Journey of the Scottish Rings

William Logan came from Scotland to the United States as a young man. Before he left home, his father gave him a signet ring carved with the family crest that had been in the family for generations.   Logan always wore this ring. He also wore a masonic ring he greatly treasured. William Logan served in both the Mexican and Civil Wars. As Captain in the Seventh Infantry, Company A, he came to Montana the day after Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn.  A year later in August of 1877, Captain Logan died at the Battle of the Big Hole. Indians desecrated the bodies of the dead. Captain Logan’s fingers were cut off and the rings taken. Logan’s wife advertised in the papers to recover the rings, but had no luck. Three years later, a Nez Perce was killed near the Canadian border; he had the signet ring. It was traded and bartered until Bill Todd, a friend of Captain Logan’s, recognized it in the possession of an old trapper. He persuaded the trapper to give up the ring and took it to Captain Logan’s son. Sometime later, the son was living at the Blackfeet Agency when an Indian woman came into the post wearing his father’s masonic ring. He bought the ring from her. She told him that a few months after the Big Hole battle, the Blackfeet and Piegans fought the Nez Perce. Her husband took the masonic ring from a fallen Nez Perce and wore it until his death. It then passed to his wife who was wearing it when Logan’s son saw it on her finger. Those rings came full circle, but they had quite a journey getting there.

Custer's Heart

So much has been written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn that it is nearly impossible to present new information. But here is a curious tidbit from the Helena Herald of 1890 noting a legend told by the Sioux Indians. As the only human survivors of the deadly encounter, the Herald noted, the Sioux alone can tell the true history of the infamous event. The Sioux claim that on the hill where Custer fell, a peculiar plant now grows. This plant had never been seen there before the battle and it is not known to grow anywhere else. It is a very odd plant with broad, flat leaves that curve like a sword. Its edges are sharp as a saber and will slice through the skin like a razor blade. Those who unknowingly pick this plant drop it right away as its leaves are strangely cold and clammy. The plant bears a beautiful golden blossom that is shaped exactly like a heart. In the center of the flower there is one small spot of brilliant red, like a drop of blood. The Indians regard this plant with awe. They call it Custer’s Heart and refuse to touch it. They claim that the blossom crushed in the hand leaves a blood red stain that is impossible to remove.


John H. Fouch snapped this first known photograph of the battlefield in 1877. He titled it "The place where Custer fell."
Image from Traveler's Guide to the Great Sioux War, courtesy James Brust

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Custer's Dogs

General George Custer had his faults, but one characteristic makes him more likable. Custer loved dogs. He owned as many as forty and took them with him everywhere. Historian Brian Dippie wrote that Custer’s dogs “accompanied him on hunts and campaigns; they arranged themselves at his feet, rested their heads on his lap, shared is bed and his food, got under foot, made nuisances of themselves, but never lost their special place in his affection. They were like people to him.” His dogs adored him, too. When Maida, one of his favorites, was killed during a buffalo hunt, Custer wrote a rather bad, but very heartfelt, poem to her. During the Black Hills expedition in 1874, Custer wrote to his wife that his dogs surrounded him and that his favorite, Tuck—a tall, light-colored deerhound—slept at the head of his bed. On June 12, 1876, two weeks before Little Bighorn, Custer again wrote: “Tuck regularly comes when I am writing, and lays her head on the desk, rooting up my hand with her long nose until I consent to stop and notice her.”

Photo from http://wyomingtalesandtrails.com/

Custer and Bloody Knife (pointing) in 1874. The dog in the foreground is Custer's favorite deerhound, Tuck.

Several dogs including Custer’s beloved Tuck broke away from the pack train and followed their master into the famous battle. Indian witnesses claimed that Custer was easy to spot among the fray because of the tall, light-colored dog that stayed at his side until the last moments. The Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg recalled a dog on Custer Hill, and soldiers saw a dog on a distant rise, but none was seen again. Tuck was not listed among the casualties. We will never know for sure what became of her or her renegade companions.