Note 32 — IX The Coming of Custer.

The story of wholesale suiciding is such a reversal of our accepted conceptions that some reader may exclaim: “That is a villifying falsehood!” But it is the truth. Most of the Seventh cavalry enlisted men on that occasion were recent recruits. Only a few of them ever had been in an Indian battle, or in any kind of battle. It is evident, though, that they fought well through an hour and a half or two hours. Then, finding themselves vastly outnumbered, they “went crazy,” as the Indians tell. They put into panicky practice the old frontiersman rule, “When fighting Indians keep the last bullet for yourself.” A great mass of circumstantial evidence supports this explanation of the military disaster. The author hopes to attain publication, at some future time, of his own full analysis of the entire case.—T. B. M.