Visitors of Another Kind
By Bob Reece
Each year nearly 400,000 tourists visit the windswept
ravines and ridges of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
Standing on the hill, where Custer and the last of his men died,
they can imagine the last few moments as Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
and his soldiers met their fate at the hands of the Lakota and Cheyenne.
Many soldiers lay wounded, helpless, and horrified as they heard the
screams and groans of death all-round. When the fierce battle was
finished, their bodies were torn and mutilated beyond recognition. The
Indians lost 50 to 100 warriors whose bodies were carried away from the
battlefield by their loved ones. Along side the battlefield resides the
Custer National Cemetery where 5,000 veterans and their family
members are interred. If there was ever a place where ghosts might roam,
then Custer Battlefield is such a place.
According to stories
from visitors and employees the dead are restless at Little Bighorn.
Whether you believe these mysterious occurrences or not, they add to the
total aura of the place. They are a part of the history of Custer
Battlefield. As Robert Utley explains, "stories of the supernatural seem
to revolve around legendary spots." Our curiosity will not allow us to
ignore them.
As with all folklore, it
is difficult to find the stories' origin. I interviewed as many of the
primary sources as possible who experienced a visitor of another kind. I
am not here to prove or disprove these stories, only to report them.
The encounters are
numerous and the superstitions go way back. The Crow people apparently
were aware of something long before others. They called the
superintendent, "ghost herder" because he lowered the flag at dusk, which
the Crow believed allowed the spirits to rise from their graves and walk
amongst the living. When the flag was raised, in the morning, the dead
came back to rest.
It is nearly impossible
to pinpoint when employees and tourists began to experience strange
observations. Historian Robert Utley, who was a ranger at the battlefield
from 1947-1952, stated there "was no ghost business going on then."
However, an experience during this time may have involved Charles Kuhlman,
author of Legend Into History. It has been reported that Custer's
spirit visited him. It has also been reported that Kuhlman would visit
Last Stand Hill, alone, in hopes of making some form of contact with the
other world. Utley denies these events happened. However, it could explain
Kuhlman's fantastic interpretation of the battle.
Stories of the sounds of
Indian warriors charging on horseback through the cemetery soon followed.
People, who walked through the cemetery at night, spoke of cold spots that
seemed to spring up from nowhere.
Visitors of Another Kind
Tourists come in all
shapes and sizes and so do their stories. A visitor from New Orleans
claimed to have been transported back in time to witness the battle. While
driving along Battle Ridge, a cab driver from Minneapolis witnessed
soldiers and warriors fighting to the death. He came shaken and distraught
into the visitor's center, where the employees calmed him. Former
battlefield Park Historian and Superintendent Neil Mangum once received
a strange call one day from a lady in Canada. She had a dream about an
Indian killing a soldier during the Custer fight. She claimed to know
the soldiers' name. Neil checked the 7th Cavalry's roster, but found no
soldier listed under the name. However, the woman was persistent, stating
the records were incorrect.
One evening in August
1976 a National Park Service law enforcement officer visited Last
Stand Hill. He was alone when a sudden drop in temperature went through
his body. The cold was accompanied by the soft murmuring of voices. He did
not stay long enough to discover whether they were talking to him.
In August 1987, on a
moonless night, a psychic visited the battlefield from Colorado. Although
she had never been to the battlefield, and knew little about the battle,
she provided details of action at Medicine Tail Ford and Nye-Cartwright
Ridge. Standing beside the 7th Cavalry Monument and the mass
grave of the soldier dead, she felt the presence of restless spirits from
the Custer battalion.
While visiting the
cemetery, the same psychic saw a spirit warrior charge a seasonal
employee, count coup, then turn and ride past the visitor center down
Cemetery Ridge. The employee was resting with his eyes closed. As the
warrior counted coup the employee opened his eyes and said, "what was
that?"
She saw more. Behind the
seasonal homes she saw 20 to 30 warriors coming late into the battle. They
were dressed in their finest, painted, and feathers pointed down from
their heads. Could she have witnessed
the small group of young warriors who sacrificed their lives for the
benefit of the people? These warriors entered the battle near its
completion, dressed to meet the everywhere spirit, and have been referred
to as the suicide boys.
Warriors Upon the Bluffs
Employees report many
stories. Most of the following were reported by people I have known for
years and highly respect. Former Custer
Battlefield Park Ranger, Mardell Plainfeather, experienced an encounter in
1980. Mardell is a member of the Crow Tribe and still faithfully practices
her people's ceremonies. She and her family regularly visited their sweat
lodge that sat quietly in the thick timber along the Little Bighorn River
across from the battlefield. Late one evening Mardell and her daughter,
Lorena, went to the sweat lodge to ensure the fire was extinguished. "I
don't make a habit of going out in the dark by myself, but I was in my car
so I wasn't scared or anything. I had never had any supernatural
experiences before and I was certainly not prepared for one, but when I
saw them, it didn't scare me at all."
Mardell saw two Indian
warrior spirits sitting on their horses silhouetted upon the bluffs. The
warriors were on the battlefield proper within the confines of the fence.
They were dressed for war, painted, feathers placed in long flowing hair,
while one wore braids. They carried shields and one had a bow. One lifted
himself from the saddle and
looked down directly at Mardell, but she could not clearly see if the warriors
were Crow, Sioux, or Cheyenne. "Even if they were Sioux or Cheyenne
spirits, they didn't mean me any harm at all. Perhaps they were just
trying to tell me that I was doing a good job of interpreting the battle
story to our visitors. Perhaps they were just trying to tell me that they
were happy that a Native American, no matter what tribe, was finally
telling their side of the story. Maybe their spirits were restless . . ."
Mardell had another
experience that took place in her family's battleground house. One night
in 1986 while the family were asleep there came three loud knocks at her
bedroom door. When the door was opened, no one was there. Her husband Dan
walked throughout the house, especially the kid's bedroom in fear there
might have been a burglar. The kids were safe and fast asleep. "The next
day, my father-in-law said not to worry because it was only my husband's
grandmother saying good-bye. She had died that night. "
The Stone House
Employees report bizarre
stories inside the Stone House. Built in 1894 as a residence for the
superintendent, it is a two story building located beside large evergreens
and the entrance gate to the cemetery. It has been converted to the White
Swan Memorial Library, the park historian’s office and conference rooms.
The lower level was once used to house bodies awaiting burial in the
cemetery. Before becoming the White Swan Memorial Library it was used as a
summer residence for the staff and was shut tightly and left empty during
the winter.
While living on the
battleground, Neil Mangum remembers walking home on many winter nights
through the cemetery and seeing the lights on in the Stone House upstairs
apartment. He always turned off the lights. Once he couldn't get the front
door open. Frustrated, Neil went home, returning an hour later. The door
opened easily. He walked up the stairs, and in Neil's usual calm demeanor
turned off the lights one more time.
Neil and his family had
the opportunity to live in the Stone House for a couple of weeks when they
first came to the battlefield. Although they saw nothing, their dog was
not very happy while spending a lot of time pacing back and forth.
One night in 1980,
Mardell noticed the lights. Not wanting to enter the Stone House by
herself she went to Apartment A to ask the ranger, Mike, to go with her.
He offered to turn the lights off himself. His wife, Ruth, was watching an
evening program on their new television bought that day in Hardin. Mardell
gave Mike the Stone House keys and she went home. Soon, Mike returned the
keys and related a strange incident to Mardell. While Mike was in the
Stone House, Ruth noticed the television picture become blank. A voice coming from the
television exclaimed, "second story" as Mike began walking up the stairs
toward the upper level apartment. Ruth was shaken when Mike returned, but
he reassured her that nothing happened.
Inside the Stone House
things have happened. A woman's figure has been seen coming down the
stairs. Footsteps are heard upstairs when no one is there. During the
summer season of 1986, a new battlefield ranger was housed for two nights
in the upstairs' apartment. He awoke the first night feeling someone
sitting at the foot of his bed. He first thought it was his wife, but he
remembered she was visiting family overseas, and he was alone. As he
reached for his Colt .45, laying on the nightstand, he saw a shadowy
figure move from the foot of his bed. The ranger distinctly saw a torso of
a soldier with the head and legs missing as the apparition disappeared
into the other room.
A wooden wall complete
with a padlocked door was built to make two bedrooms in the lower level of
the Stone House. One night early in the 1989 season, two staff members
were sound asleep. One was suddenly awakened by loud bangs on the
partition wall. The sound was coming from the opposite side of the wall.
The door was locked. The padlock was on the employee’s side of the wall.
The strong knocks occurred again. The other staff member was awakened, but
the sounds had stopped. The only entrance to the other side of the wall is
through a window that was securely locked. The person who
experienced this event felt it was, "Just the boys welcoming them back to
the battlefield."
Al and Florence Jacobson spent many summers in the
Stone House upstairs apartment. They grew accustomed to the strange
happenings in the Stone House. They were not totally comfortable with the
fact, however, of the doorknob turning and no one at the door, or the
unexplained footsteps coming from the empty upstairs apartment as Al and
Florence were viewing slides downstairs. There is only one entrance by way
of the stairs from the front door. They also speak of coming home and
finding personal items moved around.
No harm has ever come to
Al and Florence. Florence believes the spirit is a friendly one. One day
as Florence began to eat lunch she suddenly heard a loud, high-pitched
noise coming from the kitchen. She said it sounded like a teakettle
boiling, though she wasn't boiling water at the time. She lifted her fork
to take a bite of food when the sound came again, this time louder. She
looked at her food. It was leftovers that included chicken. She picked up
the plate and emptied the contents in the trash. Florence believes that
the food was spoiled and the spirit saved her from being poisoned.
During the summer of
1985, Al and Florence came equipped to settle the spirit or spirits of the
Stone House. Their ghost repellents included an iron kept on the coffee
table, a crucifix in each room, shoes under the bed, and fresh baked
bread. Florence happily supplied many staff members with homemade bread
that summer.
Footsteps in the Dark
In August 1997, just
before the Stone House was closed for its conversion into the White Swan
Memorial Library four people spent the last night anyone would spend
sleeping in the Stone House. Little did they know that the visitors of
another kind would bid farewell in a most remarkable way.
One man slept in the
upstairs apartment bedroom while a father and son shared the sleeper sofa
in the apartment’s living room. A young
woman slept downstairs. She awoke in the middle of the night hearing footsteps upstairs.
She figured it was one of the fellows heading to the bathroom. The
footsteps exited the bedroom, went through the upstairs hall to the
bathroom then back again. No big deal.
Then, moments later,
more footsteps but this time they were louder. They became so forceful that
she noticed shavings of paint falling from the edge of the downstairs
windows. Her first thought was that person would wake up the whole house. She became very
concerned as each new trip to the bathroom became louder and more
forceful, almost vibrating the entire downstairs.
Suddenly, the downstairs
kitchen door slammed shut with a loud bang that vibrated the whole
downstairs. She startled and jumped up. She knew it wasn’t a gust of wind
because all the windows had been well covered with heavy plastic and taped
very secure during the renovation. It wasn’t wind that slammed shut the
door -- it was something else.
The young woman immediately left the
Stone House and tried to sleep in her car. The next morning she shared
this experience with the other men who slept upstairs. All were perplexed
because none of them heard footsteps banging around the apartment.
However, the father sleeping on the sleeper sofa remembered being awakened
by a loud bang from downstairs around 2:30 A.M. It may have been the
kitchen door slamming shut that awakened him.
In attempts to recreate
the effects of the footsteps, one of the men walked around upstairs while
she and the other two listened from below. She kept yelling upstairs for
the man to walk more forceful. He eventually reached the point where it
sounded the way she remembered. Everyone looked at each other – they
realized that the footsteps were so loud that no one upstairs could have
slept through that, but they did. Are the visitors of another kind
selective as to whom they attempt to communicate with?
A Shadow in the Visitor Center
The visitor center sits
at the bottom of Last Stand Hill. Tourists step into this place to escape
the heat of the Montana sun. Here, they can browse the bookstore or visit
the museum. After the tourists have left and the doors are locked the
visitor center has experienced the problem of lights coming on after
hours, and faint voices calling out.
On a summer's day in
1985, an association employee had an odd experience in the museum
basement. He had just presented a program to the public and was returning
some items to the audio/visual room. Before he reached the inventory
storage room, he noticed a figure of a person standing in the dark corner.
Although it appeared to him to be a soldier, he thought it was a fellow
employee dressed as such to play a trick on him. He pretended not to see
the soldier and walked past him. The employee turned left to enter the
audio room. The employee noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the
shadowy figure of the soldier moving into the hall. The apparition
proceeded to walk through the locked door of the inventory room.
It was not a joke after
all.
Lt. Benjamin H. Hodgson's
Late Night Visit
Christine Hope's story
about Apartment C was printed in Earl Murray's book Ghosts of the Old
West. Tim Bernardis first told it to me in the summer of 1984. Hope
had been employed under the SCA program during the summer and fall of
1983. She had been living in Apartment C, which was arranged as an
efficiency. She slept on the living room couch. One early fall night she
awoke about 2 am. Looking in the direction of the kitchen Christine
noticed a figure of a man sitting at the table. He had a long handlebar
moustache. Hope glanced away but he was still there when she looked back.
Not only was he looking at her, but his face and eyes had the most
ghostly, tortured, and painful expression. Though he was not speaking,
Hope felt this visitor was attempting to convey the message that something
very serious and tragic occurred here and one should never make fun of it,
or make light of it. The figure finally disappeared and it took Hope some
time before she was brave enough to turn on the lights.
The next day Tim and
Christine visited the Reno retreat crossing. They climbed down the steep
bluffs where Reno and his three companies retreated from the valley of the
Little Bighorn. After reaching the site of the crossing, Tim began to
give Christine a detailed report of the action seen there on the day of
the battle.
They stood before the
marker of Lt. Benjamin H. Hodgson of Co. B, which rests alone on the east
side of the river. While crossing the river, Hodgson had his leg shattered
by a bullet that killed his horse. Falling in the river, Hodgson grabbed a
stirrup of a passing horse that carried him to the opposite bank. Hodgson
moved up the draw, but was cut down by an Indian bullet.
Christine had been
impressed with the story of Hodgson. Her curiosity led the two to search
for more information on the officer. After returning to the museum
Christine read further about Hodgson. Tim located a photo of Hodgson,
which he showed to Christine. She was taken aback, since it was the man
she had seen the night before in her apartment. It was then that Christine
told Tim of the events in Apartment C.
Hope slept with the
lights on in Apartment C for the rest of her tour of duty.
Hodgson's late night
visit with Hope was apparently not his first. The late John M. Carroll in
the November 1988 issue of the Little Big Horn Associates newsletter
reported Hodgson’s communication with his friend Lt. Clinton H. Tebbetts
in 1877. This communication came through a medium and simply stated that
the 7th fought gallantly.
Recent stories have come
to light. While giving a live program to visitors a ranger was suddenly
interrupted with the feeling that something was pulling at his leg trying
to force him to the ground. He looked down to find nothing there. One
woman working in the bookstore, alone, felt someone tap her on the
shoulder. She turned around to find she was alone.
The visitors of another
kind do not appear to be settling down. Keep that in mind if you ever have
the opportunity to visit Custer Battlefield late at night, when the
headstones reflect the light of the moon, when all is still and quiet, and
the flag has been lowered.
Copyright 1991 by Bob Reece, all rights reserved.
"Visitors of Another Kind" is featured in Ms. Munn's book, Montana Ghost
Stories which is back in print after many years.
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