DEC 7: Grisly Find Near Washita

Maj. Joel Elliott. (Credit: National Park Service)

On Dec. 7, 1868, the bodies of Major Joel Elliott, Sgt. Major Walter Kennedy and 16 troopers from the 7th Cavalry are discovered some two miles downstream from the site of the Battle of Washita. Their remains were found by a party led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer, which was accompanied by General Philip Sheridan.

At dawn on November 27, Custer led an attack on the village of Cheyenne chief Black Kettle on the Washita River in current-day Oklahoma. The attack left more than 100 Cheyenne warriors, women and children, dead.

At the same time, Elliott and a small contingent of soldiers set out in pursuit of fleeing Cheyenne warriors. He did so without authorization from Custer, who withdrew from the area without looking for Elliott.

Elliott's detachment ran into a larger force of Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho warriors coming to aid the village. The small group of soldiers was quickly surrounded and killed in a single charge, their bodies were later found mutilated.

The deaths of Elliott and his men was seen as a case of Custer abandoning his troops. It led to bad blood between the brash Custer and many of his contemporaries, most of all Captain Frederick Benteen, who served as Elliott’s commanding officer in the Civil War.