BILLINGS, Mont. — After spending much of the past century in storage, the only U.S. flag not captured or lost during Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn sold at auction Friday for $2.2 million.
The buyer was identified by the New York auction house Sotheby’s as an American private collector. Frayed, torn and with possible bloodstains, the flag had been valued before its sale at up to $5 million.
The 7th U.S. Cavalry flag — known as a “guidon” for its swallow-tailed shape — had been the property of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which paid just $54 for it in 1895.
“We’ll be using the proceeds to strengthen our collection of Native American art, which has a rather nice irony to it, I think,” said the Detroit museum’s director, Graham Beal.
George Armstrong Custer and more than 200 troopers were killed by Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors in the infamous 1876 battle. Of the five guidons carried by Custer’s battalion, only one was immediately recovered, from beneath the body of a fallen trooper.
While Custer’s reputation has risen and fallen over the years — once considered a hero, he is regarded by some contemporary scholars as an inept leader and savage Indian killer — the guidon has emerged as the stuff of legend.
The other flags were thought captured by the Indians.
