"Many noted scouts served with General Custer during his Indian campaigns, but his favorite of them all was Charles Reynolds, known as 'Lonesome Charley.'" -Mill Valley Record, December 31, 1921
Known by Indians as the "White Hunter That Never Goes Out For Nothing" because of his hunting prowess, "Lonesome" Charley Reynolds (1842–1876) was a scout in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. He was noted as an expert marksman, frontiersman and hunter. He had also been a scout with Buffalo Bill.
In the early 1870s, Reynolds was a hunter for the garrison at Fort Klee, N.D. He was a quiet little man who lived much to himself and preferred to hunt alone, no matter how many hostile Indians were near. Because of his disregard for human companionship, he became known by everyone as "Lonesome Charley."
When Custer started on his last campaign against the Sioux in 1876, Reynolds was offered the position of chief guide.
In 1897, mountain man John Henry Taylor (1845-1908), published the book "Sketches of Frontier and Indian Life on the Upper Missouri" which included a short 15-page article on Lonesome Charley, which has been republished here for the convenience of the interested reader.
In recalling a run-in Lonesome Charley had with Indians, Taylor writes:
"The veteran trader all at once found his premises surrounded by about two hundred Gros Ventres. Many of the agency employees noting the excitement and fearing the outcome, had hustled themselves over to Fort Berthold, and barred the gates. Malnorie, terribly excited, attempted to peacify the yelling mob of reds but failed. Once more they became angered, and some of them drew their knives and made a rush for the hunter's team...."
Reynolds was born in Warren County, Illinois. He was the son of a physician and moved with his family to Kansas in his teens. He attended Abingdon College, but left in 1860 to join the Union Army during the American Civil War.
After the war, he became known as "Lonesome" Charley Reynolds due to his drifting from state to state and job to job, and how he kept his life's details private. In 1865, he was a trader; in 1866, a buffalo hunter; and so on.
Reynolds left that area and became a hunter and guide. He met George Armstrong Custer in 1869. He was soon a scout for Custer's U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. During Custer's 1874 Black Hills Expedition, he carried unaccompanied the dispatches to Fort Laramie that made the discovery of gold public.
The night before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he had premonitions and gave away his personal items to the soldiers. As they were riding toward the Indian village prior to the battle, Reynolds, who never drank, asked interpreter Fred Gerard for some whiskey. He also indicated that he had never felt so discouraged or depressed in his life.
He was later killed in the battle. Some accounts suggest that he may have been defending a doctor who was treating a wounded soldier. His body was buried on the battlefield and his grave crudely marked. Later, as with all of Custer's slain soldiers and civilians, a white marble slab was erected to mark the spot where he fell. His remains, and those of his comrades, were collected and reinterred on Custer Hill. An obelisk commemorates the dead.
