Little Bighorn Battlefield

National Monument

The U.S. Cavalry

Much of our "knowlege" of the past today comes from television cinema movies, and dime novels. For Example, who has never seen Errol Flynn die a hero's death in "They Died With Their Boots On." Or the gallant John Wayne leading a dashing cavalry charge in "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" or "Rio Grande." Or, even more recently, Dustin Hoffman watching aghast as U.S.soldiers gallop around in a free-for-all, cutting down Indian noncombatants in "Little Big Man."

Admittedly, these movies are great entertainment. But that is the key: "Entertainment." Rarely do they even attempt to show us what life was really like during that period of history. Movies are often cold and impersonal - usually playing only on the eye catching and sensational. So it is with our impressions of the average enlisted soldier of the United States Army during the years of this nation's westward expansion. But who were these men? Where did they come from? What were they out here for? What was their life really like?

The men who joined the Army in the 1870s came from a wide diversity of backgrounds. In 1873 our country was plunged into a financial crisis as devastating as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Jobs were few and hard to find. The U.S. Army was the only social institution of the day that provided men who couldn't make a living any other way, a chance to make a living. As a result, the enlisted men came from all walks of life - farmer, lawyers, teachers, doctors, bakers, lumbermen, businessmen, and shiftless men. They were from almost all age groups as well. Despite the minimum required enlistment age of 21, many teens lied about their age. The youngest man killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn was 17 years old. The oldest was 56. Most were in the mid-20s.

Interestingly, almost 50% of all enlistees in the U.S. Army were born in foreign countries. Ireland, Germany, England, Scotland, and Canada contributed the most. These men had left the "old country" hoping to start a new life here in the great land of "milk and honey," only to find the United States in dire economics straits. Some ended up joining the U.S. Army to learn the language and customs of the new country, and others to just plain survive. For example, when the 7th Cavalry rode into action along the banks of the Little Bighorn on the afternoon of June 25, 1876, 42% of its men were foreign born.

When a man enlisted, he took a physical examination to ensure that he was in fairly good health, physical as well as mental. If he passed, he took the Oath of Allegiance and found himself a soldier, or, more accurately, a paid laborer of the governement. His salary was $13 a month, plus room and board. Intially he was sent to a recruiting depot for a few weeks of crude "instruction." These depots were not intended to serve as training centers, and a recruit was expected to learn by observation once he joined an active unit.

The army, among other responsibilities, had the onerous task of bringing law and order to the vast western frontier. The basic stategy was for the army to garrison military post throughout the west. In this way the troops would be situated to be a visible deterent to trouble, and, if trouble broke out, placed them close enough to help prevent and react to it promptly. However, an army of 25,000, with other responsibilities, could rarely station 19,000 men out west. This allowed an average of 190 men at each of the 107 military post west of the Mississippi River in 1876. If death, disease, desertion, and detached services were taken into account, the effective strength at each post usually fell far below that. The army was simplly too widely despersed and overworked to be effective.

Frontier duty involved relatively little combat. Between 1865 and 1898 units of the regular army were involved in about a 1,000 engagements with Indians. This appears to be almost constant combat; however, it must be pointed out that the vast majority of these engagements were small unit affairs involving less than 50 poeple on both sides. Casualties were also relatively slight with 932 soldiers killed and 1,060 wounded. This averages out to less than one man killed and one wounded per fight- although these figures include the Little Bighorn and the Fetterman disasters, which by themselves claim one third of the killed. All in all, statistics now show that a soldier could expect to see one Indian fight in his five year enlistment, and less than one percent chance of being killed or wounded or killing an Indian.

The army did, however, play a prominent role in the opening of the western frontier. Solders helped to explore and map the vast expanse of mountians, deserts, and plains. They built roads and bridges. protected emigrant trails, stagecoaches, and railroad construction crews. When drought and grasshoppers destroyed a large portion of the crops on the Great Plains from Texas to the Dakotas in the terrible summer of 1874, the army supplied rations and clothing to thasands of starving and freezing settlers. They ocassionally campaigned against hostile Indians when ordered and guarded them against vengeful whites as well. Indians were only a part of the problems the army had to deal with on the frontier. Outlaws, rustlers, poachers, squatters, and other shiftless "riff-raff" also frequented the region.

In 1876, there were ten cavalry regiments and five artillery regiments with twelve companies each, and 25 infantry regiments with ten companies each. Scattered widely in one and two company post throughtout the west, companies of one regiment rarely lived together, even on campaign. Thus the company - which rarely numbered more than seventy members - became the basic tactical unit. The soldiers lived in company barracks, ate in company mess halls, participated in company team sports, and were primarily identified with the company. Therefore, only when the new recruit joined his assigned company could he feel that he actually belonged. The company barracks became his home and the men of the company became his family. Living space contained only a bunk, with straw for a mattress, and a wooden foot locker. For the first time in his life, the soldier found he had absolutely no privacy. Every moment was spent in the company of his fellow enlisted men. With them he would live, eat, sleep, march, work, brawl, and possibly die.

The social gulf between officers and enlisted men was wide. A soldier rarely ever talked directly to an officer and officer rarely dealt with their company. This was left to the noncommissined men - sergeants and corporals. These men were the backbone of the army. Many of these men in 1876 were grizzled veterans of the Civil War - dependable, rigid, and sometimes harsh. In fact, in some companies noted for brawling, being a scrapper was prerequisite for appointment to non-commissioned status. A soldier didn't eat, sleep, drink, or do anything else, without the say so of these men

Life at a western military post could best be characterized as isolation, boredom, and monotony. Each day's routing followed a rigid schedule. It began at dawn with the piercing call of Reveille and ended at dusk with the sorrowful tones of lights out (Taps). In between this time, the soldiers were beckend to and from drills, fatigues duties, and meals by the various calls of the trumpet. Below are the typical calls and daily routine of the 19th centry military post (Fort Totten, October 1, 1976).

It was hoped that the fatigue duties, such as care of the horses, cleaning the barracks, policing the grounds, retrieving and distributing water for the garrison, and working in the post garden, would leave ample time for an hour of drills each morning and afternoon. However, not only did an economy-minded Congress expect the small, widely dispersed army to protect thousands of miles of exposed frontier, but also to fill its own needs, including housing. This meant that the soldiers had to be used to cut hay for forage for the animals, cut wood for fuel and construction purposes, and many times, to construct their own quarters. One officer complained that his post was "garrisoned by enlisted laborers rather than soldiers." An officer bitterly remarked that the troops "use the shovel more frequently than the rifle and saber."

Furthermore, after the Civil war, a tight-fisted Congress constantly slashed military appropriations. As a result, the army, with the increased cost of metallic cartridges, could only afford to provide each soldier ten rounds of ammunition per month for target pratice. With extra fatigues freqently restriciting, if not outright prohibiting drill time, few men could even fire off this miserly amount. At some posts, the average number of rounds fired in pracitce was ten rounds per man per year. Frontier duty rarely required the soldier to put his marksmanship ability to the test in combat, but when one of those few engagements did occur, the result could be disappointing, even disastrous. Not until the 1800s was the army able to stress markmanship, and by the end of that decade our soldiers were among the finest military shots in the world.

Stationed at a remote frontier post, the soldier found himself physically, as well as mentally, isolated from everything familar to him - interest, attitudes, spirt, and indeed, the American people. The army provided no organized recreation and boredom, alcholism, and gambling were common. Punishment was harsh and sometimes brutal. Living facilities and conditions were crude, at best. Barracks were dark, poorly ventilied, and overcrowded. Sanitary conditions were usually poor, and one officer recalled that after 36 years in the sevice he did not remember "ever having seen a bath house at any of our frontier posts furnished by the government for the use of the men." Food, which consisted of such items as stew, hash, beans, salt pork, beef, bread, and black coffee, was usually poor prepared. Diseased produced more casualties that Indian arrows and bullets. Medical records show that each year surgeons treated about 1,800 cases total, of which about 1,550 were for disease and 250 for wounds, accidents, and injuries. Common disease included bronchitis, diarrhea, dysentery, and syphilis. There was little incentive to hold a soldier in the service. Death, desertion, disease, and discharge produced an annual turnover rate of 25% to 40% of the enlisted forces. All in, a soldiers life on the frontier could be summed up best as "glittering misery."

Updated: May, 2000