“After a survey of the region, spurring our horses forward, we in time found ourselves climbing the gentle acclivities which led up to Reno’s old rifle-pits, now almost obliterated.  The most noticeable feature of the spot is the number of blanched bones of horses which lie scattered about.  A short distance from the pits—­which are rather rounded, and follow the outline of the hills in shape—­and in a slight hollow below them, are more bones of horses.  This is where the wounded were taken, and the hospital established, and the horses kept.  From the wavy summit line of the bluffs, the ground slopes in an irregular broken way back to the northeast and east, into a coulee that forms the passage to the ford which Custer aimed for and never reached.  The ground about the battle-field is now a national cemetery.  It is enclosed by a wire fence, and there are several hundred acres of it.  It might be cared for in a manner somewhat better than it is.  During one of my visits there, a Crow Indian rode up to the gate and deliberately turned his herd of horses into the inclosure to graze.

“As I rode into the grounds, after fording and recrossing the river where Custer failed, the first object to greet my sight was a small inclosure, with large mound and headstone, which marked the spot where Lieutenant Crittenden fell.  At one corner, and outside of it, stood the regulation marble slab which marks the place where each body on the field was found.  This one stated that there Lieutenant Calhoun was killed.  At numbers of places down the western slope, but near the ravines, the surface is dotted with the little gravestones.  In some places, far down the descent, and far from where Custer, Van Reilly, Tom Custer and others fell, they are seen singly; in other spots three or four, or half a dozen.  At one point there are over thirty, well massed together.  Down in this part of the field, in the ravine running towards the monument, is the stone marking where Dr. Lord’s body was found, and with it are four others.

“In the shallow coulee east of the ridge, and almost at the bottom of the slope, some distance northwest of where Calhoun and Crittenden were killed, and on the main ridge slope of it, is a large group of stones.  Here is where Captain Miles Keogh and thirty-eight men gave up their lives.  On this side of the ridge—­the eastern side—­between where Keogh and his men died and where Custer fell, there are numerous stones.  On the opposite side of the Custer ridge—­that which faces the river—­and close to its crest, there are very few stones, and those are much scattered, and not in groups.  At the northern extremity of the ridge is a slight elevation which overtops everything else, and slopes away in all directions, save where the ridge lies.  Just below this knoll, or hillock—­Custer Hill—­facing southwest, is where Custer and the larger part of his men fell.”

On the right bank of the Missouri River—­the Big Muddy—­in North Dakota, almost within rifle shot of the town of Mandan, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, there existed in the ’70s a military post named after the nation’s great martyr President, Fort Abraham Lincoln.  On the morning of the 17th of June, 1876, there went forth from here among others, with the pomp and ceremony for which they were distinguished, a cavalry regiment famed in the army for dash, bravery and endurance—­the noted Seventh Cavalry.