A Day When Custer Rode into the Trap, 1876
You Are There: A Graphic History Series
You Are There… Graphic History Series.
Historical Backdrop
In the summer of 1876, the United States sent the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer to push the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples onto reservations. The tribes, led by figures like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, had gathered in an enormous village along a river they called the Greasy Grass, which white men called the Little Bighorn. Our subject is Private Thomas “Tom” Meador, a 24-year-old trooper in Captain Thomas French’s Company M, assigned to Major Marcus Reno’s battalion. Tom is Irish-American, from a Brooklyn tenement, who enlisted eighteen months ago for the $13-a-month pay and a pair of boots.
June 25, 1876 — 2:30 AM — Crow’s Nest Ridge Camp, Montana Territory
You wake in darkness to a corporal kicking your boot. The air is cold enough to see your breath. You chew a piece of hardtack soaked in bacon grease because there is no time for coffee fires — Custer forbids smoke. Your mouth tastes like copper. Men piss beside their horses without bothering to step away. Around you, 600 troopers pack saddles in near-silence, the only sounds being creaking leather, coughing, and the soft blow of horses. Your mare, Nellie, nips your sleeve. You check your carbine’s breech by feel.
June 25, 1876 — 8:00 AM — The Divide Between the Rosebud and Little Bighorn Valleys
You sit your horse in a column of twos as the sun climbs. The heat is already brutal — sweat streams down your spine under wool. Captain French rides down the line telling men to check cartridges. You count yours: 50 carbine rounds, 24 pistol rounds. Your canteen sloshes half-full with warm, bitter water. A Crow scout named White Man Runs Him gallops past toward Custer’s position, his face tight. You do not speak his language, but you know that face. Something is wrong.
June 25, 1876 — 12:07 PM — Custer’s Column Halts Near the Crow’s Nest
You dismount and slacken your horse’s girth. Officers gather on a rise, pointing with gauntlets. Word trickles back down the line — a huge pony herd has been spotted in the valley, and a box containing hardtack was found with a Sioux boy rifling through it. Surprise is lost. The column will attack today, not tomorrow. You pass a piece of plug tobacco to Private O’Hara beside you. He spits and mutters, “God save us, Tom, there’s thousands of ‘em down there.” You pretend not to hear him.
June 25, 1876 — 12:15 PM — Battalions Divide
