The “great victory,” as Benteen would caption the event, had almost gotten Benteen killed. It was something he wasn’t likely ever to forget. He’d charged into the village and spotted a young brave escaping, running from a lodge. Benteen gave chase, signaling for the brave to surrender. The man had turned and fired at Benteen, the bullet whistling by his ear. The brave fired again, and the bullet hit Benteen’s horse, knocking him to the ground. Benteen had rolled to his feet and finally shot back, killing the brave.
But it wasn’t that incident that soured and sickened Benteen at the Washita. It began after that, when Custer ordered the Indian ponies captured by the regiment to be killed. Almost a thousand of the animals were slaughtered. Even here, under the harsh summer sun, Benteen still shivered when he thought of that cold December morning just before Christmas. He could clearly recollect the screams of wounded horses and Custer riding about. Shooting the Indians’ dogs with his pistol as if it were the greatest sport in the world. Benteen shook his head as he watched Custer and Cooke talk.
Benteen jerked back on his horse’s bit as he remembered. And then there was the counting in the village. Everything had to be counted. Bodies, saddles, rifles, spears, shields, everything. Benteen had seen the official report and almost burst a vein in his forehead from anger. Custer reported 103 dead warriors. More like two dozen, Benteen had estimated from his Own ride through the camp. The rest of the bodies · were women, children, and old men who couldn’t even lift a spear any more.
And then there was Major Elliott and his eighteen men. Elliott had taken a platoon of men, charged after Indians fleeing down the river and simply disappeared. The rest of the command finished butchering the animals and burning the lodges and then Custer ordered them to form to return to post. It would be dark soon, he explained to astonished junior officers who wanted to search for Elliott’s party, and they had no idea if there might not be more large bands of hostiles in the area.
So they left without even looking for Elliott.
Benteen had been with the force that returned to the Washita two weeks later. They went downstream from the scorched site of the battle and found what remained of Elliott’s command. Nineteen mutilated bodies lay frozen in the snow inside a small hollow next to the river. Piles of spent cartridges next to the bodies pointed to a desperate last stand.
Maybe we could have saved Elliott, Benteen wondered not for the first time. If Custer had acted like any decent commander and-Benteen spit. He’d played it out in his head a · thousand different ways, but the fact of the matter was that his friend Joel Elliott and eighteen troopers had been killed and tom apart while Custer and the rest of the regiment, Benteen among them, rode for the safety of their fort.
Benteen could still see Elliott’s body, preserved by the cold weather. His arms had been ripped out of the sockets and placed alongside his head. Deep gashes ran down each thigh, cut through the muscle to expose white bone. His genitals had been severed and shoved into his mouth. His torso had been riddled with more than fifty arrows, so many arrows that Benteen couldn’t pull all of them out. He’d had to break them off to get the body into the burial wagon. Naturally, Elliott was scalped, the top of the head a mixture of white bone and red flesh.
Benteen wrote about the entire episode in a letter that he mailed to a colleague with whom he had served in the Tenth Missouri. The letter found its way into the hands of a man working for the St. Louis Dispatch, where it was published without the identity of the writer being revealed. It was a blemish on what Custer had claimed was a flawless victory and helped unleash a backlash of negative press, especially among the more liberal papers back east that decried the massacre of women and children.
Custer knew he wrote it. He threatened Benteen inside his command tent, a copy of the paper in his hand, and Benteen had asked him to step outside and take it up with weapons. Benteen had waited outside for more than a sufficient amount of time and then walked away as Custer continued to rant and rave inside the tent but dared not show his head outside.
Benteen grimaced as Cooke and the new scout came up. The adjutant had his head so far up Custer’s rear, Benteen often wondered if those damn whiskers tickled Custer’s bottom. The scout was a strange creature, one of those who’d spent so much time on the frontier and alone they didn’t seem to fit in around other people.
Cooke relayed the orders for the march without meeting Benteen’s eyes. Benteen didn’t acknowledge the orders directly.
“Do I get a surgeon?” he asked.
“One has not been detailed to you, sir,” Cooke replied.
“And if I make contact with the hostiles?”
“You are to pitch into them, sir,” Cooke replied vaguely.
“’Pitch into?’” Benteen repeated. “Is that a military term that is taught at the Academy? I am afraid I do not have the benefit of such an excellent education.”
“You are to engage the enemy, sir.”
“Engage with a hundred and twenty men?” Benteen asked rhetorically.
The adjutant rode back to Custer, whose back was turned to the column. The scout, Bouyer, dawdled. Benteen rode up to him. “What is it?”
“There’s no one to the southwest.” Bouyer said.
“I know that. But 1 have orders. You heard them.”
Bouyer nodded. “1 heard, major. But you don’t have to ride hard to the southwest.”
“Custer wants all the glory,” Benteen said. “Why should I worry about-”
“It ain’t about Custer,” Bouyer interrupted. “It’s bigger than him.”
“What’s bigger than him?”
“What’s going to happen today.”
“And that is?”
“I think you have an idea.”
Benteen stared hard at the scout but didn’t say anything. Bouyer reached into a large sack tied off to his horse’s pommel and pulled out something wrapped in a leather pouch. “Here.”
Benteen took the pouch, surprised both at the weight and the warmth being propagated by whatever was inside. “What is this?” he asked as he reached to loosen the drawstring.
‘’Don’t.’’ Bouyer held up his hand, indicating Benteen should stop. “Not now. Just carry it for today.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
Benteen was tempted to open the satchel and look, but there was something about Bouyer’s demeanor, a seriousness that drew him in. Benteen not only had a strong feeling that · something was going to happen today, his military sense told him a battle would be engaged today. There was too much evidence to ignore. And the battle would not be to the southwest, · but somewhere along the Little Big Horn.
“All right,” Benteen said.
Bouyer nodded. ‘’Ride slow, sir.” With that he turned and headed back to the column. Benteen watched him for a few moments, then twisted in the saddle and barked orders, getting the three companies that were to form his battalion in line. He dispatched Lieutenant Gibson and ten men to form a forward screen in the difficult terrain to guard against ambush.
“Left oblique, march!” Benteen cried out With a hundred and ten men he marched to the southwest.
“Where are you going?” Major Reno shouted from Benteen’s left as the newly formed battalion began moving.
Benteen pointed. “To those hills.”
“For what purpose?” Reno asked in a lower voice, coming closer so Custer couldn’t hear, although Benteen doubted the general could hear anything above the noise the column made moving.