JIM LYNCH, The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Nearly 20 years after the Battle of Little Big Horn, a Detroit newspaperman described one of the conflict's surviving relics.
"I have something with me here that tells mutely of butchery almost unparalleled in the history of our country," wrote Charles C. Colbrath in a Detroit newspaper in 1895. "It was the silent witness of the slaughter of a band of gallant men."
That witness was the tattered and torn battle flag - a guidon - carried into the action by members of Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Seventh Calvary regiment on June 25, 1876. By the time the battle ended, 268 U.S. soldiers were dead, including Custer, at the hands of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho.
At 2 p.m. today, after decades in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the guidon will be auctioned at Sotheby's in New York City. Estimates of what the flag may go for range between $2 million and $5 million. Not bad for an item the museum picked up 115 years ago for $54.
"We will use the proceeds to strengthen our Native American (art) collection," said DIA director Graham Beal, who is in New York this week for the auction. Museum officials are offering the flag for auction since it doesn't fit with the institution's focus on art.
The guidon has never been displayed at the DIA, but it was available for public viewing during a 30-year stretch before 1982 when it was on loan to the National Park Service.
But the willingness of DIA officials to part with the Custer flag has not gone over well with everyone.
Forty miles southwest of the museum, the city of Monroe features of 14-foot-tall statue of Custer titled "Sighting the Enemy." The sculpture depicts Custer prior to leading his Michigan troops into combat at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Born in Ohio, Custer arrived in Monroe when he was 10 years old and stayed through his high school years before joining the military. Eventually, most of his family would locate there, and he would meet his wife in Monroe while on leave.
Local historians said they hate to see an artifact with such a strong connection to a local figure go away -- particularly if it means the flag will no longer be available for public viewing. Should the Sotheby's auction end with the flag in a private collector's hands, there is no guarantee it will be made available to the public again.
"It's unfortunate," said Chris Kull, archivist with the Monroe County Historical Museum. "But times being what they are and the fact that the flag is not technically a piece of art ? I'm not really sure what the best thing for them to do is."
Dave Ingall, a 51-year-old Monroe resident who has worked on the county museum's Custer collections, called the flag's auction a "shame."
Ingall, whose earlier family members were associates of Custer's family, said there are institutions in the state that could properly care for and display the flag, including the Henry Ford Museum and the state's historical museum.
"It's a shame that this will be leaving the state given the fact we're talking about one of the most famous Michigan figures in history," he said. "I know from talking to other people around here, they're just sick about it. This could wind up being purchased and taken out of the country."