COMANCHE

He was not Custer’s horse, and he was not the "only survivor." But the bay gelding Comanche continues to fascinate us, despite the undoing of his legend.

One hundred twenty-five years of cherished sentiment may say otherwise, but the 15-hand horse of uncertain breeding known as Comanche was not really the only survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. No one has much to say about the rest of them, though—a few other horses, a pair of canines—all of whom have been so blotted out by the 7th Cavalry’s most celebrated survivor that they are barely remembered at all.

Why Comanche dominated the chapter titles and subtitles of the history books while the others faded away to a few lines or a footnote is no great mystery. His popularity was partly a reflection of the great American appetite for stories of survival, but primarily a demonstration of the U.S. government’s skill at inventing political propaganda. Though after Custer’s famous defeat he was never ridden into battle again, Comanche remained a tool of the military, and much of what we’ve been told about him was invented to serve him in that role.

There are a few things about Comanche that we can be certain of. We know that he was a bay gelding (the proof of this can still be seen at the University of Kansas, where his taxidermied body has been on display since 1893). We also know that he was owned and ridden by Captain Myles Keogh (not by Custer, though he has often been misrepresented that way). Beyond that, the details about Comanche’s life, his participation in Little Bighorn, and his place in the American psyche are so controversial that very little can be determined as fact.

History tells us that Myles Keogh purchased Comanche from the U.S. Army in 1868 for the sum of $90. A veteran of 80 Civil War battles (including the Battle of Gettysburg), Keogh was considered an outstanding soldier, and he needed an outstanding mount to help him fight in the Indian wars that had become the sustaining function of the U.S. Cavalry. In Comanche, it seems, Keogh found what he was looking for; it is said the horse earned his name during a battle with the Comanche tribe, when he sustained a wound in the hindquarters but continued to perform so flawlessly that his rider remained unaware of his condition until after the battle ended.

Though he earned his name in a small, historically insignificant battle, Comanche earned his fame in one of the most infamous military engagements in American history: The Battle of Little Bighorn. He was ridden onto the battlefield accompanied by five battalions of the 7th Cavalry, and he was led away the following day, alone, the only living thing the Cavalry recovered from the scene.

Little Bighorn itself is an event stained by more than a century of controversy regarding its motives and strategies. On the day of the battle, Custer and his men were acting on orders to beat back the Sioux and Cheyenne who had recently left their Black Hills reservation in what would ultimately become a doomed effort to reclaim their ancestral lands. The Indians had one final victory remaining to them—a victory that was practically guaranteed from the moment Custer first mounted his doomed attack against them. Behaving with the arrogant self-righteousness he had always been famous for, the general foolishly disobeyed orders to wait for reinforcements and sent his men into a battle where they were significantly outnumbered. Custer himself made his “last stand” with just 210 men—Myles Keogh among them—all of whom were killed in probably less than one hour.

Comanche was discovered on the battlefield the day after the battle, but it is not exactly true that he was “the only survivor,” though he has been touted that way ever since. Obviously, there were thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne who survived the battle. Several hundred 7th Cavalry soldiers who were not fighting with Custer also survived. Of those horses who participated in Custer’s Last Stand, there were several survivors besides Comanche. Most of those remaining on the battlefield were too critically wounded to be reclaimed by the Cavalry and were shot by the men who found them there. Those who survived the battle without injury became spoils for the victorious Indians. In the years following the battle, horses with 7th Cavalry brands were occasionally discovered living among herds of Indian ponies. It is even believed that General Custer’s horse was among those taken by the Indians—afterwards, there were several Sioux warriors who claimed to own the horse who had been ridden by “Yellow Hair” during the famous battle.

Despite the existence of so many contenders for the title, it was Comanche who captured the attention of the public and earned the distinction of “lone survivor.” Argument over the details of his rescue began almost immediately. At least a half dozen different people claimed responsibility for finding him on the battlefield. In some accounts, the horse stood guard over his rider’s body; in others, he was unable to stand at all. Even the number and type of wounds he received during the engagement was the subject of much contention. Some records note that he was struck by arrows, others say bullets. Some say he had only two wounds, others say there were as many as 20.

There is even some dispute about where Comanche was taken after his rescue, though it is generally accepted that he went to Fort Lincoln where he began his recovery under the care of veterinarian C.A. Stein. His status as the lone survivor was already well established upon his arrival. He became a celebrity almost immediately. Cavalrymen began to view him as not just another mount, but as a comrade. Less than two years after the battle, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis issued “General Orders No. 7,” which forbade anyone from riding Comanche for the remainder of his life. He was given free run of Fort Meade (where the 7th Cavalry was stationed), and a permanent, honored place of distinction in the regiment where he had once served.

Fat and well cared-for, Comanche’s primary function in his later years was participation in military parades and ceremonies. In public, he was presented saddled, draped in mourning colors, and with a pair of cavalry boots turned backwards in his stirrups in honor of “the fallen soldier.” His appearance was always met with great enthusiasm, attracting crowds of civilians and military men alike.

Comanche had become a symbol of the loss at Little Bighorn, and his reputation has been in flux ever since. In many ways, he was a tool of propaganda for a government still obsessed by the jealously guarded concepts of “Manifest Destiny” (the formal proclamation that white settlers had a God-given right to claim lands that had once belonged to the American Indians). In many other ways, he was an unbiased symbol of the tragedies of war. Even today, his legend is often used to symbolize the conflicts of his time. He has been referenced as an argument against racism, as a reminder of the disparities of colonialism, and as a simple memento of the days when the military depended on its horses as much as its soldiers.

Whatever the interpretation, Comanche remained profoundly important to the American psyche until his death in 1891. Even then, the public—and the government that had supported him—wasn’t quite willing to let him go. His regiment decided that his body should be preserved along with his memory, so they sent him to the University of Kansas, where he was stuffed and mounted for display by Lewis Dyche.

It is not known what the U.S. Cavalry planned to do with Comanche’s remains after Dyche finished his task, because they never paid their taxidermy bill. Today, Comanche is still where they left him, though he has been given honored status at the university’s Dyche Museum of Natural History. In the 100+ years since his death, he has been at the center of an American Indian protest, the subject of various tugs-of-war between different museums (each claiming to have the better place for him), and the motivating factor behind a countless number of museum visits each year. His legacy has been sustained in books, movies, popular art, and music. And though he is a little ragged from his decades in the public eye, Comanche still stands at attention, an enduring reminder of battles long past, and of the Cavalry’s place in the history of America.

—Becki Bell

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