Page "George Armstrong Custer" Paragraph 50

For a time, Custer's men appear to have been deployed by company, in standard cavalry fighting formation — the skirmish line, with every fourth man holding the horses, though this arrangement would have robbed Custer of a quarter of his firepower.

Worse, as the fight intensified, many soldiers could have taken to holding their own horses or hobbling them, further reducing the 7th's effective fire.

When Crazy Horse and White Bull mounted the charge that broke through the center of Custer's lines, pandemonium may have broken out among the soldiers of Calhoun's command, though Myles Keogh's men seem to have fought and died where they stood.

According to some Lakota accounts, many of the panicking soldiers threw down their weapons and either rode or ran towards the knoll where Custer, the other officers, and about 40 men were making a stand.

Along the way, the warriors rode them down, counting coup by striking the fleeing troopers with their quirts or lances.