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"Reno
proved incompetent and Benteen showed his indifference – I will not use the uglier words that have often been in my mind. Both failed Custer and he had to fight it out alone."
Little Bighorn veteran William Taylor, letter to Lieutenant Godfrey, February 20, 1910
One of Black Kettle's headmen was leading 200 warriors in massacres of white civilians before the battle of the
Washita.
BLACK KETTLE'S MEN BEFORE THE WASHITA
source: Richard G. Hardorff., Washita Memories, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, page 52
Testimony of witness Edmund Guerrier, mix-blood
civilian:
"I was with the Cheyenne Indians at the time of
the massacre of the Solomon and Saline Rivers, in Kansas, the early part or middle of last August, and I was living at this time with Little Rock's band [Little Rock and Black Kettle led the
same band]. The war party [of 200 Cheyennes and 4 Arapahoes] who started for the Solomon was composed of young men of Little Rock's, Black Kettle's [all from Black Kettle's
village], Medicine Arrow's and Bull Bear's bands [...]
Red Nose, and The Man Who Breaks The Marrow Bones, (Ho-eh-a-mo-a-ha) were the two leaders of the massacre; the former belonged to the Dog Soldiers, and the latter to Black Kettle's
band."

Black Kettle: the peaceful warchief of a peaceful band which was peacefully on the warpath and peacefully killing more than 200 white men, women and
children...