Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire General Custer's remains.

'Nother good'un from RealClearHistory.com...

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-15/news/mn-3404_1_west-point-s-cemetery

Most of the soldiers killed at Little Bighorn were not properly identified and were buried hastily in shallow graves. Over the years, animals and the elements scattered many of the bones, while tourists carted off others.

Custer got the most decent burial. He was laid in a fairly deep grave--18 inches. The body of Custer's brother, Tom, was laid alongside. The bodies were covered with blankets and a canvas tarp. After it was filled in, the grave was covered with an Indian stretcher, which was weighted down with rocks.

Those efforts should have protected the bodies, leaving two full skeletons for a cavalry detachment that returned a year later to dig up Custer, Snow said.


The exhumation team did not find the stretcher, the rocks, the blankets or the canvas. The grave they believed was Custer's contained only one skeleton. After exhuming it, the diggers discovered that the rotting uniform containing the skeleton bore a corporal's name. They dug up a nearby grave which contained only a skull, rib cage and leg bone. The exhumation team decided those bones were Custer's and shipped them to West Point for burial.

"It sounds like they just moved over to the next grave and said, 'This is Custer,' " Snow said.

McChristian agrees that the exhumation team concluded they "got the right bones the second time but failed to say how they identified the remains any more thoroughly than the first ones."

Evan Connell, author of the Custer biography "Son of the Morning Star," agrees that the exhumation was an unprofessional job, but he thinks the second body dug up was Custer's.

"My impression is they probably got it right the second time," Connell said. A lock of auburn hair found with those remains was sent to Elizabeth Custer, who said it matched her husband's, Connell said.

If the job of digging up Custer was bungled, the exhumation team shouldn't be blamed, said Richard Hardorff of DeKalb, Ill., who published a book on the burials and exhumations at the Little Bighorn.

"Put yourself in their place," Hardorff said. "You see the bones, you see skeletons, but you're used to seeing a living person with a certain face, a certain manner of moving around, but all that's gone. They did the best they could" to identify Custer's bones.

Bruce Liddic of Syracuse, N.Y., who published a book about Custer's burial, said there's a slim chance "that out of pure dumb luck they got the right body, but I doubt it."

He's still dead. What did they expect?
How about John Paul Jones? He is supposed to be in a lead coffin at the Naval Academy, but they haven't opened the box. Look up coffin liquor.

Would need a name tag.

Folks I have known for along time are not recognized when dead.

Personally, I would rather be left out on that battlefield. I've been to both places, Last Stand Hill and the cemetery on West Point.

Very interesting Birdwatcher, you bring lots of history to this site. TY

Nah, Porter opened Jones's coffin when they found it in Paris, and it's definitely him. You can find the pix online pretty easily - old salt's long braided hair and all. It's a cool story.

As I recall, the exhumation team determined the only mutilation to the second body was as described by the Indians, i.e. primarily his ears were pierced with an Awl, to open them so he could hear in the after life, because he sure didn't listen very well in life.

George really doesn't care where his bones are.

George wishes he would have taken the Gatling guns with him.

And maybe Winchester repeaters! memtb

It takes a pretty good crew to feed and fire the Gatling Guns. I doubt they'd have been much help.
Custer had taken them on an earlier scout, and found that they slowed down the column considerably.
The original plan was for the 7th to drive the Indians to the approaching infantry.
Custer didn't want to share the glory, and bit off way more than he could chew.
7mm

Lol...it would SUCK to be remembered forever as that guy.

Heroes and Villains live on in memory for a long time. Sometimes a combination of the two is remembered the longest.

All it takes is one "screw up" to go from hero to zero.

Right? But that guy always seemed like a "don't try this at home" story.

The recipe for success, or failure is only one ingredient different.

Or waited for some reinforcements.....

Most of the troopers were killed in less than half an hour after the horse mounted charge into the valley, some of them committed suicide according to eye witness accounts of Indians that were there that day.

George was authorized several days prior to this ‘tour’ by the War Departmentto draw new repeating rifles but being a traditionlist he stuck with the single shooters!

Maybe that speaks to being last in his class at WP!!

"He'd prefer to be left to lie, his bones covered in the winter by snow and in the summer by sweet grasses and wild flowers; the gentle breezes of spring could pass over his bones and the rains occasionally wash them clean." Daniel C. "The Long Shooters."