Varmint Hunter
I'd go to hell just to shoot the Devil in the face
On November 27, 1868, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer of the United States 7th Cavalry was leading a routine patrol along the Washita River in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, when he came across a Cheyenne camp that the scouts identified as being responsible for several homesteaders' wagons burned and their occupants scalped in the weeks prior. Custer was only leading a patrol of around 150 troopers at the time, with the rest of the regiment at a nearby fort acquiring provisions, but he ordered a charge nonetheless and liquidated the camp, killing and arresting most of the warriors there. As he was finishing up the operations, some 2000 warriors from the nearby Cheyenne-Kiowa confederation descended upon Custer's men and surrounded them. In a twist of irony, in 1868, most of the Plains tribes had acquired a lot of Henry .44 rimfire and .56-50 caliber Spencer repeating rifles from traders all along the wagon routes eager to sell their wares, while the US Army were still primarily equipped with the powerful but slow loading single shot .50-90 'Trapdoor' rifles and carbines made from converted Springfield rifled muskets left over from the recently concluded Civil War. Thus, these 150 men of the 7th Cavalry were not only vastly outnumbered, but outgunned, staring down certain death on the banks of the Washita. Calmly and unfazed, Lieut. Col. Custer ordered his men to take all of the noncombatant women and children from the previously liquidated Cheyenne camp hostages and march them at gunpoint at the front and sides of the column. Seeing that the women and children of their tribes were being used as shields by the troopers and knowing that any attack by their warriors would result in the deaths of all of the hostages, the 2000 Indian braves on the high ground overlooking the troopers' column could only watch on in frustration, not daring to make a move. Aside from the 21 men killed in the prior confrontation, the entire patrol along with Custer made it safely back to the fort and the protection of it's 12-pounder Parrott rifled cannons.
