The Attack
On November 26, 1868, Custer’s Osage scouts located the trail of an Indian war party. Custer's troops followed this trail all day without a break until nightfall, when they rested briefly until there was sufficient moonlight to continue. When they reached Black Kettle’s village, Custer divided his force into four parts, each moving into position so that at first daylight they could simultaneously converge on the village. At daybreak, as the columns attacked, Double Wolf awoke and fired his gun to alert the village; he was among the first to die in the charge. The Cheyenne warriors hurriedly left their lodges to take cover behind trees and in deep ravines. Custer soon controlled the village, but it took longer to quell all remaining resistance.
Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, were shot in the back and killed while fleeing on a pony. Following the capture of Black Kettle's village, Custer found himself in a precarious position. As the fighting began to subside, he saw large groups of mounted Indians gathering on nearby hilltops and learned that Black Kettle's village was only one of many Indian encampments along the river. Fearing an attack, he ordered some of his men to take defensive positions while the others were to seize the Indians' belongings and horses. They destroyed what they did not want or could not carry, including about 675 ponies and horses. They spared 200 horses to carry prisoners.
Near nightfall, fearing the outlying Indians would find and attack his supply train, Custer began marching toward the other encampments. The surrounding Indians retreated, at which point Custer turned around and returned to his supply train.
In his first report of the battle to Gen. Sheridan on November 28, 1868, Custer reported that by "actual and careful examination after the battle," his men found the bodies of 103 warriors — a figure echoed by Sheridan when he relayed news of the Washita fight to Bvt. Maj. Gen. W.A. Nichols the following day. In fact, no count of the dead had been made. The reported number was based on Custer's reports from his officers the day after the attack, during their return to Camp Supply. Cheyenne and other Indian estimates of the Indian casualties at the Washita, as well as estimates by Custer's civilian scouts, are much lower.
According to a modern account by the United States Army Center of Military History, the 7th Cavalry had 21 officers and men killed and 13 wounded at the Washita. They estimated the Indians had perhaps 50 killed and as many wounded. Twenty of the soldiers killed were part of a small detachment led by Major Joel Elliott, who was among the dead. Elliott had separated from the three companies he led, apparently without Custer's approval. Yelling "Here's for a brevet or a coffin!", Elliott and his small band pursued a group of fleeing Cheyenne. Elliott's contingent ran into a mixed party of Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho warriors who were rushing from villages up the river to aid Black Kettle's encampment. The warriors overwhelmed the small troop in a single charge. Custer's abrupt withdrawal without determining the fate of Elliott and the missing troopers darkened Custer's reputation among his peers. There was deep resentment within the 7th Cavalry that never healed. In particular, Eliott's friend and H Company captain Frederick Benteen never forgave Custer for "abandoning" Elliott and his troopers. Eight years later, when Benteen failed to race to Custer's aid at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, his actions were closely examined in light of his long-standing anger toward Custer for the events at the Washita River.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Washita River
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