Italians With Custer at the Little Big Horn, Part 2

[Two Flints]

Custer's Italians,  Part 2

Custer had Martin sound officers' call at about noon, and when the officers had gathered, he gave them orders out of Martin's earshot. Shortly thereafter, Martin observed Captain Benteen with Companies D, H and K riding off to the left of the regiment, which was preceding roughly southwest along what would later be named Reno Creek. At the meeting, Custer had put 11 of the 12 companies that made up the 7th Cavalry into three maneuver battalions. As senior captain, Benteen was ordered to take one battalion and scout the valleys to the southeast to prevent the Indians from slipping away in that direction; he led his battalion away from the main column at about 12:12 p.m. The other two battalions, under Custer and Major Marcus A. Reno, the 7th Cavalry's second-in-command on the expedition, continued to advance along Reno Creek.

Custer's plan for defeating the Indians impelled him to make the classic error of dividing his force in the face of a numerically superior enemy. He did this, however, for the sound tactical reason of preventing the Indians from escaping. After advancing for about two hours, Custer ordered Reno and his battalion, comprising Companies A, G and M, down into the valley of the Little Bighorn, across the river, then roughly west along its left bank to attack the south end of the village. He himself, with Companies C, E, F, I and L, a total of 221 men, continued along the bluffs to the east of the Little Bighorn, heading toward what he thought was the far end of the village. Custer was confident that Benteen would rejoin him shortly, increasing his strength to eight companies. The slow pack train with the extra ammunition and supplies followed well in the rear. Because Company B, to which August De Voto belonged, was the last to report ready to march that morning, it drew the inglorious assignment of escorting the pack train.

At about 3:10 p.m., Major Reno's battalion charged the south end of the village. Reno, however, daunted by the size of the village, did not press home the charge. Instead, he dismounted his troops short of the village and formed a skirmish line to defend himself against the enraged defenders who began to boil out of the huge encampment. In the meantime, Benteen, who had found no Indians to the south, was following on Custer's trail but was still some four miles behind him. At about the time that Reno attacked, Custer reached a promontory and, for the first time, saw the village in its entirety. His original plan apparently had been to attack the north end of the village in support of Reno, who was attacking the south end. This would have prevented noncombatants from escaping the village to the north and hopefully would have allowed their capture and a successful end to the battle. Having seen how large the village was, he realized he would need all possible troops and additional ammunition if his plan were to succeed. At 3:20 p.m., he sent trumpeter John Martin with a written message to Benteen to hurry his advance and bring up the pack train. The message was written because Martin, who had only been in the United States three years, spoke very little English. As he rode away from Custer's battalion, Martin became the last surviving white man to see Custer and his men alive.

What happened next to Custer and his battalion has been a matter of conjecture and controversy for more than a century. It appears likely that he attempted to cross the Little Bighorn at Medicine Tail Coulee and attack the middle of the village but was forced to withdraw in the face of Indian resistance. This attack on the middle of the village instead of the far end probably was precipitated by the fact that Custer could visually observe Reno's abortive attack and felt he had to get into action against the village to distract the Indians and give Reno some relief. If this were his objective, he was more than successful: large numbers of Indians began to move away from Reno's beleaguered force toward Custer's. Custer and his men were attacked by overwhelming numbers and surrounded. They ended up dismounted and entrenched on a high point, later called Custer Hill, and the battle was probably over for them by 4:45 p.m.

John Martin, whose horse had been wounded by an Indian sharpshooter, reached Captain Benteen at 3:35 p.m. At that time, Benteen was some three miles east of Custer, and the pack train was a couple of miles behind him. He could not see how he could proceed quickly and still go back for the pack train. He told Martin to fall in with Company H, and he continued his advance up to the area now known as Reno Hill. There, at 4:10 p.m., he came upon the remnants of Reno's battalion, which had not fared well in the valley below. Benteen determined not to advance to Custer as ordered but to join Reno and dig in on high ground until the situation clarified. The pack train and Company B subsequently came up and joined this force at 5:15 p.m.

Indeed, Reno had fared poorly in his attack on the village--and no little blame could be placed squarely on himself. Approximately 10 minutes after the beginning of the action, Indian pressure on both his front and left flank forced Reno to withdraw northeast to the edge of a wooded area in a bend of the Little Bighorn; there, he formed a second skirmish line, which faced roughly south. Although the position seemed to be holding, Reno became panicky and at 3:55 p.m. ordered another withdrawal, this time to the east, across the Little Bighorn, and then up the bluffs on the other side to Reno Hill. However, perhaps due largely to Reno's panicking, the withdrawal turned into a rout. Reno lost 40 percent of his command before he and other survivors made it to the top of the bluffs. Not everyone got word of the withdrawal, which swiftly degenerated into a complete disaster with Indians attacking from behind and on both flanks. First Lieutenant Charles DeRudio and 18 other men remained behind in the woods.

DeRudio and the others either never got word of Reno's withdrawal, lost their mounts, or became separated from the main body of the battalion. Surrounded by Indians, they took refuge in the heavily timbered area. Shortly after the formation of the first skirmish line, DeRudio, on his own initiative, led a half-dozen Company A troopers to the northwest corner of the woods to head off an attack on the right flank of the line. From this position, DeRudio later claimed he could see Custer's column atop the high ridge to the north. DeRudio and his detail remained in this position until the battalion pulled out. DeRudio was informed of the withdrawal by Company A's trumpeter, who brought DeRudio his horse. The men with DeRudio panicked and fled, and though he supposedly tried to save the company guidon, he was also compelled to flee. Unfortunately, his horse bolted and ran away when he tried to mount, leaving him stranded in the woods.

After hiding for a while and following an unsuccessful attempt by the Indians to fire the woods, DeRudio began to cautiously move about in the undergrowth. While doing so, he observed Indian women mutilating dead and dying soldiers who lay on the open ground between the woods and the high ground, men shot down during the battalion's flight from the valley. Moving stealthily about, DeRudio met Private Thomas F. O'Neil of Company G, who was also on foot. Later, the two met Frederic F. Gerard, a civilian interpreter of the Lakota, and Billy Jackson, a half-blooded enlisted scout. The latter two men still had their mounts. Gerard and Jackson planned to make a dash on horseback for Reno on the bluffs, but DeRudio dissuaded them, fearing that such an attempt would lead the Indians, who were moving around nearby looking for stragglers, to the two men on foot. At this point, in the late afternoon, there were two groups of stragglers in the woods: DeRudio's group of four and another group of 15 led by George B. Herendeen, a civilian scout. By 5 p.m. Reno's command faced relatively few Indians; most had earlier moved off to the northwest to engage Custer. This provided an opportunity for the second group of stragglers (with two exceptions who were later killed) to rejoin Reno on the bluffs by 5:30 p.m.

DeRudio and his three companions remained in the woods. After darkness fell, they wandered around trying to find a safe path across the river and up the steep opposite riverbank. They were unsuccessful and had at least one close brush with a party of Lakota who were patrolling along the river. The two unmounted men became separated from their mounted companions and by dawn of June 26 were hiding on a wooded peninsula jutting into the middle of the Little Bighorn. That morning they saw a group of warriors riding along the riverbank. DeRudio mistook them for soldiers, probably because they were wearing items of uniforms and equipment stripped from Custer's dead. He yelled at them, but O'Neil, recognizing the horsemen as Indians, pulled DeRudio back under cover where they remained undetected. Throughout the day, they could hear the battle that raged on the bluffs above between the surviving elements of the 7th Cavalry and the Indians. DeRudio and O'Neil spent the day under a scorching sun and suffered greatly from thirst because they dared not expose themselves to nearby braves who were sniping at soldiers on the bluffs. Toward sunset, the Indians began to move their village off to the southeast. DeRudio and O'Neil witnessed at a distance of only 150 yards thousands of Indian men, women and children carrying their wounded and dead and all their worldly possessions, accompanied by an estimated 25,000 ponies. The procession took several hours to pass by. At this point the fighting was effectively over. DeRudio and O'Neil remained in their lair until around 3 a.m. on the 27th of June; then they left the woods, scaled the bluffs, and rejoined the command.

DeRudio's conduct during the Little Bighorn action, like that of many of his fellow officers, was certainly not above reproach. He was criticized by Benteen among others for "hiding out" while his command was heavily engaged for some 24 hours on the bluffs above. In the end, DeRudio was a survivor. As he candidly admitted, he had gone through too much in his life, had too many close calls with death, to die in an obscure action against Indians in America.

Private August De Voto's day had been far less harrowing than John Martin's or Charles DeRudio's. A member of Captain Thomas M. McDougal's Company B, he was far removed from the dramatic events of the day until the pack train caught up with the surviving companies of the 7th Cavalry on Reno Hill. At 4:20 p.m., as the pack train followed Custer's and Benteen's trail, some of the personnel heard heavy volley fire ahead. This firing, more clearly heard two miles ahead on Reno Hill, was Custer and his men fighting for their lives some miles distant.

De Voto and the others in the pack train encountered a lone Crow scout riding away from the battlefield. His English was poor and all he said was "Much soldier down" before riding on. Second Lieutenant Luther R. Hare, Reno's acting assistant adjutant general, arrived shortly thereafter with orders to hurry forward the mules carrying ammunition. He left to return to Reno Hill with two of the mules in tow. The slowly plodding remainder of the pack train took another 45 minutes or so to cover the distance to Reno Hill. The volley fire heard from the northwest had long since ceased, and, in fact, all sustained firing from that direction had ended by 4:45 p.m.

Beginning at about 5 p.m., an abortive attempt was made to advance the seven companies and the pack train toward Custer's presumed location roughly two miles west of Reno Hill. By this time, however, large numbers of Indians were seen approaching from that direction, so the troops withdrew back to Reno Hill and began to dig in. What remained of the 7th Cavalry made its stand on and around Reno Hill. The battle would continue for almost another 24 hours.

By 5:30 p.m. on June 25, 1876, the disaster was complete. Custer and five companies of the 7th Cavalry lay dead, killed to the last man on or near Custer Hill. Reno, Benteen and the pack train lay under heavy attack by Indians at Reno Hill, and 19 stragglers hid in the woods below, along the riverbank. No one knew what had become of Custer; all supposed that he had retreated north, but would return and rescue them at some point. Also unknown to them was that General Terry had joined his column with the western column, and both would arrive at the battlefield in about 48 hours. In fact, Terry was expecting to encounter Indians fleeing north from what he hoped was a successful attack by Custer. The men of the 7th Cavalry who had the good fortune not to ride with Custer that day were involved in a desperate fight for survival. It was here that John Martin ended up because he had been ordered to rejoin Company H after delivering Custer's last message, and it was here that the pack train delivered August De Voto.

Instead of rushing the soldiers, the Indians occupied vantage points to the north, west, east, and down in the valley to the south. From this last position, they made it impossible for both the troopers above and DeRudio and O'Neil hiding below to get water during the last phase of the battle. The Indians poured a murderous sniping fire onto Reno Hill until nightfall. The soldiers, now joined by 13 stragglers from the valley, spent an uncomfortable night listening and watching the Indians celebrating their victory in the village.

The following day dawned hot, and the Indians resumed their sniping. Everyone in Reno's command, especially the wounded, suffered terribly from thirst. Consequently, 34 men volunteered to try to bring water up from the river despite the harassing fire. Private De Voto was one of the volunteers. This was an extremely hazardous undertaking as Indian marksmen across the Little Bighorn could easily target anyone coming down from the bluffs to the river. De Voto made it to the river and filled a large cooking kettle and several canteens with water while bullets struck all around him. He survived this ordeal unharmed, although two other water carriers were killed and another was so severely wounded that his leg had to be amputated. Fifteen of the 34 earned the Medal of Honor; De Voto, however, was not one of them.

The sniping began to slack off at 11 a.m., and all firing had ceased by 3 p.m. Not long after, the Indian village was seen moving away to the south; the Battle of the Little Bighorn was over. That night, DeRudio and O'Neil came up from the valley, and the next day General Terry arrived. It was only then that the survivors of the 7th Cavalry learned the fate of Custer and their comrades, for Terry and his men had crossed the site of Custer's "Last Stand" on their way to Reno Hill.

In military terms, the Battle of Little Bighorn was of little significance. It did, nevertheless, signal the last push to crush the Plains Indians. The nation was horrified that "savages" could annihilate the "Beau Sabre" of the Civil War and nearly half of the elite 7th Cavalry a week before the United States celebrated its centennial. More troops were mobilized and moved west, and the Indians were ultimately defeated and forced permanently onto reservations. The free-roaming culture of the northern Plains Indian was coming to an end. What no one could guess at the time was that this single battle, involving fewer than 600 troops, would become, along with George Armstrong Custer, an icon in American history. More than a century after the event, nearly all Americans as well as large numbers of people the world over know about Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The events at the Little Bighorn on that 25th of June 1876 have been the subject of innumerable publications, motion pictures and television productions. A large number of enthusiasts have been and remain fiercely dedicated to studying every aspect of the battle. But what became of the three Italians who rode with Custer that fateful day and their three comrades who did not?
First Lieutenant Charles Camillus DeRudio, whom Custer considered incompetent, found himself in command of a reconstituted Company E after the battle. Because promotion was on the basis of seniority within the regiment for company-grade officers, those who survived the battle were rapidly advanced. DeRudio was promoted to captain in 1882 and remained on active service with the 7th Cavalry until 1896 when he was promoted to major upon retirement from active duty. He died November 1, 1910, in Pasadena, Calif.

John Martin, the former Giovanni Martini and the last white man to see Custer and his men alive, served for a full 30 years in the Army, retiring as a sergeant in 1904. He subsequently worked as a ticket agent for the New York City subway system, and died in Brooklyn on December 24, 1922.
August De Voto was discharged from the U.S. Army in 1878 at Fort Yates in the Dakota Territory. He died November 3, 1923, in Tacoma, Wash.

John James, who began life as Giovanni Casella, left the army as a corporal at Fort Abraham Lincoln when his enlistment ended in May 1877. Nothing more is known of him.

Frank Lombard the musician also was discharged at Fort Abraham Lincoln when his enlistment expired in September 1876. He died in San Diego, Calif., on June 21, 1917.

Felix Villiet Vinatieri, the 7th Cavalry's bandmaster, left the army in December 1876. He settled with his wife and five sons in Yankton, Dakota Territory, where he died on December 15, 1891.

Like so many others in this nation's history, the six Italians came from abroad to make a new and, hopefully, better life in a fresh land filled with opportunities. They found themselves, however, in the front lines of a cultural clash with the original inhabitants of their adopted country. Three of them directly participated in and survived one small chapter of this struggle. In fact, they were more fortunate than the 263 of their comrades who died as a result of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. One hundred of these dead--Irish, Germans, Canadians, French, English, Scots, Welsh, Swiss, Danes, a Russian and a Greek--came to the United States largely for the same reasons as the Italians. They came for a better life, but instead found a violent death at the hands of people fighting desperately for not only their own physical survival but also the survival of their way of life. Although the Indians could justly take pride in having beaten the best the Army had, there were no true victors on the Little Bighorn. The soldiers lost the battle and many lost their lives; the Indians ultimately lost something infinitely more precious, the freedom to live as they chose.

Italian Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry


Charles De-rudio


Giovanni Martini


Felix Vinatieri


Author Vincent A. Transano, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command historian, writes from Camarillo, Calif. Suggested for further reading: Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876, by John S. Gray; They Rode with Custer: A Biographical Directory of the Men Who Rode with General George A. Custer, edited by John M. Carroll; and The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custeriana, edited by Colonel W.A. Graham.