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Photographer: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division; John C. H.Grabill, photographer
Caption: The horse named, Comanche.
Additional Description: LC-DIG-ppmsc-02554 (digital file from original print) LC-USZ62-11937 (b&w film copy neg.) This incredible animal had been shot several times during the battle but when the army rummaged across the battlefield, bodies of both men and horses spread everywhere, the horse called Comanche was discovered, the hand of his dead master , Captain Myles Keogh still clutching the reins. Man and horse had been through much together. Comanche remained with his owner on Custer Hill. While all around him soldiers slaughtered their horses to hide behind and shoot, evidence and oral tradition shows that Keough crouched between Comanche’s legs, holding onto his reins, while he was fighting. Keough was killed, but his hands still clutched Comanche’s reins. Warriors left the horse alone; it would have been bad medicine to take a horse so closely tied to his owner that the man held the reins even in death.
Submitted: June 24, 2012, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina.
Database Locator Identification Number: p209069
File Size: 0.051 Megabytes

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