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In the vast body of material dealing with Custer's ""last stand,""
the journal kept by young Lieutenant James H. Bradley of the
Seventh Infantry is at once graphic, incisive, and of first-rate
historical importance. It is also little known.It records in detail
the major incidents of the march of the Montana Column, under
command of Colonel John Gibbon, to participate in the Sioux
campaign of 1876. Beginning on March 17, when five companies of the
regiment left Fort Shaw, it traces the progress of the column and
ends abruptly with the entry for June 26, when Gibbon's command
camped on the site of present Crow Agency, Montana, amid abundant
indications that Custer's Seventh Cavalry had met with disaster. A
letter written by Bradley describing the finding of the bodies on
the Custer battlefield on the Little Big Horn is appended to
provide a fitting conclusion. Bradley's journal, however, is much
more than an account of a military command moving through unsettled
country against a primitive foe. The Lieutenant was a gifted writer
with definite scientific and historical interests, a man of
infinite curiosity, who not only recorded the daily progress but
also added ""historical notices of the country traversed."" His
description of the grief of the Crow scouts on hearing the first
news of the disaster of the Little Big Horn is a classic in the
literature of the American West. A rare treat for all readers
interested in the Indian wars, the journal was first published in a
limited edition in 1896.
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