John Burkman, a private in the 7th Cavalry, was the caretaker for the General's animals. It is well known that he cared dearly for Custer's favorite mounts Vic and Dandy, but he also probably was caretaker for the hounds. Burkman was not the brightest of soldiers, and his assignment as the caretaker for Custer's animals might have prolonged his careeer in the army. On the morning of the 25th of June, Custer, knowing the deficiencies of Burkman, assigned him to the pack train. Burkman was clearly disappointed to be left behind while his commander went into battle. Custer, seeing this, tried to console Burkman by telling him that if "we should have to send for more ammunition you can come in on the home stretch." After finding out about the death of his leader, Burkman was forever regretful that he had not died with Custer. After he was mustered out of service, Burkman spent the last 30 years of his life in Billings, Montana. It is said that he was quiet and withdrawn and was obsessed about not being with Custer to the end. He became despondent, and one day was found dead, at age 88, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the porch of his boarding house. His story has been preserved in a book about him by G.D. Wagner, Old Neutriment published in 1934.

Mrs. Custer, in her own inimitable style, left us some insight on just what Burkman was like. "The soldier who took care of him was the strangest contrast to the whole party.... Indeed, he seemed so much out of place in a cavalry camp that I wanted always to ticket him 'lost, strayed, or stolen.' He was slow of speech, thought, and movement, but in affectionate fidelity he was to be trusted even above the gayer and more active trooper. The man lived in a world by himself, with little in common with his comrades, going along a dull, beaten path at a snail's pace, while all the wild would of a cavalry camp, with its incessant excitements, its exhilaration, its enthusiasm, sung, shouted. and careered about him. Nothing moved him to a laugh; and if he had whistled I should have sent for the surgeon, thinking he had gone daft. ...His horizon encompassed two horses, some dogs, and one yellow-haired officer. He may have had a past-a bald spot on his no longer youthful head spoke of one-but no reference was made to it; nor did he seem to wish for a future in which Dandy, Vic, Blucher, Tuck, and Cardigan(his favorite dogs) and their master were not included."