Giovanni Martini Day

Couldn't let the day pass without a reference to the Little Bighorn, and my personal favorite player, Giovanni Martini, aka George Martin.

While this site usually focuses on more recent Aboriginal History, I can't let June 25 pass without reference to the Battle of the Little Bighorn or what my family and I, being of Italian ancestry, like to call Giovanni Martini Day.

You may know him as George Martin, Custer's bugler who served as his orderly for the day and may very well have been the last survivor to glimpse Custer alive. At the point when Custer apparently realized that he had more Indians on his hands than he had bargained for, he waived Giovanni Martini over and barked out some orders. In the best of circumstances, the recent Italian immigrant might have had difficulty understanding, but Custer also had a tendency to come out a little garbled when in a hurry. At any rate, Lieutenant William W. Cooke thought it best to scribble a note. The words are now famous:

"Benteen. Come on. Big Village. Be Quick. Bring Packs.

W. W. Cooke.

P. bring packs."

Despite Giovanni Martini's later depiction--"The last I saw of the command they were going down into the ravine. The gray horse troop was in the center and they were galloping"--this particular episode has always conjurs a humorous scene in my mind. I can't help but see Giovanni Martini as Manuel in the old BBC series, Fawlty Towers, while Custer, flustered and barely comprehensible, struggles to make him understand.

"You want I go between? That makes no sense."

"Not between, you idiot--Benteen."

"Oh, Benteen...sorry Mr. Custer, he no here."

"I know he's not here. I sent him on a scout."

"Well, if you send him out on scout, why you think he here?"

Of course the reality is that Giovanni Martini did deliver the message, and his leaving is the last we know for certain of what transpired that afternoon. Volumes have been written speculating why Custer sent Benteen out on that scout, whether he took his Indian scouts seriouly when they told him the size of the camp, whether Benteen or Reno could have done more, and whether it would have made a difference.

I'll leave that to the Custerphiles and phobes to sort out. I have much more fun speculating on that fateful conversation between Custer and the recent Italian immigrant, Giovanni Martini.

Also see Foreshadowing the Little Bighorn