ON the bluff of the Little Big-Horn, | |
| At the close of a woful day, | |
| Custer and his Three Hundred | |
| In death and silence lay. | |
| |
| Three Hundred to three Thousand! | 5 |
| They had bravely fought and bled; | |
| For such is the will of Congress | |
| When the White man meets the Red. | |
| |
| The White men are ten millions, | |
| The thriftiest under the sun; | 10 |
| The Reds are fifty thousand, | |
| And warriors every one. | |
| |
| So Custer and all his fighting men | |
| Lay under the evening skies, | |
| Staring up at the tranquil heaven | 15 |
| With wide, accusing eyes. | |
| |
| And of all that stood at noonday | |
| In that fiery scorpion ring, | |
| Miles Keogh’s horse at evening | |
| Was the only living thing. | 20 |
| |
| Alone from that field of slaughter, | |
| Where lay the three hundred slain, | |
| The horse Comanche wandered, | |
| With Keogh’s blood on his mane. | |
| |
| And Sturgis issued this order, | 25 |
| Which future times shall read, | |
| While the love and honor of comrades | |
| Are the soul of the soldier’s creed. | |
| |
| He said— | |
| Let the horse Comanche | 30 |
| Henceforth till he shall die, | |
| Be kindly cherished and cared for | |
| By the Seventh Cavalry. | |
| |
| He shall do no labor; he never shall know | |
| The touch of spur nor rein; | 35 |
| Nor shall his back be ever crossed | |
| By living rider again. | |
| |
| And at regimental formation | |
| Of the Seventh Cavalry, | |
| Comanche draped in mourning and led | 40 |
| By a trooper of Company I, | |
| Shall parade with the regiment! | |
| Thus it was | |
| Commanded and thus done, | |
| By order of General Sturgis, signed | 45 |
| By Adjutant Garlington. | |
| |
| Even as the sword of Custer, | |
| In his disastrous fall, | |
| Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world | |
| And glorified his pall, | 50 |
| |
| This order, issued amid the gloom | |
| That shrouds our army’s name, | |
| When all foul beasts are free to rend | |
| And tear its honest fame, | |
| |
| Shall prove to a callous people | 55 |
| That the sense of a soldier’s worth, | |
| That the love of comrades, the honor of arms, | |
| Have not yet perished from earth. | |
| |
