don't you think they brought anything home? They are hardly Muslims. Secondly the Southern Cheyenne had a larger number of the Dog Society however the Northern by that time had absorbed a number of southern Cheyenne. I submit personnel evidence. My great grandfather as well as a great uncle were Dog Soldiers and one of them fought Custer. That same great uncle fought at Peabody Ridge and Vicksburg and appears on Confederate unit rolls. And he was not alone.

Further there is this - my experience. 38 years (off and on) as a Marine will tell you that the only way irregular troops (and Injuns were irregular) could win this fight was through surprise and firepower. There are 5 separate narative accounts of volley fire that I am aware of. Further it fits. Breaking the spam pf control and cohesion of the unit is the only way the Sioux/Cheyenne could have won that day.

Besides do you really expect me to doubt the word of my grandfather....

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