Mitch Bouyer

Mitch Bouyer (sometimes spelled 'Bowyer', 'Buoyer', or 'Buazer'; or, in Creole, 'Boye'- the proper French spelling is "Boyer") (1837–1876) was an interpreter/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 on June 25, 1876.

He was born Michel Bouyer in 1837. His father, John Baptiste, was French, and employed with the American Fur Company, trading with Sioux in the Wyoming area. His mother was Santee Sioux. His father was killed by Indians while trapping, sometime before 1871. He had three full sisters: Marie, Anne, and Therese, which 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?), who 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.

In 1869, Mitch courted and 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 later named James LeForge (see below).

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

At the Crow's Nest, Bouyer was one of the scouts warning Custer about the size of the village, with Custer claiming he couldn't make it out. He said to Custer, "General, I have been with these Indians for 30 years, and this is the largest village I have ever known of." After having failed to convince Custer, it is reported that Bouyer gave away his possessions as he was convinced he would die in the upcoming battle. There was a report that Sitting Bull had offered a bounty of 100 ponies for Bouyer's head.

When the command was divided into 3 battalions, around Noon, Bouyer was assigned to Custer's, which was almost completely wiped out later. There were only about a dozen survivors, all of which, except Curley, had left the main group before the battle started. Soldiers during Reno's fight claimed to have seen Lt. Col. Custer on the bluffs watching the retreat, but this was later shown probably to be Bouyer and Curley, who had ridden ahead of the main force.

There are conflicting reports as where his body was found or even if it was. W. R. Logan, who claimed to have known Bouyer well, claimed to have found his 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 very few survivors of the Custer battalion, thought he had seen Bouyer's body in a gultch with about 28 others about 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 put the body in a flat area northwest of the monument near the river, saying it was badly mutilated.

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

Bouyer seems to have been a rather flamboyant character. In the photo, 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 battle.

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

Mitch Bouyer, Traitor?

In 1985, Henry Weibert and his son Don published a book, Sixty-Six Years in Custer's Shadow, in which they analyzed the battle in light of an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Amongst their theories was the claim that the Seventh had been led into a trap by Bouyer; who, when the Custer battle started, shot Lt. Col. Custer in the head. He then was shot by cavalrymen as he tried to escape. Although several other writers had speculated that the Seventh had been entrapped, this was probably the only one to point the finger at Bouyer. Other historians denounce this idea, pointing out that the idea goes against everything that we know about Bouyer's character; it would also have been tantamount to a personal betrayal of his family and friends of many years' standing among the Crow.

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

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)