The writer places the following productions upon these pages to show that intense interest has been taken in different parts of the country in regard to this important campaign:
"CUSTER'S LAST RALLY."
BY MR. WALT WHITMAN, OF BOSTON.
I went to-day to see this just-finished painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Montana on the spot at the forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two or three years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. I sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorbed in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks; there is no throwing of shades in masses; it is all at first painfully real, overwhelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail, life-size, in the mid-ground, with three times that number, or more, through the rest-swarms upon swarms of savage Sioux, in their war-
T›onnets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a Western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost; nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakespeare; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men brought to bay under terrible circumstances. Death a-hold of them, yet every man undaunted, not one losing his head, wringing out every cent of the pay before they sell their lives.
Custer (his hair cut short) stands in the middle with dilated eye and extended arm, aiming a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, but aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling (his body was afterwards found close by Custer's). The slaughtered or half-slaughtered horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians, lerculean, lie in the foreground clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimmed Western hats, the powder smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes almost human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures of Custer and Cook, with, indeed, the whole scene, inexpressible, dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain forever in my memory. With all its color and fierce action a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light develop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western.
I only saw it for an hour or so; but needs to be seen many times-needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring. It is very tonic to me. Then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have.
The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talked of. I advised him if it
went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there-nay, they certainly would. Then I would, like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others.
Altogether, " Custer's Last Rally " is one of the very few attempts at deliberate artistic expression for our land and people, on a pretty ambitious standard and programme, thai impressed me as filling the bill.
IN MEMOEIAM.
The sun shone from an azure sky
On that eventful day, When Custer's band of troopers bold
Rode forth in proud array; With their loved chieftain in command
No trooper on that field But what would face the cannon's mouth
And life's red current yield.
The soul of chivalry was he-
He was their boast and pride; Ofttimes they'd heard his clarion voice
Where rolled the crimson tide. Ofttimes they'd made the brave advance
Where gallant Custer led, On many a blood-stained battle-ground
The legion brave had bled.
Shrill sounds the reveille once more
That balmy summer's morn, Its echoes wake o'er hill and dale
On gentle zephyrs borne. Each heart beats in responsive note,
Each heart beats high with glee, For fame and country, home and friends,
And Custer's cavalry.
"•Forward! brave hearts!" the chieftain cried
That balmy morn in June, " Fresh laurels gain, or cypress weave
A wreath for warrior's tomb. Our duty calls, and life, how dear,
Will not be spent in vain If laid down on the battle-field
Among the noble slain."
And slain they were, that gallant band,
Before the setting sun; Their spirits winged their mystic flight,
Their sands of life had run. Not one was left to tell the tale-
That legion bold and brave, Their life-blood laved the distant wilds,
They found a warrior's grave.
In numbers vast the savage horde
Bore down in fiendish rage, And, ten to one, with leaden hail,
Did Custer's boys engage. No earthly force could stand such odds;
No power stem the tide. They nobly fought as heroes do,
They fought and bled and died.
The chieftain's voice is hushed in death.
The trooper's battle-cry No more shall make the welkin ring,
Or enemy defy. They nobly lived and bravely died
In honor, glory, fame. All hail! the Seventh Cavalry,
And Custer's honored name.
My 8th, 1876. J. S. Cabvell.
The above was written immediately after receiving the* news of the battle of the Little Big Horn.
Upon the opposite page will be seen a true portrait of Bain-in-the-Face, the Indian that murdered General Custer. As will be seen in the fore part of this volume, he made it his special business to encourage all the hostiles within his reach and hearing to rally and mass in the valley of the Little Big Horn, under the leadership of Sitting BulL In previous history it has been clearly shown that he murdered Dr. Houtzinger, the veterinary surgeon of the 7th Cavalry, and Mr. Balarian, the sutler, while out with the great "Stanley expedition," in 1873. These murders were committed on the north side of the Yellowstone Biver, nearly opposite the mouth of Tongue Biver, as well as opposite Fort Keogh, in Montana Territory, while Custer with his regiment was escorting a party of civil engineers making a preliminary survey along the present route of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
The record of this Indian is very clearly stated in these pages up to the time he escaped from the guard-house at Fort Abraham Lincoln. We have positive knowledge that he then went deliberately and actively at work recruiting all the warriors within his reach and influence, under promises that they certainly could either drive the " long-haired chief'' out of the country, or annihilate him and his cavalry entirely; and well did he keep his word good.
There is no question about his bringing reinforcements all the way from the southern camps and agencies of the Cheyennes, Arrappahoes, Kiowas and Comanches, all then located south of the southern boundary line of Kansas, aside from the recruiting that was done at the different camps and agencies in the whole Northwest; and if Mr. Belknap, then Secretary of War, had paid less attention to his petty post-trading business, and tried to have informed himself in relation to the movements of the hostile Indians on the western plains, and went to work to help organize the Fort Lincoln column of troops, and starting it out at the proper time and without such great delay-and for no other purpose, only to give vent to his own personal spite against Custer, and to humiliate him in an official manner, just because he could do it, and on no other ground whatever only than " might makes light"-if he had paid any attention whatever to the movements of those southern Indians, and allowed General Terry to have moved at the proper time, there can be no doubt as to the result of that campaign. Custer with his three hundred men (most of whom would have been living to-day), and the Lincoln column, under General Terry, would have started at least one month earlier, and the southern warriors could not have arrived in time to have taken part in the battle.