AUG 7: Custer Shoots a Grizz

Lt. Col. George Custer, center, poses with the grizzly bear he shot on Aug. 7, 1874. He is joined by (l-r) Scout Bloody Knife, Priv. John Noonan, and Capt. William Ludlow. (Credit: Library of Congress)

On this date in 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer shoots and kills a grizzly bear during the 7th Cavalry’s expedition into the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota. It marks his greatest hunting achievement and boosts his reputation as conqueror and fearless military leader.

Custer’s orderly, Private John Noonan, and his favorite scout Bloody Knife spotted the bear two miles south of present-day Nahant, South Dakota. After Custer felled it with a shot from his Remington rifle, the wounded bear turned to confront the hunters. Bloody Knife and Capt. William Ludlow shot it three more times, ending its life.

 Afterward, Custer ordered Noonan to haul the 600-pound bear back to a rock outcropping overlooking the campsite. There, he posed for a photograph, taken by William H. Illingworth, along with Bloody Knife, Noonan, and Ludlow, chief engineer officer for the Department of Dakota.

Custer wrote to his wife, Libbie: “I have reached the hunter’s highest round of fame. I have killed my grizzly.”

Illingworth took two versions of the photo, which was soon on sale throughout the East Coast.

Less than two years later, both Custer and Bloody Knife were to perish at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Noonan who was left to oversee the 7th Cavalry’s cattle heard while Custer and troopers rode off to face Native American tribes at the battle on June 25, 1876. He took his own life on November 30, 1878, a month after learning his late wife turned out to be a man.

Ludlow died on Aug. 30, 1901 as a major general at the age of 57.