Out from the scene of
carnage there crept forth no white survivor to recount the heroic deeds
of the Seventh Cavalry. No voice can ever repeat the story in its
fulness, no eye penetrate into the heart of its mystery. Only in
motionless lines of dead, officers and men lying as they fell while
facing the foe; in emptied carbines strewing the prairie; in scattered,
mutilated bodies; in that unbroken ring of dauntless souls whose
lifeless forms lay clustered about the figure of their stricken chief
on that slight eminence marking the final struggle--only in such tokens
can we trace the broken outlines of the historic picture. The actors
in the great tragedy have passed beyond either the praise or the blame
of earth. With moistened eyes and swelling hearts, we vainly strive to
imagine the whole scene. This, at least, we know: no bolder, nobler
deed of arms was ever done.
It was shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon when that compact
column of cavalrymen moved silently forward down the concealing
_coulee_ toward the more open ground beyond. Custer's plan was
surprise, the sudden smiting of that village in the valley from the
rear by the quick charge of his horsemen.
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