Battle of Honsinger Bluff - The Aftermath

The Aftermath

Rain in the Face retained Honsinger's gold watch and later bragged about killing Honsinger and Balitran. Custer learned of Rain in the Face's claims and dispatched his brother, Tom, to the Standing Rock Reservation to arrest him for the murder of Honsinger and Balitran. He was apprehended and jailed on December 13, 1874. Rain in the Face escaped from custody a few months later and vowed to cut out the heart of Tom Custer and eat it.

Lt. Braden was critically wounded a week later, on August 11, 1873, in another clash with Sitting Bull's forces upriver near the mouth of the Big Horn River. His thigh was shattered by an Indian bullet and he remained on permanent sick leave until his retirement from the Army in 1878. George Custer, Tom Custer and James Calhoun, along with Capt. George Yates, all perished at the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. Myles Moylan and Charles Varnum survived the battle on Reno Hill. Moylan, four years later, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery at the September 30, 1877 Battle of Bear Paw where Lt. Col. Nelson A. Miles forces captured the Nez Perce band of Chief Joseph at Snake Creek near Havre, Montana. Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse and Rain in the Face all participated in the Little Big Horn battle. Rain in the Face in later years claimed to have cut the heart out of Tom Custer at Little Big Horn and taken a bite out of it.

Veterinarian John Honsinger was buried along the Yellowstone River at the base of Honsinger Bluff. Some authorities claim that Father Pierre DeSmet, happened along that evening, and oversaw the burial. DeSmet was rumored to have baptized Sitting Bull earlier. However, Fr. DeSmet died in St. Louis on May 23, 1873, over two months prior to the battle.

U.S. Army troops occupied this area again on June 6 and 7, 1876 prior to the battle on the Little Big Horn. The Montana column, consisting of the 2nd Cavalry and 7th Infantry under the command of Col. John Gibbon, camped in "a beautiful cottonwood grove on splendid sod" a few miles west of Honsinger Bluff. This was likely either the grove in which Sitting Bull's ambush force hid, or the one occupied by Custer's troops during the battle.