George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry will forever be remembered for the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Greasy Grass, on June 25-26, 1876, when Custer and 263 of his men died fighting Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.
The fight did not involve every soldier in the 7th Cavalry. One of the fortunate ones was Jacob Horner. His story was published on this date in 1936.
Jacob Horner was born in New York City in 1855. He enlisted in the 7th Cavalry in 1876 and was one of a group of 78 newly-arriving recruits at Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck on April 30th. The U.S. Army had ordered horses for these cavalrymen, but the horses hadn’t yet arrived.
So, when Custer’s 7th Cavalry and the 17th Infantry ventured forth on May 17th to head for Montana and its fateful expedition against the Lakota, Jacob Horner and the other 77 new cavalrymen had to walk. Marching across 300 miles of grasslands in cavalry-boots was “disagreeable” for Horner.
“We weren’t equipped for walking like the infantry,” said Horner, “our feet got sore, and we got hungry. Twelve pieces of hardtack and a strip of sowbelly was our entire daily ration. I’d eat it all for breakfast and still be hungry.”
The Custer expedition split up at the junction of the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers, near present-day Miles City. Custer’s 12 mounted companies went ahead to locate the Lakota, leaving Horner and the other 77 unmounted cavalrymen with the infantry.
Dividing his forces was a big mistake. Horner put it this way: “Custer thought ... there were 1,500 [Lakota] in that region. Actually there were 3,500 or 4,000 [Lakota and Cheyenne].”
Custer’s “Last Stand” demise came on June 25th, but the news didn’t reached Jacob Horner and those at Powder River for nearly a week.
Horner served in the cavalry for five years, earning an honorable discharge. In 1880, he married Catherine Stuart, daughter of an Army officer, at Fort Totten. They settled in Bismarck, where he became a local butcher, and they had five children.
Jacob Horner died in 1951, at age 96. He was well-known as the “Last of Custer’s troopers” – as one of the cavalryman who escaped an early grave – all for the lack of a horse.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, MSU Moorhead History Department.
Sources:
“Army Red Tape Saved Horner From Little Bighorn Grave,” Bismarck Tribune, June 20, 1936, p. 9.
“Horner Meets Men of Modern 7th,” Bismarck Tribune, April 29, 1948, p. 6.
“Last of Custer’s Troopers Dies,” Minneapolis Star, September 22, 1951, p. 1;
“Custer Command Survivor, 97, Dies at Bismarck,” Great Falls Tribune, September 22, 1951, p. 5;
“Last Survivor of Custer’s Regiment Dies,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1951, p. 45;
“Custer Soldier Who Missed the Massacre Dies,” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 1951, p. 1.
“Jacob Horner Served Under Custer,” Bismarck Tribune, June 14, 1947, p. 24.
National Park Service, “Little Bighorn: A Place of Reflection,” Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, https://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm, accessed on May 15, 2018.
“Jacob Horner,” 1855-1951, Find a Grave Index, ancestry.com, accessed on January 19, 2018.
