Did you know that General George Armstrong Custer lifted a dumbbell for exercise? If he lifted a dumbbell then why wasn’t he named Strongarm instead of Armstrong? Could he have been dyslexic? Did you know that the last survivor of Custer’s Last stand, Comanche, is stuffed and on display at the Kansas University museum in Lawrence, Kansas? Or that Custer’s boots are in the Kansas State Historical Society Museum in Topeka? For even more see the DeRudio Page.

Footnote to Custer’s Last Stand - 1976

© 1976 Phil Pasquini all rights reserved worldwide

Custer’s Last Dumbbell

Collection of Kansas State Historical Society Museum

U.S.  Model 1863 Half Circle Bit - Found at Little Bighorn Battlefield

Collection Montana State Historical Society. - Gift of C. B. Schneider

Cartridge cases - 45-70 cal. rifle - Found at Little Bighorn Battlefield.  

Collection Montana State Historical Society - Gift of J. A. Blummer

Metal arrowhead embedded in horse leg bone and pistol frames found at

Little Bighorn Battlefield. - Courtesy 1880 Town, Murdo, South Dakota

Metal arrowhead embedded in horse bone. - Courtesy 1880 Town, Murdo, South Dakota

Cartridges found at  Little Bighorn Battlefield. - Courtesy 1880 Town, Murdo, South Dakota

Marker found on Reno Hill, where a soldier fell. - Courtesy 1880 Town, Murdo, South Dakota

A never used Unknown Indian Grave marker, Little Bighorn Battlefield.

Courtesy 1880 Town, Murdo, South Dakota

Comanche, the only horse to survive the Battle of The Little Bighorn.

University of Kansas Natural History Museum, Lawrence, Kansas


Custer’s personal boots.

Collection of Kansas State Historical Society Museum.

Mark Kellogg, a reporter for the Bismark Tribune, was killed in 1876 along with Custer and all his troops while covering the battle at the Little Bighorn River. He seemed to realize their pending fate when in his final dispatch he wrote, "By the time this reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen. I go with Custer and will be at the death."


Click below for the story of a survivor of the battle,

1st Lt. Count Charles DeRudio.

Kelloggs personal possessions. From the State Historical Society of North Dakota

and the Newseum, Washington, D.C.

A stone from the Battle of the Little Bighorn site on the side of the Chicago Tribune Building