UNPUBLISHED FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF LITTLE BIGHORN (GEORGE A. CUSTER.) Thomas O'Neill. With Reno at the Little Big Horn Fight (Custer’s Last Battle): The Thrilling Escape of Lieut. Chas. C. de Rudio and Sergeant Thomas O’Neill. [1]. 34 typescript pages. 4to, ½ polished calf, rubbed at extremities; minimal wear to contents; early bookplate on front pastedown. - [Los Angeles, 1924?]

A first-hand account by a sergeant who was separated from Major Reno at Little Bighorn, rejoining his regiment after several terrifying days of near-misses in the wilderness. The author wrote it in manuscript form in 1895 while serving in the park police in Washington, DC, and it was here transcribed by historian Earl A. Brininstool. This account was apparently never published in full, although it was extensively excerpted by Brininstool in the magazine Hunter-Trader-Trapper from March to May 1924 as "With Reno at the Little Big Horn," which was then published in Brininstool's 1925 book "Troopers with Custer: Historic Incidents of the Battle of the Little Big Horn," pages 125-152.



Provenance: Rt. Rev. Nathaniel Seymour Thomas (1867-1937), the second Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming (bookplate); his Anderson Galleries sale, 30 January 1929, lot 235; Parke-Bernet's Charles H.P. Yallalee sale, 24 November 1942, lot 140; and again the following year in Parke-Bernet's 23 March 1943 sale, lot 204, as the property of a "N.Y. Private Collector." One other copy known, at the Newberry Library. Theirs bears a slightly different title and is dated Los Angeles, 1924.