Gen Custer flag fetches 2.2m dlrs at NY auction

LONDON - The only American flag not captured or lost during Lt Gen George Armstrong Custer’s last stand at the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana has been sold for 2.2 million dollars at a New York auction.

The guidon, previously valued at five million dollars, was bought by a private US collector in the auction at Sotheby’s in New York, reports the BBC.

The 7th Cavalry flag was owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts, which paid just 54 dollars 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 Graham Beal, of the Detroit museum.

Gen Custer and more than 200 soldiers were massacred by Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors during their attempt to reclaim the Black Hills region from the Lakota as part of a US government campaign.

The flag was found beneath a dead American soldier following the battle.

The flag was renamed Culbertson Guidon after Sgt Ferdinand Culbertson, a member of the burial party who recovered it from the field. (ANI)