Mitch Bouyer

Mitch Bouyer (sometimes spelled 'Bowyer', 'Buoyer', or 'Buazer', or in Creole, 'Boye') (1837–June 25, 1876) was an interpreter and guide in the Old West following the American Civil War. General John Gibbon called him "next to Jim Bridger, the best guide in the country". He was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Early years

He was born Michel Bouyer in 1837. His father, John Baptiste Bouyer, was a French Canadian who was employed by the American Fur Company, trading with Sioux in the Wyoming area. Mitch's mother was a Santee Sioux. His father was killed by Indians while trapping, about 1863. Mitch's Indian name was Kar-pash. He had three full sisters: Marie, Anne, and Therese, who seem to have been triplets born in 1840. He also had at least two half-brothers: John Bouyer (c. 1845-1871), who was hung at Fort Laramie for killing an Army scout in the first legal execution in Wyoming Territory, and Antoine Bouyer (born 1852?), whom Walter Mason Camp interviewed in 1912. John, in an interview just before he was hung, stated that there had been others who had already died.

Mitch was an interpreter at Fort Phil Kearny in 1868. In the fall of 1869, he married a young Crow woman named Magpie Outside (or Magpie Out-of-Doors), who became known as Mary. Their first child, also named Mary, was born in 1870. Sometime later they also had a son, apparently named Tom, but eventually called James LeForge (see below).

Army scout and death at the Little Big Horn

Bouyer became a civilian guide and interpreter for the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. In 1876 Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer requested that Bouyer be transferred to the 7th U.S. Cavalry as an interpreter for the Crow scouts when Gen. Alfred Terry ordered the 7th south from the Montana Column to search for Indians. Custer's regular scouts were Ree (Arikara). However, for this mission, Terry had assigned six of Lt. James Bradley's Crow scouts to the 7th (including Curley). Bouyer had the additional bonus of knowing the country well.

At the Crow's Nest, Bouyer was one of the scouts who warned Custer about the size of the village, which Custer claimed he couldn't make out. Bouyer told him, "General, I have been with these Indians for 30 years, and this is the largest village I have ever known of." After failing to convince Custer, it is reported Bouyer gave away his possessions, since he was convinced he would die in the coming battle. There was a report that Sitting Bull had offered a bounty of 100 ponies for Bouyer's head.

When Custer's command was divided into 3 battalions, around noon, Bouyer was assigned to accompany Custer, whose battalion would be almost completely wiped out. There were only about a dozen survivors of Custer's battalion, all of whom, except for Curley, had left it before the battle began. Soldiers in Reno's fight claimed to have seen Custer on the bluffs watching the retreat, but this was later shown probably to have been Bouyer and Curley, who had ridden ahead of the main force.

There are conflicting reports as to where Bouyer's body was found. W. R. Logan, who claimed to have known Bouyer well, said he had found the body about halfway between Custer Hill and Reno Hill. His belief was that Bouyer had been carrying a message for Reno. (John Martin had been dispatched to Benteen, with the third battalion.) Sgt. Knipe, who was one of the few survivors of the Custer battalion, thought he had seen Bouyer's body in a gulch with about 28 others a kilometer from the monument.. Peter Thompson claimed to have seen Bouyer near the Indian village on the WEST side of the river, as did an account by 6 Arapahoes who had been captive 'guests' of the Sioux village. Lt. Roe placed the body in a flat area northwest of the monument near the river, saying it had been badly mutilated.

In 1984, a fire burned through much of the Custer Battlefield, enabling archaeological digs to be made. Part of a skull was found that was identified as Bouyer's by comparison of the facial bones with the only photograph known of him. The skull was found to the west of the monument on Custer Hill, at what is called the 'South Skirmish Line'.

Bouyer seems to have been a flamboyant character. In the photograph, he is wearing a fur hat with 2 woodpeckers one on either side, and he was wearing a piebald calf's vest the day of the fatal battle.

After Bouyer's death, his widow Mary was taken in by his close friend, Thomas Leforge. When his own wife died, Leforge married Mary and adopted her children. This is probably when Mitch's son was renamed, as Leforge had a son of his own named Tom. Mary died in 1916.

Claim of duplicity

In 1985, Henry Weibert and his son Don published a book called Sixty-Six Years in Custer's Shadow, in which they analyzed the battle in light of their intimate knowledge of the terrain. Amongst their theories was the idea that the Seventh Cavalry had been led by Bouyer into a trap. When the Custer battle began, Bouyer shot Custer in the head. He was then himself shot dead by soldiers as he tried to escape. Although other writers had speculated that the Seventh may have been entrapped, this was the only book to point a finger at Bouyer. Most historians ridicule the idea, saying out that it goes against everything known about Bouyer's character. It would also have been a personal betrayal of his family and friends of many years' standing among the Crow.

In a later book, written after his father died, Don Weibert, though repeating many of the earlier conclusions about how the battle was fought, dropped the Mitch-as-traitor claim.

References

• Connell, Evan S.; Son of the Morning Star: Custer And The Little Bighorn. (1985)
• Gray, John S.; Custer's Last Campaign (1991)
• Hammer, Ken, ed.; Custer in '76: Walter Camp's Notes on the Custer Fight. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1976.
• Weibert, Henry & Don; Sixty-Six Years in Custer's Shadow (1985)