Isaiah Dorman - Dorman During The Battle of The Little Bighorn

Dorman During The Battle of The Little Bighorn

In the late spring of 1876, George Armstrong Custer hired Dorman as an interpreter for his expedition to the Little Bighorn Country. (At least one report says that Dorman had not started out with the rest of the Montana Column, but had caught up with it at the Rosebud with a message and when he attempted to return to Fort Lincoln, Custer ordered him to remain. However, Custer's request for his assignment still exists and is dated May 14.)

On June 25, 1876, Dorman accompanied the detachment of Major Marcus Reno into the battle and was left behind when Reno retired across the river to the high bluffs. According to most accounts as in Connell (1985), he gave a good account of himself- shooting several braves with a non-regulation sporting rifle. According to the account of one Indian survivor of the battle:

We passed a black man in a soldier’s uniform and we had him. He turned on his horse and shot an Indian right through the heart. Ihen the Indians fired at this one man and riddled his horse with bullets. His horse fell over on his back and the black man could not get up. I saw him as I rode by.

According to Connell 1985, white survivors tell a similar story. Dorman had been unhorsed but continued to fire at the Indians:

"Pvt. Roman Rutten, unlike Vestal, did fight at the Little Big Horn and his report of Isaiah's last stand rings through. Rutten was on a horse that hated the odor of Indians so his immediate problem was how to stay in the saddle. During a wild ride he passed Isiaih, whose horse had been shot. The black man was on one knee, firing carefully with a non-regulation sporting rifle. He looked up and shouted, “Goodbye, Rutten."

Other eyewitness accounts from survivors indicate that Dorman was tortured by a group of women who pounded him with stone hammers, slashed him repeatedly with knives, and shot his legs full of buckshot. One odd detail reported is that his coffee pot and cup were filled with blood. A report that he had been 'sliced open' may be a translator's error; near his body was that of one of the Ree (Arikara) scouts, which had been slashed open and a willow branch stuck in the opening. To the Indians, mutilations were characteristic of different tribes and particular marks meant certain things. As for the torture, the Indians considered him a traitor who had fought with the bluecoats against them.