Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry were based at Fort Abraham Lincoln, and Custer was a familiar figure in the area. The Bismarck Tribune sent a special correspondent with the 7th Cavalry on their expedition, which would lead to the disaster at Little Big Horn. The correspondent predicted that by the time his last message reached Bismarck, Custer would have fought the Sioux. That correspondent was among the dead.
The citizens of Bismarck were the first to learn of the disaster when the steamboat Far West brought the survivors to safety. As word spread, the entire country was shocked. Custer was a household name, a media darling—handsome, dashing, and a Civil War hero. The newspapers couldn’t get enough of him, and there was even talk he might run for president. So Americans were stunned to hear that Custer and all of the men with him had been killed.
There are many misconceptions about Little Big Horn. It’s often called a massacre with no survivors. While Custer and 261 of his men were killed, there were soldiers who survived. By the time fifty years had passed, most of those survivors had died, but a few remained. Lewis Crawford, superintendent of the North Dakota Historical Society, noted that those who survived had been separated from Custer and fought in other areas of the field.
On this date in 1926, the Bismarck Tribune reported on two of the survivors of Little Big Horn. Peter Brown received a short mention, noting he was living in Spearfish, South Dakota. The newspaper also reported on the death of S.B. Jones, one of about forty Crow and Arikara scouts who accompanied Custer. Jones survived because Custer had ordered him to find Major Reno and tell him to bring reinforcements. When Jones reached Reno, he found the command under a fierce attack by a large number of Sioux warriors. Though Jones delivered the message, the attack prevented Reno from sending help to Custer. Jones believed that if he had stayed with Custer, he would have been killed, and he credited Custer’s order with saving his life.
Dakota Datebook by Dr. Carole Butcher
Sources:
- Bismarck Tribune. “Massacred!” Bismarck, Dakota Territory. 7/12/1876. Page 1.
- Bismarck Tribune. “Death Takes Survivor of Custer Fight.” Bismarck ND. 3/13/1926. Page 1.
