50 Years Since Custer’s Fight

Anniversary June 25, Next - Seventh Cavalry to Cover Custer’s Route up Rosebud Starting June 22

(As printed in the Hysham Echo March 4, 1926)

Extensive preparations are being made for the 50th anniversary of the battle of the Little Horn which took place just south of Hardin June 25, 1876, when General George A. Custer and 212 of his soldiers were wiped out by the Sioux Indians.

When the Seventh U.S. cavalry marches up the Rosebud creek from its mouth near Rosebud, to the Custer battlefield next June to participate in the semi-centennial anniversary of the battle, retracting the steps of General Custer and seventh cavalry of a half century ago, it will be a body of men contrasting strangely with that pitiful remnant of the valorous Seventh which 5,000 Sioux warriors left June 25, 1876, after inflicting the most terrible defeat any unit of the United States army has ever suffered.

In plans for observance of the semi-centennial made by the National Custer memorial association mature, Col Fitzhugh Lee, commanding the Seventh, now stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, will have 12 troops of cavalry upwards of 1,000 men, with him as he follows the route taken by Custer from noon of June 22 to the afternoon of the 25th.
They will be equipped with the weapons and accoutrements of a most effective mounted in modern warfare. A regimental band will accompany the expedition.

There will be facilities for maintenance of constant communication between units of the command no matter what distance separates them. Lack of facilities of this kind primarily was responsible for the fate that befell Custer and his immediate command.

When Custer left the mouth of the Rosebud with his command 50 years ago, he had 12 troops or companies, as they were called then, numbering about 600 men, with some 40 Arikara and Crow scouts, traditional enemies of the Sioux. His men were armed with the ancient single shot Springfield carbines, and with single action revolvers. Each man carried 100 rounds of rifle ammunition and 24 rounds for his revolver. Reserve ammunition was carried by a pack train, so far to the rear that when its actual need was felt in the regiment’s great crisis it was ineffective.

After the Sioux, outnumbering Custer’s command ten to one and armed with repeating rifles of the latest pattern they had been acquiring from white traders, left the men of the Seventh on that fateful afternoon of June 25 and the commands of Reno and Benteen the following morning, there remained alive less than one-half of the regiment.
With Custer, fell 212, every man in five companies. Reno’s losses during his fight in the valley and in the course of his retreat and upon the hill where he fought off the Sioux after McDougall and Benteen joined him, numbered 56 dead and 59 wounded of whom eight died.

Participation of the Seventh cavalry is but one of many impressive features planned for the semi-centennial, U. S. Senator T. J. Walsh is now pressing a bill for an appropriation in the sum of $25,000 for a permanent Custer memorial on the battlefield. If it is successful the corner stone will be laid during observance of the semi-centennial.
The house has passed Congressman Scott Leavitt’s bill for an appropriation of $2,500 to mark by tablet the spot where on the morning of the 26th Benteen and Reno stood off the Sioux. It is planned to install this marker and establish the spot as a national monument on the last of the three days’ observance of the semi-centennial.

Rancher’s Body Found in Well

Mysterious Disappearance Paul Peasanti Apparently Murdered 3-Years Ago, is Cleared -
Searching For Joe Goretti, Who Filled Old Well

The skeleton of Paul Pesanti, 58, a rancher at Melrose, Silver Bow county, missing three years, was found in the bottom of a well on the place Thursday by the sheriff and his officers. The remains were identified by means of rubber stockings which he wore because of varicose veins.

Joe Goretti, 35, who was a leaser of the ranch at the time of Pesanti’s disappearance, Jan. 15, 1923, is sought in connection with the supposed murder, is being trailed by Utah authorities. He was last seen about a month ago at Ogden, Utah.

Mrs. Pesanti left home Jan. 15, 1923, to visit a daughter. When she returned two days later she found furniture in the ranch house upset and the front window broken. According to her story, Goretti explained that Pesanti had gone away with two men and a women in an automobile.

A telegraphic request for money received at Melrose from “Paul Pesanti” at Salt Lake City a month ago complicated the search and it was not until the officers dug the skeleton from the well that it was indicated that the rancher had been a victim of foul play. Officers made the find in the bottom of the deserted well, after digging through six feet of rock and rubbish which had been thrown into the hole.

The condition of the skeleton indicated that the head had been cut from the body and that the skull probably had been crushed before thrown into the well. The well in which the boy was found is a circular hole three feet in diameter and is located on the bank of the Big Hole river, a quarter of a mile from the house in which Mrs. Pesanti and a widowed daughter have lived since the disappearance of the head of the house.

The well, which had been deserted for years previously, had been covered by boards, and it was not until the sheriff’s officers discovered that the hole had been filled that it was made the subject of investigation.

Witnesses have been found who saw Goretti filling up the deserted well three years ago. They saw Goretti dumping rocks and rubbish into the hole and that questions to the reason for filling the well received the explanation that stock might fall through the old board covering which had topped the hole for years.

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