Custer Hair at Little Big Horn

[Finnwolf]

Apparently General Custer had his hair cropped at Fort Lincoln before proceeding on his final expedition.  Is there any information on how short the cut was?  Were hand operated clippers available at that time?  Did he do this before the Yellowstone and Black Hills expeditions also?

There is an interesting frontispiece in my 1950s The Custer Myth showing his final moments with short hair, a large mustache and weeks of stubble.  Evidently the large mustaches were useful to keep the upper lip from being sunburned.

[Wild Billy Potts]

Don't know how long Custer's hair was, but I have seen at least 2 era photographs of men with buzzed type hair cuts that obviously were not done with razors, unless it was stubble that had grown back out. I am surprised at times some of the things they did have, but would never have thought they could have.

[Delmonico]

A quick search comes up with several places that say the hand operated clipper was invented by Nikola Bizumic:


Born 1823 in Neradin, Serbia, into a rural peasant's life, the young Bizumic found work in the Fruska Mountains, breeding pigs. His turbulent life made him restless and fed up with his animal husbandry duties, so he one day fled to the city of Ruma. Fate led him to barber Petar Javonovic, who needed an assistant, and the young man apprenticed with the barber. Sometime in the mid 19th century, Bizumic revolutionized the barbering world with his invention of the first manual hair clippers. Nikola Bizumic died in 1906.

Don't know how reliable this information is, but it was well with in the ability to be made.

Story I heard is Tom and George plus several other officers cut each other's hair with sheep shears before they left.  Also don't know how reliable this is, but have read it more than once.

[Wild Billy Potts]

Don't know how reliable this information is, but it was well with in the ability to be made.

Hand clippers would have been easy compared to watch parts. I've seen so many amazing items that were manufactured then.

[Delmonico]

Most folks forget or don't realize the modern milling machine, lathes and surface grinders were in common use by the 1840's.  With those skilled folks can make almost anything.

[Wild Billy Potts]

Most folks forget or don't realize the modern milling machine, lathes and surface grinders were in common use by the 1840's.  With those skilled folks can make almost anything.

I am probably more fascinated with the techniques they used to make things than I am with the items. I am a machinist by trade, and am in awe of some of the stuff they made on belt driven lathes, mills and various machinery they had then, that even by the antique machinery I learned on, was far more crude. Someday I hope to be able to visit the old Watervliet NY arsenal museum where they have an actual belt driven working shop as part of the tour.   It amazes me that the first metal lathe had a lead screw that was cut by hand. That takes skill even beyond most modern machinist.

[River City John]

Wild Billy Potts,
if you want to be amazed at what has been produced by primitive hand tools, by primitive cultures, in primitive times . . .
http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr/

RCJ

[Delmonico]

I am probably more fascinated with the techniques they used to make things than I am with the items. I am a machinist by trade, and am in awe of some of the stuff they made on belt driven lathes, mills and various machinery they had then, that even by the antique machinery I learned on, was far more crude. Someday I hope to be able to visit the old Watervliet NY arsenal museum where they have an actual belt driven working shop as part of the tour.   It amazes me that the first metal lathe had a lead screw that was cut by hand. That takes skill even beyond most modern machinist.

Well in modern machinists defense, few of them ever had to do stuff like that, I'd guess it was done by some old guy that had started out on simpler stuff at about age 10-11. 

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Delmonico said;

"Story I heard is Tom and George plus several other officers cut each other's hair with sheep shears before they left."





Lambs to the slaughter!

[Harley Starr]

Delmonico said;

"Story I heard is Tom and George plus several other officers cut each other's hair with sheep shears before they left."





Lambs to the slaughter!

Indeed.

[Grigori_Storri]

From what I understand from reading over the years that many soldiers and civilians who lived and worked in "Indian Territory" used to clip their hair off to cheat a scalp hunter from a scalp.

I believe I orgionally found this in the Time Life Book series of the wild west published in the late 1970's early 80's.

[St. George]

An interesting thought.

Doubtful, though.

Hair would've been cut short to minimize lice and for initial comfort - growing out while on campaign.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Short Knife Johnson]

I remember reading something simliar not that long ago.  Could have been "True West" magazine.  Men often shaved their heads in an attempt to avoid being scalped.  I sure as hell would.  Long hair was seen as very flamoyant, and any man so coiffed had better have the stones to back it up.  ie: James Butler Hickok.  Personal experience in close-in fights didn't allow my opponent an advantage when going to grab my hair that wasn't there.    Allowing me to slip free and proceed to pound the daylights out of him. 

Cropping of the hair to my understanding was not made mandatory in the military until the Great War.  Conditions in the trenches were what dictated shaving heads to control lice.  Removal of facial hair was to facilitate proper use of gas masks.  Furthermore British officers were not allowed to shave their moustaches until December of 1916 (Don't quote me on that date, I read it in "Out Of Nowhere: A history of the military sniper" and can't find it at the moment) because they discovered that's how German snipers were able to differentiate low value grunts from high value oficer targets.

Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.

[MJN77]

Custer about a month before his demise.

[Grigori_Storri]

St Geroge, I will accept that as a compliment from you sir.

Short Knife Johnson, I think you are right on I have read truewest many times and I could have read it there too.

Now what I am going on is memory with the old west series from TimeLife. I do not have the books anymore but... maybe someone here has the frontiermen or the soldiers and they can look it up or contact me if they want to sell it. My youngest son would love to read them I have been looking for the series to replace the series my father had.

But lets get back to Custers hair:

I found this that may interest everyone http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm

After the battle, the Indians came through and stripped the bodies and mutilated all the uniformed soldiers, believing that the soul of a mutilated body would be forced to walk the earth for all eternity and could not ascend to heaven. Inexplicably, they stripped Custer's body and cleaned it, but did not scalp or mutilate it. He had been wearing buckskins instead of a blue uniform, and some believe that the Indians thought he was not a soldier and so, thinking he was an innocent, left him alone. Because his hair was cut short for battle, others think that he did not have enough hair to allow for a very good scalping. Immediately after the battle, the myth emerged that they left him alone out of respect for his fighting ability, but few participating Indians knew who he was to have been so respectful. To this day, no one knows the real reason.

I like myth personally, I have read in other articles that if there was not enough hair for taking a scalp hands or feet were removed as a trophy.

This can be found at http://www.dickshovel.com/scalp.html

This atricle above goes into some detail on scalping

[River City John]

Maj Storri,
I just finished The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick, which I found to be a very good read on the subject. (ISBN 978-0-670-02172-7)

Custer was actually fairly well recognized by the leadership/warrior class, after years of being seen and noted in not only actions in the field, but attendance at treaties and policing of Winter encampments at the various government reservations when accompanying his Troops.
It was the first time I had ever read of the theory, which I have come to believe as probable, that Custer's initial chest wound was through enemy fire but the killing temple wound was a mercy shot, most likely performed by his brother Tom towards the end. Tom's body was found very close to that of his brother, and various Cheyenne and Sioux accounts described that Tom was bravely fighting until practically the very last. (This also explains, as a sort of tribute to a brave warrior, the extreme state of mutilation upon Tom's body. It is also the first revelation of the actual extent of mutilation to Col. Custer's body that had been suppressed due to Victorian propriety. In addition to having his hearing improved by awls piercing his eardrums, he also had an arrow thrust up his penis. He had not been scalped nor otherwise mutilated. Of course he and another officer had mutually decided to cut their hair short before the campaign. Something many movies don't get right as flowing, blond locks make the image of Custer.)

First I have ever heard of an account that his body was cleaned by his enemy. Somehow this extraordinary gesture would seem to have been out of character, given the nature of the engagement and temperament of the Cheyenne and the Sioux. I think that needs to be chalked up to that post-emergent romanticism, too.  


So now I have a theory about why Custer was not scalped. Scalps were usually a very personal trophy taken in triumph over killing an indiviual enemy in combat. I am guessing perhaps enough of the warriors who were near enough to that immediate area of the fight knew that he was killed by his own men and therefore the scalp was not anyone's right to take in trophy.
I guess that theory is my succumbing to a flight of romance.

RCJ    

[Trailrider]

There is also a theory, based on interviews with some Lakota or Cheyenne women that Custer had had an affair with one
Mon-a-se-ta, who had a child, and the boy had blue eyes.  According to the one account, some of the women (who usually did the mutalations, etc.), and left him pretty much alone because he was a "relative."  The arrow inserted in his "person" might have been some sort of statement that Custer should leave Indian women alone in the after-life!

[Delmonico]

There is also a theory, based on interviews with some Lakota or Cheyenne women that Custer had had an affair with one
Mon-a-se-ta, who had a child, and the boy had blue eyes.  According to the one account, some of the women (who usually did the mutalations, etc.), and left him pretty much alone because he was a "relative."  The arrow inserted in his "person" might have been some sort of statement that Custer should leave Indian women alone in the after-life!

The story is that he kept her in his bed after the Washita but the birth date of this child was far less than 9 months, since her husband was killed in the battle then more likely he was the father and the story was most likely started by some in his unit that hated him. 

Also there were very few if any Southern Cheynnee at the Little Big Horn.

[Short Knife Johnson]

Here's another interesting tidbit about another incident of the only of Custer's men to escape mutilation.  I'll keep it brief lest I be accused of piracy. 

A Wild West magazine - June 2010.  I pick one up on occassion.  This one had an article on a planned train wreck.

Page 24 is a bit on a career soldier and the Lakota warrior who prevented his body from desicration.  Cpl William Teeman born in Denmark, served his native country as a soldier, then his adopted land in turn.  When he was killed at the Little Bighorn, a feared warrior called Rain-in-the-face ensured that Teeman's body was not touched.  He openly expressed great sadness and remorse at finding this man dead.  As it happened, Teeman, as a guard, had befriended Rain-in-the-face while incarcerated, and apparently arranged his escape.  It appears that during his second tour of duty, Teeman became disillusioned with the U.S. military.  I presume on the issue of the Indian wars, and the displacement of the native peoples.  He himself was displaced due from his homeland due to invading forces of Prussia.   As Rain-in-the-face put it "...he was a white man, it is true, but he had an Indian heart."  The speculation is that Rain-in-the-face would have probably gone some distance to prevent this man's demise given the chance for the kindness shown and the friendship forged. 
 
Anyway, if Custer is shown to have long flowing locks in TV and movies, it's likely the artistic license taken to portray the hero with the strong, sexy, virile image.  Think bible tales of Sampson withhis long hair and superhuman strength, or "me Tarzan, King of jungle, you Jane, damsel in distress."

[liten]

i no for sure that custer had his locks cut off before the campaign, but he didnt have it trimmed on top to much cousre he was going bald, and thats fact