Keogh – Crazy Horse Fight

An Indian charge shattered the Calhoun defense and crashed through the soldier position held by Capt. Myles Keogh’s Company I. Crazy Horse and White Bull cut down retreating soldiers fleeing northwest along the ridge in an effort to join the remnants of Custer’s command on Last Stand Hill, and members of Company C and L were also found there. Lt. John Bourke of the 3rd Cavalry wrote in 1877 that Keogh appeared to have attempted to make a stand on foot to enable Custer to get away, because he and his company died in one compact mass, while beyond that point the graves lay in scattered irregular clumps at intervals like those in the slaughter of buffaloes. Red Feather, Oglala Lakota, recalled that the soldiers were on one side of the hill and the Indians on the other, with a slight rise between them, and that Crazy Horse rode between the two parties as the soldiers fired at once but missed him.

Crow Agency, Montana · United States