Custer’s Last Stand – Italian Soldiers

Italian Troopers at the Little Big Horn

By Vincent A. Transano

SHORTLY BEFORE NOON Chicago time on Sunday, June 25, 1876, approximately 600 officers and men of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, scouts, mule drivers, and other associated civilians were in the saddle advancing toward destiny on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. The soldiers’ appearance was much at odds with popular portrayals of the Indian-fighting army. Their uniforms, especially those of the officers, were wildly nonregulation. Many officers wore custom-tailored sailor-style shirts, buckskins, straw hats (or any kind of hat that caught their fancy); the men wore blue shirts of various shades, battered black campaign hats or privately purchased civilian hats; and occasionally individual troopers even wore white canvas trousers or had their light-blue regulation trousers reinforced with canvas. 

The full complement of the 7th Cavalry in June 1876 was 43 officers and 793 enlisted men. Of that number 473 were native born and 320 foreign born. The two largest foreign-born groups in the regiment comprised 129 Irish and 127 Germans. The remaining 64 foreign born were drawn from 14 other nationalities, including six Italians. These were: 1st Lt. Charles Camillus DeRudio (a k a Count Carlo Camillo Di Rudio) of Company A; Private Augustus L. De Voto (a k a Augusto De Voto) of Company B; Private John James (a k a Giovanni Casella) of Company E; Private Frank Lombard (a k a Frank Lombardy, Francesco Lombardi) of the regimental band; Private John Martin (a k a Giovanni Martini), trumpeter of Company H; and Chief Musician Felix Villiet Vinatieri (a k a Felice Villiet Vinatieri) of the regimental band. Two of the six were married. As might be expected, given that the pay of the era made it virtually impossible for junior enlisted personnel to wed and support a family, they were the two highest ranking: DeRudio and Vinatieri.

Foreign Troops at Custer’s Last Stand

Unlike native-born Americans, Irish and Germans, the Italians were too few to constitute a group or subculture in the regiment. They were individuals who had come to the United States for a variety of reasons, both political and economic. In many cases the latter flowed from the former. Irish and Germans constituted major immigrant groups during the 19th century. Both nationalities immigrated largely for economic reasons by the mid-1800s. Socially, the Germans were more acceptable; they frequently were skilled craftsmen, and a very large percentage were Protestants. The Irish were much less socially acceptable; they were mostly unskilled, usually dirt-poor and Roman Catholic. In 1876 they constituted a clearly defined minority group that suffered very real social and economic discrimination. The Italians shared many of the social disadvantages of the Irish as well as some unique to themselves. They, too, were Roman Catholics; they were poor and, as southern Europeans, tended to be short and swarthy, and thus further removed in appearance from the northern European norm. Further, they came to the new country speaking a foreign tongue. The only advantage the Italians had over the Irish was that they were so few that they were not objects of such organized discrimination.

If there were six Italians in the 7th Cavalry, why were only three present on that fateful day in 1876? The three absentees were in good company because Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, the regimental commanding officer, the two senior majors, and approximately 200 other officers and men were also absent. This was characteristic of the frontier army. Large numbers of regimental personnel routinely were seconded to headquarters assignments or detailed to other duties away from their units. This was a pleasant break from the harsh and boring life of campaign and garrison duty in the Far West. In the case of the three absent Italians, Vinatieri was at the Powder River base camp with the regimental band, James was detailed away to unspecified duties, and Lombard was in the hospital back at Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Three of the six Italians held music-related positions, a traditional occupation for Italians in America at the time, especially those in the Army. Indeed, 20th century New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was an “army brat,” the son of a regimental bandmaster. Italians stereotypically were thought to possess greater natural musical talent than other ethnic groups and thus were much sought after for military bands. It is no mystery that Chief Musician Felix Vinatieri was the regimental bandmaster, Frank Lombard was a musician (instrument unknown), and John Martin, while a line private, was a trumpeter in his company. Some years before immigrating, when he was only 14, Martin also had served in the Italian army as a drummer boy.

As with John Martin, two other Italians, DeRudio and John James, claimed prior military service. The former attended an Austrian cadet academy in Milan and served with the revolutionary forces of Mazzini and Garibaldi during the period of the Roman Republic in 1848. The latter simply listed his previous occupation as “soldier.” Vinatieri and Lombard were formerly musicians, and De Voto identified his previous occupation as that of bookbinder.

The Italians

The six Italians were from different parts of Italy, spoke different dialects, and probably felt very little solidarity with one another. After all, “Italian” was a relatively new term, at least to the degree that it expressed nationality. Italy had only been a nation since 1860, and it was not until 1870 that King Victor Emmanuel II defeated the last enemy of national unification, Pope Pius IX. DeRudio was from Belluno, in the province of Venice, and was born a subject of the Austrian emperor. De Voto from Genoa, Vinatieri from Turin and Martin from Sola Conzalina were all born subjects of the Piedmontese king of Sardinia, who would one day be king of Italy. James was born in Rome, a subject of the Pope, and Lombard in Naples, a subject of the Bourbon king of the Two Sicilies.

One of this group, Charles DeRudio had nothing in common with the others; as a nobleman, an aristocrat, he claimed and received a commission not long after his arrival in the United States. Given his status, he would have felt no camaraderie for his fellow Italians. DeRudio was certainly the most controversial of the six. The Di Rudio family of Belluno held the title count. Their nobility was fairly recent, however, dating back only to the mid-17th century. DeRudio’s grandfather had been an ardent Bonapartist and was extremely hostile to the Austrians. Under Napoleon I, the elder Di Rudio had been prefect of Belluno where Charles would one day be born. Following Napoleon’s defeat and the re-establishment of Austrian power in Italy, the family fell on hard times. Charles’ father, Count Aquila Di Rudio, was as hostile to the Austrians as his father and was involved continually in conspiratorial activities against them. 

Events of the Day

Chance events on the morning of June 25 propelled the trio of Italians in three different directions. That morning Captain Benteen of Company H detailed John Martin to serve as Custer’s personal trumpeter-orderly for the day. As such he would accompany “Longhair” wherever he went. The Indian scouts had spotted a very large village from the Crow’s Nest, a lookout point some distance ahead of the column. Although warned that the village was enormous, Custer determined to move against the Indians that afternoon instead of attacking during the early morning hours of June 26 as originally planned. Waiting for the next day would have allowed both men and horses time for needed rest and would be more likely to catch the Indians asleep in their lodges. Further, Custer and Terry had agreed that if he, Custer, found Indians on the Little Bighorn, he would attack on the 26th and drive them toward Terry, who would by then be approaching from the northeast.

Despite the seemingly rash change in plan, Custer’s decision to attack on the afternoon of the 25th was perfectly reasonable in the context of the conventional tactics of the era. Although his scouts informed him that he faced up to 2,000 warriors, they also told him that the Indians already had spotted his approach. The greatest fear of Custer and other frontier military commanders on major campaigns was not that they would be outnumbered and overwhelmed, but that their adversaries would break up into small bands and succeed in fleeing, rendering an expensive and exhausting military campaign a failure. Indians habitually picked their battles and, because they were infinitely more mobile than the ponderous columns of cavalry and infantry that pursued them, rarely could be brought to battle except on their own terms. Custer recognized that he had found a large village; if he could attack it before it broke and could capture a large number of women and children, he could force the enemy to surrender. Custer was probably the best cavalry leader in the army’s history; he was no fool and believed that his regiment, properly handled, could defeat any number of Indians. While man for man, Indian warriors were often superior to the soldiers, they fought as individuals. The discipline and organization of Custer’s troops gave them an advantage far beyond their numbers.

Custer had Martin sound officers’ call at about noon, and when the officers had gathered, he gave them orders out of Martin’s earshot. Shortly thereafter, Martin observed Captain Benteen with Companies D, H and K riding off to the left of the regiment, which was preceding roughly southwest along what would later be named Reno Creek. At the meeting, Custer had put 11 of the 12 companies that made up the 7th Cavalry into three maneuver battalions. As senior captain, Benteen was ordered to take one battalion and scout the valleys to the southeast to prevent the Indians from slipping away in that direction; he led his battalion away from the main column at about 12:12 p.m. The other two battalions, under Custer and Major Marcus A. Reno, the 7th Cavalry’s second-in-command on the expedition, continued to advance along Reno Creek.

At about 3:10 p.m., Major Reno’s battalion charged the south end of the village. Reno, however, daunted by the size of the village, did not press home the charge. Instead, he dismounted his troops short of the village and formed a skirmish line to defend himself against the enraged defenders who began to boil out of the huge encampment. In the meantime, Benteen, who had found no Indians to the south, was following on Custer’s trail but was still some four miles behind him. At about the time that Reno attacked, Custer reached a promontory and, for the first time, saw the village in its entirety. His original plan apparently had been to attack the north end of the village in support of Reno, who was attacking the south end. This would have prevented noncombatants from escaping the village to the north and hopefully would have allowed their capture and a successful end to the battle. Having seen how large the village was, he realized he would need all possible troops and additional ammunition if his plan were to succeed. At 3:20 p.m., he sent trumpeter John Martin with a written message to Benteen to hurry his advance and bring up the pack train. The message was written because Martin, who had only been in the United States three years, spoke very little English. As he rode away from Custer’s battalion, Martin became the last surviving white man to see Custer and his men alive.

John Martin, whose horse had been wounded by an Indian sharpshooter, reached Captain Benteen at 3:35 p.m. At that time, Benteen was some three miles east of Custer, and the pack train was a couple of miles behind him. He could not see how he could proceed quickly and still go back for the pack train. He told Martin to fall in with Company H, and he continued his advance up to the area now known as Reno Hill. There, at 4:10 p.m., he came upon the remnants of Reno’s battalion, which had not fared well in the valley below. Benteen determined not to advance to Custer as ordered but to join Reno and dig in on high ground until the situation clarified. The pack train and Company B subsequently came up and joined this force at 5:15 p.m.

Indeed, Reno had fared poorly in his attack on the village–and no little blame could be placed squarely on himself. Approximately 10 minutes after the beginning of the action, Indian pressure on both his front and left flank forced Reno to withdraw northeast to the edge of a wooded area in a bend of the Little Bighorn; there, he formed a second skirmish line, which faced roughly south. Although the position seemed to be holding, Reno became panicky and at 3:55 p.m. ordered another withdrawal, this time to the east, across the Little Bighorn, and then up the bluffs on the other side to Reno Hill. However, perhaps due largely to Reno’s panicking, the withdrawal turned into a rout. Reno lost 40 percent of his command before he and other survivors made it to the top of the bluffs. Not everyone got word of the withdrawal, which swiftly degenerated into a complete disaster with Indians attacking from behind and on both flanks. First Lieutenant Charles DeRudio and 18 other men remained behind in the woods.

DeRudio and the others either never got word of Reno’s withdrawal, lost their mounts, or became separated from the main body of the battalion. Surrounded by Indians, they took refuge in the heavily timbered area. Shortly after the formation of the first skirmish line, DeRudio, on his own initiative, led a half-dozen Company A troopers to the northwest corner of the woods to head off an attack on the right flank of the line. From this position, DeRudio later claimed he could see Custer’s column atop the high ridge to the north. DeRudio and his detail remained in this position until the battalion pulled out. DeRudio was informed of the withdrawal by Company A’s trumpeter, who brought DeRudio his horse. The men with DeRudio panicked and fled, and though he supposedly tried to save the company guidon, he was also compelled to flee. Unfortunately, his horse bolted and ran away when he tried to mount, leaving him stranded in the woods.

After hiding for a while and following an unsuccessful attempt by the Indians to fire the woods, DeRudio began to cautiously move about in the undergrowth. While doing so, he observed Indian women mutilating dead and dying soldiers who lay on the open ground between the woods and the high ground, men shot down during the battalion’s flight from the valley. Moving stealthily about, DeRudio met Private Thomas F. O’Neil of Company G, who was also on foot. Later, the two met Frederic F. Gerard, a civilian interpreter of the Lakota, and Billy Jackson, a half-blooded enlisted scout. The latter two men still had their mounts. Gerard and Jackson planned to make a dash on horseback for Reno on the bluffs, but DeRudio dissuaded them, fearing that such an attempt would lead the Indians, who were moving around nearby looking for stragglers, to the two men on foot. At this point, in the late afternoon, there were two groups of stragglers in the woods: DeRudio’s group of four and another group of 15 led by George B. Herendeen, a civilian scout. By 5 p.m. Reno’s command faced relatively few Indians; most had earlier moved off to the northwest to engage Custer. This provided an opportunity for the second group of stragglers (with two exceptions who were later killed) to rejoin Reno on the bluffs by 5:30 p.m.

DeRudio and his three companions remained in the woods. After darkness fell, they wandered around trying to find a safe path across the river and up the steep opposite riverbank. They were unsuccessful and had at least one close brush with a party of Lakota who were patrolling along the river. The two unmounted men became separated from their mounted companions and by dawn of June 26 were hiding on a wooded peninsula jutting into the middle of the Little Bighorn. That morning they saw a group of warriors riding along the riverbank. DeRudio mistook them for soldiers, probably because they were wearing items of uniforms and equipment stripped from Custer’s dead. He yelled at them, but O’Neil, recognizing the horsemen as Indians, pulled DeRudio back under cover where they remained undetected. Throughout the day, they could hear the battle that raged on the bluffs above between the surviving elements of the 7th Cavalry and the Indians. DeRudio and O’Neil spent the day under a scorching sun and suffered greatly from thirst because they dared not expose themselves to nearby braves who were sniping at soldiers on the bluffs. Toward sunset, the Indians began to move their village off to the southeast. DeRudio and O’Neil witnessed at a distance of only 150 yards thousands of Indian men, women and children carrying their wounded and dead and all their worldly possessions, accompanied by an estimated 25,000 ponies. The procession took several hours to pass by. At this point the fighting was effectively over. DeRudio and O’Neil remained in their lair until around 3 a.m. on the 27th of June; then they left the woods, scaled the bluffs, and rejoined the command.

Aftermath

DeRudio’s conduct during the Little Bighorn action, like that of many of his fellow officers, was certainly not above reproach. He was criticized by Benteen among others for “hiding out” while his command was heavily engaged for some 24 hours on the bluffs above. In the end, DeRudio was a survivor. As he candidly admitted, he had gone through too much in his life, had too many close calls with death, to die in an obscure action against Indians in America.

Private August De Voto’s day had been far less harrowing than John Martin’s or Charles DeRudio’s. A member of Captain Thomas M. McDougal’s Company B, he was far removed from the dramatic events of the day until the pack train caught up with the surviving companies of the 7th Cavalry on Reno Hill. At 4:20 p.m., as the pack train followed Custer’s and Benteen’s trail, some of the personnel heard heavy volley fire ahead. This firing, more clearly heard two miles ahead on Reno Hill, was Custer and his men fighting for their lives some miles distant.

De Voto and the others in the pack train encountered a lone Crow scout riding away from the battlefield. His English was poor and all he said was “Much soldier down” before riding on. Second Lieutenant Luther R. Hare, Reno’s acting assistant adjutant general, arrived shortly thereafter with orders to hurry forward the mules carrying ammunition. He left to return to Reno Hill with two of the mules in tow. The slowly plodding remainder of the pack train took another 45 minutes or so to cover the distance to Reno Hill. The volley fire heard from the northwest had long since ceased, and, in fact, all sustained firing from that direction had ended by 4:45 p.m.

Beginning at about 5 p.m., an abortive attempt was made to advance the seven companies and the pack train toward Custer’s presumed location roughly two miles west of Reno Hill. By this time, however, large numbers of Indians were seen approaching from that direction, so the troops withdrew back to Reno Hill and began to dig in. What remained of the 7th Cavalry made its stand on and around Reno Hill. The battle would continue for almost another 24 hours.

By 5:30 p.m. on June 25, 1876, the disaster was complete. Custer and five companies of the 7th Cavalry lay dead, killed to the last man on or near Custer Hill. Reno, Benteen and the pack train lay under heavy attack by Indians at Reno Hill, and 19 stragglers hid in the woods below, along the riverbank. No one knew what had become of Custer; all supposed that he had retreated north, but would return and rescue them at some point. Also unknown to them was that General Terry had joined his column with the western column, and both would arrive at the battlefield in about 48 hours. In fact, Terry was expecting to encounter Indians fleeing north from what he hoped was a successful attack by Custer.

The men of the 7th Cavalry who had the good fortune not to ride with Custer that day were involved in a desperate fight for survival. It was here that John Martin ended up because he had been ordered to rejoin Company H after delivering Custer’s last message, and it was here that the pack train delivered August De Voto.

Instead of rushing the soldiers, the Indians occupied vantage points to the north, west, east, and down in the valley to the south. From this last position, they made it impossible for both the troopers above and DeRudio and O’Neil hiding below to get water during the last phase of the battle. The Indians poured a murderous sniping fire onto Reno Hill until nightfall. The soldiers, now joined by 13 stragglers from the valley, spent an uncomfortable night listening and watching the Indians celebrating their victory in the village.

The following day dawned hot, and the Indians resumed their sniping. Everyone in Reno’s command, especially the wounded, suffered terribly from thirst. Consequently, 34 men volunteered to try to bring water up from the river despite the harassing fire. Private De Voto was one of the volunteers. This was an extremely hazardous undertaking as Indian marksmen across the Little Bighorn could easily target anyone coming down from the bluffs to the river. De Voto made it to the river and filled a large cooking kettle and several canteens with water while bullets struck all around him. He survived this ordeal unharmed, although two other water carriers were killed and another was so severely wounded that his leg had to be amputated. Fifteen of the 34 earned the Medal of Honor; De Voto, however, was not one of them.

The sniping began to slack off at 11 a.m., and all firing had ceased by 3 p.m. Not long after, the Indian village was seen moving away to the south; the Battle of the Little Bighorn was over. That night, DeRudio and O’Neil came up from the valley, and the next day General Terry arrived. It was only then that the survivors of the 7th Cavalry learned the fate of Custer and their comrades, for Terry and his men had crossed the site of Custer’s “Last Stand” on their way to Reno Hill.

Author Vincent A. Transano, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command historian, writes from Camarillo, Calif. Suggested for further reading: Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876, by John S. Gray; They Rode with Custer: A Biographical Directory of the Men Who Rode with General George A. Custer, edited by John M. Carroll; and The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custeriana, edited by Colonel W.A. Graham.

This is an excerpt from the Custer’s Italians.