The following is another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Upon inquiry, the subject is the Remington Rolling Block Rifle of General George Armstrong Custer of which I have a fondness for.
This was the Generals rifle with which he hunted with and fought with on the Last Stand. It was a 50 caliber which he killed numerous animals with and wrote a letter to Remington praising this rifle for lethality and quality.
On to it...........
The Custer rifle, was picked up from the Last Stand by a squaw. She saw George Custer die and yes General Custer as was the custom to not be captured and brutalized in real torture, executed himself with a shot to the head.
This squaw was married to a buck. Both were from a Minnesota Indian Reservation and had traveled west early in 1876 on two horses. The buck had an American horse from Minnesota and the squaw had an Indian pony.
The American horsed died sometime in May of 1876 in Montana on the Rosebud River.
The buck had a 50 caliber military rifle with him from Minnesota for big game hunting. He only had 3 rounds of ammunition for this rifle and never killed any game with it. They lived off of others.
They lived in a leanto. It was a tarp they brought with them from Minnesota.
These two were teenagers. They did not take part in the Last Stand Battle. They went out onto the prairie to hide, and as the battle took place over hours, they came out to watch it and were there at the end.
They had no idea the Cavalry Soldiers were on the way. Others in camp though did.
The squaw though did pick up Custer's rifle and the buck for his part took a pair of boots off an Officer of the 7th Cavalry.
After the massacre, they stayed in camp, but when camp broke on June 27th, being scared, did not follow the other renegades in Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but headed back east.
They hid during the day of the 28th and at dark, they set out. It was around 11 o'clock that the Indian pony spooked while crossing the Little Beaver River in Montana, and bolted with both the Indians riding.
The buck fell off and the squaw who was holding the rifle, at that point dropped it in the river to be lost.
The rifle in present condition is in pieces having rusted and detoriated and would not be recognized as a rifle.
They went back to Minnesota via the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The boots that the buck had, again on being frightened of having spoils from the slaughter buried them on the reservation.
Striking east they hit the old ox cart or Metis Trail by Lake of the Big Stone, and crossed into Minnesota at the headwaters of the Little Minnesota River crossing and followed it south.
They returned to the Indian Reservation after having traveled to Montana alone, and lied at only having been to the Standing Rock and not moving farther as their American horse had died.
The two had 3 children and still have surviving descendents in Minnesota.
That is the reality of George Armstrong Custer's Remington Rolling Block rifle and it's wasteful fate.
Enough said on the good Indian.
agtG
