The Widowed Moment

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The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Molly Garrett McIntosh declined to attend the burial of her husband, First Lieutenant Donald McIntosh, at Fort Leavenworth on August 3, 1877.  She left Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory in late July 1876, a broken woman with no idea how she would go on without her beloved.  First Lieutenant McIntosh, the thirty-seven-year-old commander of the Seventh Cavalry’s Company G, fell with the other officers at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  His remains had been identified by his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Frank Gibson.  Gibson was with the Seventh’s Company H and part of the detail dispatched to the scene to recover and bury the bodies of his fellow soldiers.  According to a report from Lieutenant Charles F. Roe who rode with Gibson on the detail, Donald’s body was found close to the banks of the Little Bighorn River.  He had been stripped and scalped; his head was “pounded to jelly.”  His remains were identified by the special sleeve buttons found near where his body lay.  The “gutta-percha” buttons had been a present from Molly and presented to him just before he had ridden out with General Custer to Montana.*  She secretly had had them sewn on his uniform.

Not long after leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln to return to Baltimore to live with her mother, Molly learned of the condition of her husband’s body.  She was desperate to find out what had happened to Donald.  She knew he kept a journal of his activities.  It was a small, dark book he always kept tucked in the pocket of his uniform.  Molly wanted to know if the journal had been located.  She also wanted to know if his wedding ring had been taken by the Indians after the battle.  The ring, gold with a small diamond, bore the initials inside of both Donald and Molly along with the number sixty-six for 1866, the year the two were married.  Neither his journal nor his wedding ring was located.  Molly’s sister Katherine, wife of Lieutenant Frank Gibson, thought it was cruel not to let her know the truth and gently explained what Frank had shared with her about Donald’s death.  Molly was grateful but imagining how her husband suffered drove her to her parents’ home where she shut herself away.

Molly’s father, Milton Garrett, had passed away in 1869, and her mother Mary was alone and in poor health.  Molly was there to take care of her.  Apart from Mary, Molly saw no one.  She isolated herself from the world to grieve the loss of her spouse alone.

To learn more about Molly McIntosh and her friends read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn