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Roman Rutten's Story of the Battle
A 7th Cavalry survivor's account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

THE STORY OF PRIVATE ROMAN RUTTEN

APPROACHING FORD A, Rutten's horse, as soon as he smelled Indians, began to act up badly and he could not control him. The only thing he could do was to continually circle him around the 3 troops. The horse kept this up after passing Ford A and when got down near the skirmish line, the horse lunged ahead of the command and took him considerably nearer the Indians. He therefore circled him around to the right, and came back through the timber and joined command.

Rutten was not wounded in this movement (as Wm. E. Morris states) but was wounded in the shoulder on the hill the next day. Says Sergt. O'Hara was first man killed, and he fell on skirmish line.2 Soon all went into the timber and began to mount up. He heard lst Sergt. Ryan ask Capt. French where they were going or where he (French) thought they had better go, and while French's mind seemed to be diverted for the moment, as though he was considering what answer to make, Reno rode past to the border of the timber and cried: "Everybody follow me."

Lorentz was hit in the timber, and Streing outside but near the edge of the timber.3 As Rutten left the timber, a solid line of Indians, as many as 200, he would think, rode up on his right and had stopped or nearly stopped, and were doing some very loud yelling as the soldiers were getting out of the timber. A few of these Indians were firing into the retreating soldiers but most of them were giving vent to a variety of Ha Ha's and Haw Haws...

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