“Still hearing nothing of Custer, and with this reinforcement I moved down the river in the direction of the village, keeping on the bluffs. We had heard firing in that direction, and knew that it could only be Custer. I moved to the summit of the highest bluff, but seeing and hearing nothing, sent Captain Weir with his company to open communication with the other command. He soon sent back word by Lieutenant Hare that he could go no further and that the Indians were getting around him; at this time he was keeping up a heavy fire from the skirmish line. I at once turned everything back to the first position I had taken on the bluff, and which seemed to me the best. I dismounted the men, had the mules and horses of the pack train driven together in a depression, put the men on the crests of the hills making the depression, and had hardly done so when I was furiously attacked; this was about 6 p. m.; we held our ground, with the loss of eighteen enlisted men killed and forty-six wounded, until the attack ceased about 9 p. m.”
Here is Major Reno’s report, or so much of it as applies to the approaching battle:
“Headquarters, Seventh Cavalry, “Camp on Yellowstone River, July 5, 1876.
“Captain E. W. Smith, A. D. C. and A. A. A. G.:
“The command of the regiment having devolved upon me as the senior surviving officer from the battle of June 25th and 26th, between the Seventh Cavalry and Sitting Bull’s band of hostile Sioux on the Little Big Horn river, I have the honor to submit the following report of its operations from the time of leaving the main column until the command was united in the vicinity of the Indian village. The regiment left the camp at the mouth of the Rosebud river, after passing in review before the department commander, under command of Brevet Major General G. A. Custer, lieutenant colonel, on the afternoon of the 22d of June, and marched up the Rosebud twelve miles and encamped; 23d, marched up the Rosebud, passing many old Indian camps, and following a very large lodge pole trail, but not fresh, making thirty-three miles; 24th, the march was continued up the Rosebud, the trail and signs freshening with every mile until we had made twenty-eight miles, and we then encamped and waited for information from the scouts. At 9:25 p. m. Custer called the officers together and informed us that beyond a doubt the village was in the valley of the Little Big Horn, and that to reach it, it was necessary to cross the divide between Rosebud and Little Big Horn; and it would be impossible to do so in the daytime without exposing our march to the Indians; that we would prepare to move at 11 p. m. This was done, the line of march turning from the Rosebud to the right, up one of its branches, which headed near the summit of the divide.