As we approach June 25 – the 150th anniversary of the Little Big Horn battle – I realize that Custer did one thing I would like to emulate. Custer’s funeral was held on October 10th, 1877, at the Army Academy at West Point. I’m not sure if George Custer still holds the record for number of demerits and still graduating at that institution – and it probably makes no difference for this little essay. The critical thing is that there is at least a 50-50 chance that George Armstrong Custer wasn’t there for his funeral. Personally, I’d just as soon not be there for mine.
I remember the silly question, “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb.” We all know the answer to that one. But we don’t know who is buried in Custer’s grave. Harpers Weekly confidently reported on the funeral – we know who presided, we know who escorted the widow. But we don’t know whose remains are in Custer’s grave.
At https://www.thesmartset.com/article09101001/ there is an article about recovering Custer’s body at the Little Bighorn:
“The American public wanted a more respectful burial for men they considered fallen heroes. But thanks to the remote location of the battlefield and ongoing fighting, a whole year passed before the military sent a second detail with pine coffins to collect the bodies of Custer, 10 officers, and two civilians for burial in eastern graveyards. They arrived to find that the corpses had first been exposed to the harsh Montana weather; coyotes then scattered the bones around Last Stand Hill. As Lieutenant John G. Bourke recorded: “Pieces of clothing, soldiers’ hats, cavalry coats, boots with the leather legs cut off, but with the human feet and bones still sticking in them, strewed the hill.” Custer’s body had been disinterred from its shallow grave and the travois overturned. After misidentifying a nearby skeleton as Custer’s — a note in the jacket pocket revealed that it actually belonged to a corporal — they had to choose another for the coffin. “I think we got the right body the second time,” wrote one participant unconvincingly, but another remembered one of the leaders cynically muttering: “Nail the box up; it is alright as long as the people think so.” On October 10, 1877, the skeleton was buried at an elaborate ceremony with full military honors at West Point, where it remains to this day.”
I spent a lot of time in Dakota/Lakota country – and I can’t recall where I heard that the proposal to dig up the box and check the bones that are in it for DNA was turned down by members of the Custer family. I figure there couldn’t be all that many left after losing George, Tom, Boston, a nephew and a brother-in-law at the Little Bighorn. I suspect Custer’s wife had a good idea that he missed his own funeral.
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