View source for Felix Pitter

Place of Birth: Alesford

Date of enlistment: 4 September 1873

Age given at enlistment: 23 6/12

Rank: Private

Company: !

Location on 25 June 1876: With Custer's column



Felix James Pitter, the third child and only son of James Pitter, a master blacksmith, and Caroline (née Dorey) was baptised in the parish church of St. Peter Brown Candover, near Alresford, Hampshire, by the Rev. Stephen Terry on 10 February 1845.1

St. Peter's Church Brown Candover, Hampshire. Felix Pitter was baptised here. Author's collection.

Due to high rates of infant mortality it had long been the custom to baptise a child as soon after birth as possible and therefore it is not unreasonable to assume that Pitter was born late January or early in February 1845 at the Old Smithy in Duck Lane.2 However, as his birth was never registered, the exact date and location must remain uncertain. We do know that from the age of five he attended the brand new National School in the village, which was built at the expense of William Baring, 2nd Baron Ashburton, in 1850. No-one could possibly have imagined that this young Hampshire lad’s fate would be inextricably linked with a fellow blacksmith’s son from Ohio, on the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River in distant Montana Territory, late in the afternoon of Sunday, 25 June 1876.
Parents buried in St. Peter's Churchyard

When Felix was about 12 years-old the family moved to Alresford where his father carried on in business as a toolmaker, iron and brass founder, and blacksmith at the forge in Broad Street.3 Sadly ill health forced Pitter Snr. into early retirement and he returned to Brown Candover where he died of a ‘disease of the liver’ on 16 May 1862, aged 52.4 A little over eight years later, on Midsummer’s Day 1870, Caroline Pitter succumbed to a “12-hour attack of apoplexy” at the home of her daughter, Mrs Elizabeth Page, in the nearby village of Bramdean.5 James and Caroline lie buried in Brown Candover, a few yards due west of the main entrance of St. Peter’s church, where a weathered, but clearly decipherable, headstone marks the spot.
Enlists in 7th U.S.Cavalry

With both parents dead and his only surviving sister, Elizabeth, married with a family of her own it seems there was little to keep Felix Pitter in this country and, at some unknown date prior to 2 April 1871,6 he followed the well-trodden path of many a young Englishman to seek his fortune in America. Records show that on 4 September 1873 he was enlisted as a private in the United States Army at St. Louis, Missouri, by Captain Charles Bendire, 1st Cavalry, when he was described as being age 23, 5′ 6 1/4″ tall, having hazel eyes, dark brown hair, a fair complexion, previously employed as a grocer. Why he should choose to reduce his true age by a full five years is yet another question that is likely to remain unanswered. He was assigned to the 7th Cavalry on 24 September and to Company I three weeks later, which was then garrisoned at Fort Totten, on Devil’s Lake, Dakota Territory, under the command of the charismatic Irishman Captain Myles W. Keogh. Fellow countryman, Edward Lloyd, from Gloucester, was also assigned to Company I and both new recruits arrived at Fort Totten on 22 October 1873.7

Companies D and I8 spent the summer of 1874 as part of the military escort, under the overall command of Major Marcus Reno, to guard the Northern Boundary Survey Commission, which was charged with completing the important task of marking the border between the United States and Canada.9 On 30 May they left for Porcupine Creek, Montana Territory and arrived one month later having covered a distance of around 430 miles. From there they continued to march a further 326 miles west until reaching their final destination, the Three Buttes, or Sweet Grass Hills – an area sacred to the Blackfeet Indians – on 31 July where they set up the cavalry base camp.10 By early August the survey party’s work was done and both companies set off on the 750-odd mile return journey to Fort Totten, via Forts Peck and Buford, which they reached on the 14 September. Pitter remained at FortTotten until 17 April 1875 when Companies D and I were ordered to move to the regiment’s headquarters at Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory.

Pitter's bunk (centre) in Company I's barrack room, Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, North Dakota. An Alan Wellbelove photograph.
The Battle of the Little Big Horn

The next twelve months or so proved to be relatively uneventful for the 7th Cavalry but, as is well known to every student of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, events were about to unfold dramatically on 17 May 1876 when the regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, marched out of Fort Abraham Lincoln as part of Brigadier General Alfred Terry’s “Dakota Column” during the forthcoming Sioux campaign – around a third of this celebrated regiment had less than six weeks to live. As a member of Company I Pitter took part in the Reno Scout, which discovered the Indian trail leading towards the valley of the Little Bighorn and during the battle Companies C, I and L, under Captain Keogh, formed one of two battalions in Custer’s ill-fated column. History tells us that all five companies under Custer’s immediate command were quickly overwhelmed by a better armed and vastly superior number of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors and wiped out to a man. Pitter was most likely killed close to his company commander somewhere along Battle Ridge.11

As is the case with virtually all of the enlisted men Felix Pitter’s body was never formally identified and together with those of his comrades killed during the two-day battle his mortal remains were interred in the mass grave below the imposing monument on Custer Hilll.12

He is listed as F. J. PITTER on the battle monument.

 

Final Statement of Felix James Pitter signed by Captain Henry J. Nowlan, Commanding Company, at Fort Abraham Lincoln on 5 December 1876.

     DUE SOLDIER
     For retained pay under act of May 15, 1872 … $9.70
     For clothing not drawn in kind … $34.15
     Proceeds of sale of effects [April 26, 1877] … $30.00
     DUE UNITED STATES
     For tobacco … $1.71
    [This statement does not take into account basic pay due for the period May 1 to June 25, 1876.]