Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Battle Of Little Bighorn shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Battle Of Little Bighorn offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Battle Of Little Bighorn at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Battle Of Little Bighorn? Wrong! If the Battle Of Little Bighorn is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Battle Of Little Bighorn then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Battle Of Little Bighorn? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Battle Of Little Bighorn and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Battle Of Little Bighorn wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Battle Of Little Bighorn then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Battle Of Little Bighorn site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Battle Of Little Bighorn, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Battle Of Little Bighorn, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

{{Infobox Military Conflict|conflict=Battle of the Little Bighorn|partof=the Black Hills War, [1876, artist unknown] – June 26, 1876, [Big Horn County, Montana,
[Northern Cheyenne,
Arapaho|commander1=[Sitting Bull,
Crazy Horse †,
[Marcus Reno,
Frederick Benteen,
James Calhoun (soldier) †|strength1=949 lodges (probably 950-1,200 warriors)|strength2=31 officers,
566 troopers,
15 armed civilians,
~35-40 scouts|casualties1=At least 54 killed,
~168 wounded (according to Sitting Bull and Red Horse); or 136 killed, 160 wounded|casualties2=~268 killed (16 officers, 242 troopers, 10 civilians/scouts),
~55 wounded-->The Battle of the Little Bighorn — also known as Custer's Last Stand and Custer Massacre and, in the parlance of the relevant Native Americans in the United Statess, the Battle of the Greasy Grass — was an armed engagement between a Lakota people-Northern Cheyenne combined force and the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It occurred June 25–June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in the eastern Montana Territory.

The battle was the most famous action of the Indian Wars and was a remarkable victory for the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. A U.S. cavalry detachment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was annihilated. It was, however, not the greatest Indian military victory over U.S. forces; that was the Battle of the Wabash in 1791, when Little Turtle and an alliance of Ohio tribesmen killed and wounded nearly a thousand U.S. soldiers.

Prelude to battle Thousands of Indians had slipped away from their Indian reservation through early 1876. Military officials planned a three-pronged expedition to corral them and force them back to the reservations, using both infantry and cavalry, as well as a small detachment of Gatling guns. Brigadier General George Crook's column moved north from Fort Fetterman in the Wyoming Territory toward the Powder River (Montana) area. Colonel John Gibbon's column of 6 companies of the 7th infantry and four of the 2nd ACR marched east from Fort Ellis in western Montana Territory. The third column under Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry (including George Custer's 7th Cavalry; Companies B, D and I, 6th U.S. Infantry; Companies C & G, 17th U.S. Infantry; and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry) departed westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. They were accompanied by teamsters and packers with 150 wagons and a large contingent of pack mules.See Sarf for a breakdown of the composition of each of these columns.

The coordination and planning went awry on June 17 when Crook's column was delayed after the Battle of the Rosebud and was forced to stop and regroup. Gibbon and Terry proceeded, joining forces in late June near the mouth of the Rosebud River. They formulated a plan that called for Custer's regiment to proceed up the Rosebud River, while Terry and Gibbon's united columns would proceed up the Bighorn River and Little Bighorn rivers. The officers hoped to trap the Indian village between these two forces. After discovering a large Indian trail on June 15, the 7th Cavalry split from the remainder of the Terry column on June 22 and began a pursuit along the trail. Custer was offered the use of the Gatling guns but declined, saying they would slow his command.See Panzeri.. He also declined the offer of two further companies of cavalry on the basis that his regiment could handle anything they found without other assistance.Custer's scouts arrived at an overlook 14 miles (23 km) east of the Little Bighorn River on the night of June 24, as the Terry/Gibbon column was marching toward the mouth of the Little Bighorn.



7th Cavalry organization and deployment The 7th Cavalry was a veteran organization created just after the American Civil War. Several men were veterans of the war, including many of the leading officers. A significant portion of the regiment had previously served four-and-a-half years at Ft. Riley, Kansas, during which time it fought one major engagement and numerous skirmishes, experiencing casualties of thirty-six killed and twenty-seven wounded. Six other troopers had died of drowning and fifty-one from cholera epidemics.

Half of the 7th Cavalry had just returned from eighteen months of constabulary duty in the deep South, having been recalled to Fort Abraham Lincoln to reassemble the regiment for the campaign. Approximately 20% of the troopers had been enlisted in the prior seven months (139 of an enlisted roll of 718), were only marginally trained, and had no combat or frontier experience. A sizable number of these recruits were immigrants from Ireland, England, and Prussia, just as many of the veteran troopers had been prior to their enlistments.

Of the 44 officers and 718 troopers then assigned to the 7th Cavalry (including a second lieutenant detached from the 20th Infantry and serving in L Troop), 13 officers (including the regimental commander, Col. Samuel D. Sturgis, who was on detached duty) and 152 troopers did not accompany the 7th during the campaign. Among those left behind at Fort Abraham Lincoln was the regimental band.

Following a night forced march on June 24–June 25, in which Crow Tribe scouts reported to Custer the presence of what was judged a very large encampment of Indians, Custer divided the 7th Cavalry into four detachments:









Each of the first three detachments was to seek out the Indian encampments, attack them, and hold them in place until the other two detachments arrived to support. Custer had employed similar tactics in 1868 during the Battle of the Washita.

Battle Reno's attack The first detachment to attack was Major Reno's, conducted after receiving orders from Custer issued by Lt. William W. Cooke. The orders, made without accurate knowledge of the village's size, location, or propensity to stand and fight, were to pursue the Indians and "bring them to battle". However, Custer did promise to "support... with the whole outfit". Reno's force crossed the Little Bighorn at the mouth of what is today called Reno Creek and immediately realized that the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne were present "in force and ...not running away".Sending a message to Custer, but hearing nothing in return, Reno advanced rapidly northward, stating that he drove the enemy "with ease". However, he suspected "a trap" and stopped a few hundred yards short of the encampment, dismounting and deploying in a skirmish line, as standard army doctrine called for. In deploying in a skirmish line, every fourth trooper handled the horses for the troopers taking firing positions, thus immediately reducing the fighting force by 25%%. The troopers on the skirmish line were positioned five to ten yards apart, with officers just to their rear and the troopers with horses behind the officers. After about 20 minutes of long distance firing, Reno's battalion had taken only one casualty but the odds against him had become more obvious (Reno estimated five to one) and Custer had not reinforced him. Trooper Billy Jackson reported that by then, the Indians had massed for a mounted attack by more than 500 warriors,Goodrich, Thomas. Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. p. 242 turning Reno's exposed left flank and forcing him into a hasty withdrawal into the timber in a loop of the river.Perrett, Bryan. Last Stand: Famous Battles Against the Odds. London: Arms & Armour, 1993; p.8 Here the Indians pinned Reno and his men down, and he then was forced to make a disorderly retreat across the river to reach the high ground of the bluffs on the other side. The retreat was confused and immediately disrupted by Cheyenne attacks at close quarters. Reno later reported that 3 officers and 29 troopers were killed during the retreat and the subsequent ford (river) of the river, with another officer and 13-18 men missing, left behind in the woods, although most of these men eventually rejoined the detachment.Atop the bluffs, Reno's shaken troops soon linked up with the detachment of Captain Benteen, arriving from the south. This force had been on its lateral scouting mission when it had been summoned by a messenger from Custer to "Come on...big village, be quick...bring pacs...". (This messenger was John Martin, a trumpeter, who was the last white person to see Custer alive and survive the battle.) Benteen's coincidental arrival on the bluffs was just in time to save Reno's men from possible annihilation. Their detachments were then reinforced by McDougall and the pack train. The 14 officers and 340 troopers on the bluffs organized an all-around defense and dug defensive fighting position.Despite hearing heavy gunfire from the north, Benteen concentrated on reinforcing Reno's badly wounded and hard-pressed battalion, rather than continuing on toward Custer. After an hour, nearing five o'clock and the end of the Custer fight, Capt. Thomas Weir and Company D moved out against orders to make contact with Custer. They advanced a mile and could see Lakota shooting in the distance, but fell under considerable pressure themselves and were driven back to the position occupied by Reno and Benteen. The other companies eventually followed by assigned battalions, first Benteen, then Reno, and finally the pack train, but growing Lakota attacks forced all seven companies to return to the bluff before the pack train, with the ammunition, had moved even a quarter mile. There they remained pinned down for another day, but the Indians were unable to breach this tightly held position the way they had Custer's strung-out lines. Benteen's apparent reluctance prompted later criticism that he had failed to follow orders.

Custer's fight The gunfire heard on the bluffs was from Custer's fight. His force of 208 was engaged by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne approximately 3.5 miles (6 km) to the north. Having driven Reno's force away from the encampment and isolated it, the bulk of the warriors were free to pursue Custer. The route taken by Custer to his "Last Stand" remains a subject of debate. One possibility is that after ordering Reno to charge, Custer continued down Reno Creek to within about a half mile (800 m) of the Little Bighorn, but then turned north, and climbed up the bluffs, reaching the same spot to which Reno would soon retreat. From this point, he could see Reno, on the other side of the river, charging the village.

Custer then rode north along the bluffs, and descended into a drainage called Medicine Tail Coulee, which led to the river. Some historians believe that part of Custer's force descended the coulee, going west to the river and attempting unsuccessfully to cross into the village. Indian accounts, historically dismissed by White military historians, report that he attempted first to ford the river at the north end of the camp. Gunfire from Indian sharpshooters, however, drove Custer and his men back. One account notes that Indian sharpshooters guarding the ford shot several of the cavalrymen, including one in a buckskin jacket, off their horses, and that the other trooper had to dismount to help one of the wounded men back onto his horse.Michno, 1997, pp. 117-119 This scenario would explain Reno's attack, and would indicate the Custer intended to coordinate with Reno in a hammer-and-anvil attack, with Reno holding the Indians at bay the southern end of the camp, while Custer drove them against Reno's line, coming down from the north.

Traditional historians, however, claim that Custer never approached the river, but rather continued north across the coulee and up the other side, where he gradually came under attack. According to this theory, by the time Custer realized he was badly outnumbered by the Indians who had come from the Reno fight, it was too late to break back through to the south, where Reno and Benteen could have provided reinforcements.

By all accounts, within less than 30 minutes,Miller, David Humphries, "Custer's Fall", Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985, pg 158Graham, Benteen letter to Capt. R.E. Thompson, pg 211Graham, Gall's Narrative, p. 88 Custer's force was completely annihilated. Only two men from the 7th Cavalry later claimed to have seen Custer engage the Indians: a young Crow, Ashishishe, who was known by his translated name Curley, and a trooper named Peter Thompson (soldier) who had fallen behind Custer's column. Most White accounts of the last moments of Custer's forces are conjecture but there were a number of eyewitness accounts collected from Indians at the time and for many years later.Miller, David Humphries, "Custer's Fall", Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985For an analysis of Curley's account, see Graham, pp. 10-18. Fox, pp. 316-317 discusses Thompson. Michno's 1997 masterpiece, Lakota Noon, provides the best modern collection and analysis of the Indian accounts. The Lakota asserted that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of Lakota that overwhelmed the cavalrymen.Graham, pp. 45-56.Michno, 1997

Exact numbers are difficult to determine, but it is commonly estimated that the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota outnumbered the 7th Cavalry by approximately 3:1 (1800-600)cf. Michno's account of the numbers, pp. 10-20. He gives a low estimate of about 1000 warriors. Other scholars have given much higher numbers, upwards of 3000. A moderate number, 1800-2000, has been advocated by Fox and Utley., a ratio which was extended to 9:1 after Custer's command became the focus of the fighting and the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors massed together against it. It has long been claimed in defense of Custer that some of the Indians were armed with repeating Spencer repeating rifle and Winchester rifles, while the 7th Cavalry carried single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, which had a slow rate of fire and tended to jam when overheated. The Springfield Model 1873 carbines had been issued with a copper cartridge. Troopers soon discovered that the copper expanded in the breech when heated upon firing and jammed the rifle, by preventing extraction of the fired cartridge case, requiring manual extraction with a knife blade, rendering the carbines useless in combat except as a club. The opposing warriors carried a large variety of weapons, from bows and arrows to (allegedly) Henry rifles, a fact confirmed by the archaeological finds of a number of .44-40 cartridges, the round used by the Henry rifle.Michno, 1997, pp. 212, 226 The real damage, however, was done with bows and arrows. In fact, many Indians, including the thirteen year-old Black Elk took their first six-shooter, rifle or carbine off of dead troopers at the Greasy Grass.Michno, 1997, pp. 85, 98. The Sioux warrior White Bull described the Indians as systematically stripping slain troopers of their pistols, cartridge belts, and carbines, so that as the losses mounted among Custer's men, and his firepower decreased, the gunfire from the Indians steadily increased.Vestal, Stanley. Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux Told in a Biography of Chief White Bull. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1934; also, Michno, 1997, p. 216-217: testimony of Red Hawk; p. 221: testimonry of Iron Hawk.

The Indian accounts, including paintings on buffalo hides after the fight, indicate a fight between bows and arrows on the one hand, and cavalry pistols on the other.Michno, 1997, p. 221: testimony of Iron Hawk, and elsewhere. This representation supports the fact that the Army's carbines had malfunctioned. Moreover, the terrain of the battlefield gave Lakota and Cheyenne bows an advantage, since Custer's troops were pinned in a depression on higher ground from which they could not use direct fire at the Indians in defilade. On the other hand, the Lakota and Cheyenne were able to shoot their arrows from cover into the depression by launching them in high arching indirect fire, with the volume of arrows ensuring severe casualties. Indeed, the puffs of smoke from the troopers' carbines betrayed their individual positions to the Indians in the brush below the ridge. U.S. small arms might have been more accurate over open distances, but the fighting on this occasion was close combat where rate of fire and reliability of a weapon were more important attributes.

Most of the dead cavalrymen had had their skulls crushed with the typical plains Indian war club--the painted femur of an elk or bison, or any of a number of styles of heavy, stone-headed war clubs.cf. Goodrich, p. 246. For illustrations of the war clubs, see Mails, Thomas E. Mystic Warriors of the Plains. New York: Marlowe & Co., 1996. pp. 464-71. For his part, Custer was known to have owned a pair of Webley Revolver RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) double action revolvers, chambered in .442 Webley, which he used at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, instead of the Colt Single Action Army, issued to his troops. John A. Doerner, Chief Historian, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Custer's resistance Recent archaeological work at the battlefield site indicates that Custer initially deployed his troops in skirmish lines per Army doctrine, with the troopers divided into groups of four with one man holding the horses, and three firing. This deployment would have resulted in a reduction of Custer's effective firepower to just over 170 troopers strung out over several long skirmish lines. As individual troopers were killed, wounded or their carbines jammed, the soldiers' effective rate of fire decreased, and these skirmish lines became untenable.Fox, pp. 295-318. The History Channel series Battlefield Detectives suggested in 2003 that there may not have been a 'last stand' as it has come down to us through history. Instead, archaeologists suggested that Custer's troops weren't surrounded and picked off but rather simply swamped by a single charge. This scenario corresponds to the Indian accounts insofar as Crazy Horse's charge broke the back of the resistance, with the surviving soldiers fleeing as best they could towards Custer's position at the northern end of the ridge. At this point, the fight became a "buffalo run", with the warriors riding down the fleeing troopers, and whacking them with their lances and coup sticks.Michno, 1997, p. 215: testimony of Yellow Nose. According to the Indian accounts, about 40 men made a stand around Custer, delivering rapid volley fire,Michno, 1997, pp. 284-285 after the model of a British square. Most of the Indian casualties were suffered in this closing segment of the fight.

The Sioux Chief Red Horse, who fought at the Greasy Grass, informed Col. W. H. Wood, that the Indians suffered 136 dead, and 160 wounded during the entire Battle of the Greasy Grass.Graham, Col. W. A. The Custer Myth. NY, Bonanza Books, 1953, pg 60. David Humphries Miller, who between 1935 and 1955 interviewed the last Indian survivors of the battle, wrote that the Custer fight, lasted less than one-half hour.Miller, David Humphreys, Custer's Fall, the Indian Side of the Story. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985, (reprint of 1957 edition) pg 158

While many of Custer's troops were recruits who did not possess an adequate level of military training and skill, archaeological evidence also suggests that they were undernourished and in poor physical condition. However, that was usually the case in the army at this time.Barnard, pp. 121-136.

The aftermath After the Custer force was annihilated, the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne regrouped to attack Reno and Benteen. The fight continued until dark (approximately 9:00 p.m. by local timekeeping) and for much of the next day, with the outcome in doubt. Reno credited Benteen's leadership with repulsing a severe attack on the portion of the perimeter held by Companies H and M.Reno Court of Inquiry On June 26 the column under Terry approached from the north, and the Indians drew off in the opposite direction. The wounded were given what treatment was available at that time; five later died of their wounds. Two of the regiment's three surgeons had been with Custer's column; the remaining doctor was assisted by interpreter Fred Gerard.

The soldiers on Reno Hill did not know what had happened to Custer three miles north until after the Lakota and Cheyenne withdrew. An examination was made of the Custer battle site. The Indian dead had mostly been removed from the field. The 7th's dead were identified as best as possible and hastily buried where they fell. Custer was found to have been shot in the left temple and in the left chest; either wound would have been fatal. He also suffered a wound to the arm. Some Lakota oral histories assert that Custer committed suicide to avoid capture and subsequent torture or death—as Custer believed—but he was right-handed. His body was found near the top of "Last Stand Hill" where a large obelisk inscribed with the names of the 7th's dead now stands. Most of the dead had been stripped of their clothing, mutilated, and were in an advanced state of decomposition, such that identification of many of the bodies was impossible.Brininstool, 60-62.

From the evidence, it was impossible to determine what exactly had transpired, but there was evidence of prolonged organized resistance (according to Indian and federal testimonies Michno, "Lakota Noon", Mountain Press Publishing. ). Several days after the battle, the young Crow scout Curley gave an account of the battle which indicated that Custer had attacked the village after crossing the river at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee and had been driven back across the river, retreating up the slope to the hill where his body was later found.Fox, pp. 10-13. This scenario seemed compatible with Custer's aggressive style of warfare, and with some of the evidence found on the ground, and formed the basis for many of the popular accounts of the battle.

Custer then released the Crow Scouts, including Curley and White Man Runs Him, from their duty.(White Man Runs Him was the first to tell General Terry's officers that Custer's force had "been wiped out".)Estimates of Lakota and Cheyenne casualties widely vary, from as few as 36 dead (from Indian listings of the dead by name) to as many as 300. The 7th Cavalry suffered 52% casualties: 16 officers and 242 troopers killed or died of wounds, 1 officer and 51 troopers wounded. Every soldier in Custer's detachment was killed, although for years rumors persisted of survivors.Graham, 146. Lt. Edward Godfrey reported finding a dead 7th Cavalry horse (shot in the head), a grain sack, and a carbine at the mouth of the Rosebud; he conjectured that a soldier had escaped Custer's fight and rafted across the river, abandoning his played out horse. The sole survivor that was found by General Terry's troops was Captain Keogh's horse Comanche (horse).Comanche, badly wounded, had been overlooked or left behind by the Native Americans, who had taken the other surviving horses. Comanche was taken back to the steamer Far West and returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln to be nursed back to health.

By July, the 7th cavalry had been restocked with officers and new recruiting efforts were underway. It would again take the field in pursuit of its adversaries, but its legacy remains the Little Bighorn.

In 1878, the army awarded 24 Medal of Honor to participants in the fight on the bluffs for bravery, most for risking their lives to carry water from the river up the hill to the wounded. U.S. Army Medal of Honor website. Few questioned the conduct of the enlisted men, but many questioned the tactics, strategy, and conduct of the officers.

The Reno Court of Inquiry The battle was the subject of an army Court of Inquiry, made at Reno's request, in 1879 in Chicago, in which Reno's conduct was scrutinized. Some testimony was presented suggesting that he was drunk and a coward, but since none of this came from army officers, Reno's conduct was found to be without fault. However, Lieutenant Jesse Lee, Reno Court of Inquiry transcriber, wrote the following letter to General Miles, who was accusing Reno and Benteen of betrayal:

Benteen has been criticized for "dawdling" on the first day of the fight, and disobeying Custer's order. The charge of cowardice can easily be leveled at Reno, who ordered a panicked retreat after his own Indian scout was shot in the face, splattering blood and brains over Reno's face. Reno defenders point out that while the retreat was indeed disorganized, Reno did not withdraw from his position until it was clear that he was outnumbered and outflanked.

Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, the US highest military commander in 1895 and one of the most successful Indian fighters of all times, wrote in 1877 while studying the battlefield: "The more I study the moves here the Little Big Horn, the more I have admiration for Custer." Sklenar, page 341.

Still, Custer made strategic errors from the start of the campaign, leaving a battery of Gatling guns at the steamboat Far West on the Yellowstone River on 21 June, and refusing General Terry's offer an additional battalion of soldiers, which Custer surely could have used. Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, in his book On War, said that "the greatest possible number of troops should be brought into action at the decisive point", and that "the superiority at the decisive point is a matter of capital importance".http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/VomKriege2/BK3ch08.html Custer, who knew he was outnumbered although he did not know how much, divided his smaller force into three smaller detachments (not counting the fourth detachment, for the pack train, which was unavoidable), exposing each to defeat by a massively superior enemy force. Additionally, Custer failed to perform an adequate reconnaisance and sent Benteen's detachment off with no clear objective, away from the main battle. At the crucial moment, as the 7th's fate hung in the balance, Custer's men were widely scattered and unable to support each other, and Custer's own detachment had neither the numbers and the firepower to stave off the massed Indian assault.Goodrich, Thomas. Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. p. 233; Wert, Jeffry D. Custer: The controversial life of George Armstrong Custer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964/1996. p. 327.

For years a debate raged as to whether Custer himself had disobeyed Terry's order not to attack the village until reinforcements arrived. Finally, almost a hundred years after the fight, a document surfaced which indicated that Terry actually had given Custer considerable freedom to do as he saw fit (Maria Adam's controversy, which eventually stated that the story was true Researcher William Graham doubted the story, which stated that Custer's black servant Mary Adams had heard a conversation between Custer and Terry, the latter saying that the former had complete freedom. Graham found that Mary Sadams wasn't with the 7th cavalry in 1876. However, recent studies have shown that Maria Adams, Mary's sister, was Custer's servant.).

Custer's widow Libby Custer actively affected the historiography of the battle by suppressing criticism of her husband. A number of participants decided to wait for her death before disclosing what they knew; however, she outlived almost all of them. As a result, the event was recreated along tragic Victorian era lines in numerous books, films and other media. The story of Custer's purported heroic attack across the river, however, was undermined by the account of participant Chief Gall, who told Lt. Edward Godfrey that Custer never came near the river.Godfrey incorporated this into his important publication in 1892 in The Century Magazine. In spite of this counterclaim, however, other Indian witnesses dismissed Gall's own account as self-serving, and questioned his role in the fight.Michino, 1997, p. 296 At any rate, Custer's legend was embedded in the American imagination as a heroic officer fighting valiantly against savage forces, an image popularized in Wild West Shows extravaganzas hosted by showman Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill, and others.

By the end of the 20th century, the general recognition of the mistreatment of the various Indian tribes in the conquest of the American West, and the perception of Custer's role in it, have changed the image of the battle and of Custer. The Little Bighorn is now viewed by some as a confrontation between relentless U.S. westward expansion and warriors defending their land and way of life.

Battlefield preservation The site was first preserved as a U.S. National Cemetery in 1879, to protect graves of the 7th Cavalry troopers buried there. It was redesignated Custer Battlefield U.S. National Monument in 1946, and later renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991.

Memorialization on the battlefield began in 1879 with a temporary monument to U.S. dead. This was replaced with the current marble obelisk in 1881. In 1890 the marble blocks that dot the field were added to mark the place where the U.S. cavalry soldiers fell. The bill that changed the name of the national monument also called for an Indian Memorial to be built near Last Stand Hill. On Memorial Day 1999, two red granite markers were added to the battlefield where Native American warriors fell. As of December 2006, there are now a total of ten warrior markers (three at the Reno-Benteen Defense Site, seven on the Custer Battlefield).National Park Service website for the Little Bighorn Battlefield

7th Cavalry officers at the Little Bighorn

Crittenden was on loan to the 7th Cavalry from the 20th U.S. Infantry, since the cavalry regiment was short on officers.

on Battle Ridge looking toward Last Stand Hill top center. Wooden Leg Hill can be seen at the far top right.

Civilians killed

Notable scouts/interpreters in the battle

Prominent Native Americans in the battle

Battle of the Little Big Horn in popular culture

























See also Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer.

References

Notes

Further reading



External links

{{Infobox Military Conflict|conflict=Battle of the Little Bighorn|partof=the Black Hills War, [1876, artist unknown] – June 26, 1876, [Big Horn County, Montana,
[Northern Cheyenne,
Arapaho|commander1=[Sitting Bull,
Crazy Horse †,
[Marcus Reno,
Frederick Benteen,
James Calhoun (soldier) †|strength1=949 lodges (probably 950-1,200 warriors)|strength2=31 officers,
566 troopers,
15 armed civilians,
~35-40 scouts|casualties1=At least 54 killed,
~168 wounded (according to Sitting Bull and Red Horse); or 136 killed, 160 wounded|casualties2=~268 killed (16 officers, 242 troopers, 10 civilians/scouts),
~55 wounded-->The Battle of the Little Bighorn — also known as Custer's Last Stand and Custer Massacre and, in the parlance of the relevant Native Americans in the United Statess, the Battle of the Greasy Grass — was an armed engagement between a Lakota people-Northern Cheyenne combined force and the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It occurred June 25–June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in the eastern Montana Territory.

The battle was the most famous action of the Indian Wars and was a remarkable victory for the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. A U.S. cavalry detachment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was annihilated. It was, however, not the greatest Indian military victory over U.S. forces; that was the Battle of the Wabash in 1791, when Little Turtle and an alliance of Ohio tribesmen killed and wounded nearly a thousand U.S. soldiers.

Prelude to battle Thousands of Indians had slipped away from their Indian reservation through early 1876. Military officials planned a three-pronged expedition to corral them and force them back to the reservations, using both infantry and cavalry, as well as a small detachment of Gatling guns. Brigadier General George Crook's column moved north from Fort Fetterman in the Wyoming Territory toward the Powder River (Montana) area. Colonel John Gibbon's column of 6 companies of the 7th infantry and four of the 2nd ACR marched east from Fort Ellis in western Montana Territory. The third column under Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry (including George Custer's 7th Cavalry; Companies B, D and I, 6th U.S. Infantry; Companies C & G, 17th U.S. Infantry; and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry) departed westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. They were accompanied by teamsters and packers with 150 wagons and a large contingent of pack mules.See Sarf for a breakdown of the composition of each of these columns.

The coordination and planning went awry on June 17 when Crook's column was delayed after the Battle of the Rosebud and was forced to stop and regroup. Gibbon and Terry proceeded, joining forces in late June near the mouth of the Rosebud River. They formulated a plan that called for Custer's regiment to proceed up the Rosebud River, while Terry and Gibbon's united columns would proceed up the Bighorn River and Little Bighorn rivers. The officers hoped to trap the Indian village between these two forces. After discovering a large Indian trail on June 15, the 7th Cavalry split from the remainder of the Terry column on June 22 and began a pursuit along the trail. Custer was offered the use of the Gatling guns but declined, saying they would slow his command.See Panzeri.. He also declined the offer of two further companies of cavalry on the basis that his regiment could handle anything they found without other assistance.Custer's scouts arrived at an overlook 14 miles (23 km) east of the Little Bighorn River on the night of June 24, as the Terry/Gibbon column was marching toward the mouth of the Little Bighorn.



7th Cavalry organization and deployment The 7th Cavalry was a veteran organization created just after the American Civil War. Several men were veterans of the war, including many of the leading officers. A significant portion of the regiment had previously served four-and-a-half years at Ft. Riley, Kansas, during which time it fought one major engagement and numerous skirmishes, experiencing casualties of thirty-six killed and twenty-seven wounded. Six other troopers had died of drowning and fifty-one from cholera epidemics.

Half of the 7th Cavalry had just returned from eighteen months of constabulary duty in the deep South, having been recalled to Fort Abraham Lincoln to reassemble the regiment for the campaign. Approximately 20% of the troopers had been enlisted in the prior seven months (139 of an enlisted roll of 718), were only marginally trained, and had no combat or frontier experience. A sizable number of these recruits were immigrants from Ireland, England, and Prussia, just as many of the veteran troopers had been prior to their enlistments.

Of the 44 officers and 718 troopers then assigned to the 7th Cavalry (including a second lieutenant detached from the 20th Infantry and serving in L Troop), 13 officers (including the regimental commander, Col. Samuel D. Sturgis, who was on detached duty) and 152 troopers did not accompany the 7th during the campaign. Among those left behind at Fort Abraham Lincoln was the regimental band.

Following a night forced march on June 24–June 25, in which Crow Tribe scouts reported to Custer the presence of what was judged a very large encampment of Indians, Custer divided the 7th Cavalry into four detachments:









Each of the first three detachments was to seek out the Indian encampments, attack them, and hold them in place until the other two detachments arrived to support. Custer had employed similar tactics in 1868 during the Battle of the Washita.

Battle Reno's attack The first detachment to attack was Major Reno's, conducted after receiving orders from Custer issued by Lt. William W. Cooke. The orders, made without accurate knowledge of the village's size, location, or propensity to stand and fight, were to pursue the Indians and "bring them to battle". However, Custer did promise to "support... with the whole outfit". Reno's force crossed the Little Bighorn at the mouth of what is today called Reno Creek and immediately realized that the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne were present "in force and ...not running away".Sending a message to Custer, but hearing nothing in return, Reno advanced rapidly northward, stating that he drove the enemy "with ease". However, he suspected "a trap" and stopped a few hundred yards short of the encampment, dismounting and deploying in a skirmish line, as standard army doctrine called for. In deploying in a skirmish line, every fourth trooper handled the horses for the troopers taking firing positions, thus immediately reducing the fighting force by 25%%. The troopers on the skirmish line were positioned five to ten yards apart, with officers just to their rear and the troopers with horses behind the officers. After about 20 minutes of long distance firing, Reno's battalion had taken only one casualty but the odds against him had become more obvious (Reno estimated five to one) and Custer had not reinforced him. Trooper Billy Jackson reported that by then, the Indians had massed for a mounted attack by more than 500 warriors,Goodrich, Thomas. Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. p. 242 turning Reno's exposed left flank and forcing him into a hasty withdrawal into the timber in a loop of the river.Perrett, Bryan. Last Stand: Famous Battles Against the Odds. London: Arms & Armour, 1993; p.8 Here the Indians pinned Reno and his men down, and he then was forced to make a disorderly retreat across the river to reach the high ground of the bluffs on the other side. The retreat was confused and immediately disrupted by Cheyenne attacks at close quarters. Reno later reported that 3 officers and 29 troopers were killed during the retreat and the subsequent ford (river) of the river, with another officer and 13-18 men missing, left behind in the woods, although most of these men eventually rejoined the detachment.Atop the bluffs, Reno's shaken troops soon linked up with the detachment of Captain Benteen, arriving from the south. This force had been on its lateral scouting mission when it had been summoned by a messenger from Custer to "Come on...big village, be quick...bring pacs...". (This messenger was John Martin, a trumpeter, who was the last white person to see Custer alive and survive the battle.) Benteen's coincidental arrival on the bluffs was just in time to save Reno's men from possible annihilation. Their detachments were then reinforced by McDougall and the pack train. The 14 officers and 340 troopers on the bluffs organized an all-around defense and dug defensive fighting position.Despite hearing heavy gunfire from the north, Benteen concentrated on reinforcing Reno's badly wounded and hard-pressed battalion, rather than continuing on toward Custer. After an hour, nearing five o'clock and the end of the Custer fight, Capt. Thomas Weir and Company D moved out against orders to make contact with Custer. They advanced a mile and could see Lakota shooting in the distance, but fell under considerable pressure themselves and were driven back to the position occupied by Reno and Benteen. The other companies eventually followed by assigned battalions, first Benteen, then Reno, and finally the pack train, but growing Lakota attacks forced all seven companies to return to the bluff before the pack train, with the ammunition, had moved even a quarter mile. There they remained pinned down for another day, but the Indians were unable to breach this tightly held position the way they had Custer's strung-out lines. Benteen's apparent reluctance prompted later criticism that he had failed to follow orders.

Custer's fight The gunfire heard on the bluffs was from Custer's fight. His force of 208 was engaged by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne approximately 3.5 miles (6 km) to the north. Having driven Reno's force away from the encampment and isolated it, the bulk of the warriors were free to pursue Custer. The route taken by Custer to his "Last Stand" remains a subject of debate. One possibility is that after ordering Reno to charge, Custer continued down Reno Creek to within about a half mile (800 m) of the Little Bighorn, but then turned north, and climbed up the bluffs, reaching the same spot to which Reno would soon retreat. From this point, he could see Reno, on the other side of the river, charging the village.

Custer then rode north along the bluffs, and descended into a drainage called Medicine Tail Coulee, which led to the river. Some historians believe that part of Custer's force descended the coulee, going west to the river and attempting unsuccessfully to cross into the village. Indian accounts, historically dismissed by White military historians, report that he attempted first to ford the river at the north end of the camp. Gunfire from Indian sharpshooters, however, drove Custer and his men back. One account notes that Indian sharpshooters guarding the ford shot several of the cavalrymen, including one in a buckskin jacket, off their horses, and that the other trooper had to dismount to help one of the wounded men back onto his horse.Michno, 1997, pp. 117-119 This scenario would explain Reno's attack, and would indicate the Custer intended to coordinate with Reno in a hammer-and-anvil attack, with Reno holding the Indians at bay the southern end of the camp, while Custer drove them against Reno's line, coming down from the north.

Traditional historians, however, claim that Custer never approached the river, but rather continued north across the coulee and up the other side, where he gradually came under attack. According to this theory, by the time Custer realized he was badly outnumbered by the Indians who had come from the Reno fight, it was too late to break back through to the south, where Reno and Benteen could have provided reinforcements.

By all accounts, within less than 30 minutes,Miller, David Humphries, "Custer's Fall", Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985, pg 158Graham, Benteen letter to Capt. R.E. Thompson, pg 211Graham, Gall's Narrative, p. 88 Custer's force was completely annihilated. Only two men from the 7th Cavalry later claimed to have seen Custer engage the Indians: a young Crow, Ashishishe, who was known by his translated name Curley, and a trooper named Peter Thompson (soldier) who had fallen behind Custer's column. Most White accounts of the last moments of Custer's forces are conjecture but there were a number of eyewitness accounts collected from Indians at the time and for many years later.Miller, David Humphries, "Custer's Fall", Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985For an analysis of Curley's account, see Graham, pp. 10-18. Fox, pp. 316-317 discusses Thompson. Michno's 1997 masterpiece, Lakota Noon, provides the best modern collection and analysis of the Indian accounts. The Lakota asserted that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of Lakota that overwhelmed the cavalrymen.Graham, pp. 45-56.Michno, 1997

Exact numbers are difficult to determine, but it is commonly estimated that the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota outnumbered the 7th Cavalry by approximately 3:1 (1800-600)cf. Michno's account of the numbers, pp. 10-20. He gives a low estimate of about 1000 warriors. Other scholars have given much higher numbers, upwards of 3000. A moderate number, 1800-2000, has been advocated by Fox and Utley., a ratio which was extended to 9:1 after Custer's command became the focus of the fighting and the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors massed together against it. It has long been claimed in defense of Custer that some of the Indians were armed with repeating Spencer repeating rifle and Winchester rifles, while the 7th Cavalry carried single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, which had a slow rate of fire and tended to jam when overheated. The Springfield Model 1873 carbines had been issued with a copper cartridge. Troopers soon discovered that the copper expanded in the breech when heated upon firing and jammed the rifle, by preventing extraction of the fired cartridge case, requiring manual extraction with a knife blade, rendering the carbines useless in combat except as a club. The opposing warriors carried a large variety of weapons, from bows and arrows to (allegedly) Henry rifles, a fact confirmed by the archaeological finds of a number of .44-40 cartridges, the round used by the Henry rifle.Michno, 1997, pp. 212, 226 The real damage, however, was done with bows and arrows. In fact, many Indians, including the thirteen year-old Black Elk took their first six-shooter, rifle or carbine off of dead troopers at the Greasy Grass.Michno, 1997, pp. 85, 98. The Sioux warrior White Bull described the Indians as systematically stripping slain troopers of their pistols, cartridge belts, and carbines, so that as the losses mounted among Custer's men, and his firepower decreased, the gunfire from the Indians steadily increased.Vestal, Stanley. Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux Told in a Biography of Chief White Bull. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1934; also, Michno, 1997, p. 216-217: testimony of Red Hawk; p. 221: testimonry of Iron Hawk.

The Indian accounts, including paintings on buffalo hides after the fight, indicate a fight between bows and arrows on the one hand, and cavalry pistols on the other.Michno, 1997, p. 221: testimony of Iron Hawk, and elsewhere. This representation supports the fact that the Army's carbines had malfunctioned. Moreover, the terrain of the battlefield gave Lakota and Cheyenne bows an advantage, since Custer's troops were pinned in a depression on higher ground from which they could not use direct fire at the Indians in defilade. On the other hand, the Lakota and Cheyenne were able to shoot their arrows from cover into the depression by launching them in high arching indirect fire, with the volume of arrows ensuring severe casualties. Indeed, the puffs of smoke from the troopers' carbines betrayed their individual positions to the Indians in the brush below the ridge. U.S. small arms might have been more accurate over open distances, but the fighting on this occasion was close combat where rate of fire and reliability of a weapon were more important attributes.

Most of the dead cavalrymen had had their skulls crushed with the typical plains Indian war club--the painted femur of an elk or bison, or any of a number of styles of heavy, stone-headed war clubs.cf. Goodrich, p. 246. For illustrations of the war clubs, see Mails, Thomas E. Mystic Warriors of the Plains. New York: Marlowe & Co., 1996. pp. 464-71. For his part, Custer was known to have owned a pair of Webley Revolver RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) double action revolvers, chambered in .442 Webley, which he used at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, instead of the Colt Single Action Army, issued to his troops. John A. Doerner, Chief Historian, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Custer's resistance Recent archaeological work at the battlefield site indicates that Custer initially deployed his troops in skirmish lines per Army doctrine, with the troopers divided into groups of four with one man holding the horses, and three firing. This deployment would have resulted in a reduction of Custer's effective firepower to just over 170 troopers strung out over several long skirmish lines. As individual troopers were killed, wounded or their carbines jammed, the soldiers' effective rate of fire decreased, and these skirmish lines became untenable.Fox, pp. 295-318. The History Channel series Battlefield Detectives suggested in 2003 that there may not have been a 'last stand' as it has come down to us through history. Instead, archaeologists suggested that Custer's troops weren't surrounded and picked off but rather simply swamped by a single charge. This scenario corresponds to the Indian accounts insofar as Crazy Horse's charge broke the back of the resistance, with the surviving soldiers fleeing as best they could towards Custer's position at the northern end of the ridge. At this point, the fight became a "buffalo run", with the warriors riding down the fleeing troopers, and whacking them with their lances and coup sticks.Michno, 1997, p. 215: testimony of Yellow Nose. According to the Indian accounts, about 40 men made a stand around Custer, delivering rapid volley fire,Michno, 1997, pp. 284-285 after the model of a British square. Most of the Indian casualties were suffered in this closing segment of the fight.

The Sioux Chief Red Horse, who fought at the Greasy Grass, informed Col. W. H. Wood, that the Indians suffered 136 dead, and 160 wounded during the entire Battle of the Greasy Grass.Graham, Col. W. A. The Custer Myth. NY, Bonanza Books, 1953, pg 60. David Humphries Miller, who between 1935 and 1955 interviewed the last Indian survivors of the battle, wrote that the Custer fight, lasted less than one-half hour.Miller, David Humphreys, Custer's Fall, the Indian Side of the Story. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1985, (reprint of 1957 edition) pg 158

While many of Custer's troops were recruits who did not possess an adequate level of military training and skill, archaeological evidence also suggests that they were undernourished and in poor physical condition. However, that was usually the case in the army at this time.Barnard, pp. 121-136.

The aftermath After the Custer force was annihilated, the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne regrouped to attack Reno and Benteen. The fight continued until dark (approximately 9:00 p.m. by local timekeeping) and for much of the next day, with the outcome in doubt. Reno credited Benteen's leadership with repulsing a severe attack on the portion of the perimeter held by Companies H and M.Reno Court of Inquiry On June 26 the column under Terry approached from the north, and the Indians drew off in the opposite direction. The wounded were given what treatment was available at that time; five later died of their wounds. Two of the regiment's three surgeons had been with Custer's column; the remaining doctor was assisted by interpreter Fred Gerard.

The soldiers on Reno Hill did not know what had happened to Custer three miles north until after the Lakota and Cheyenne withdrew. An examination was made of the Custer battle site. The Indian dead had mostly been removed from the field. The 7th's dead were identified as best as possible and hastily buried where they fell. Custer was found to have been shot in the left temple and in the left chest; either wound would have been fatal. He also suffered a wound to the arm. Some Lakota oral histories assert that Custer committed suicide to avoid capture and subsequent torture or death—as Custer believed—but he was right-handed. His body was found near the top of "Last Stand Hill" where a large obelisk inscribed with the names of the 7th's dead now stands. Most of the dead had been stripped of their clothing, mutilated, and were in an advanced state of decomposition, such that identification of many of the bodies was impossible.Brininstool, 60-62.

From the evidence, it was impossible to determine what exactly had transpired, but there was evidence of prolonged organized resistance (according to Indian and federal testimonies Michno, "Lakota Noon", Mountain Press Publishing. ). Several days after the battle, the young Crow scout Curley gave an account of the battle which indicated that Custer had attacked the village after crossing the river at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee and had been driven back across the river, retreating up the slope to the hill where his body was later found.Fox, pp. 10-13. This scenario seemed compatible with Custer's aggressive style of warfare, and with some of the evidence found on the ground, and formed the basis for many of the popular accounts of the battle.

Custer then released the Crow Scouts, including Curley and White Man Runs Him, from their duty.(White Man Runs Him was the first to tell General Terry's officers that Custer's force had "been wiped out".)Estimates of Lakota and Cheyenne casualties widely vary, from as few as 36 dead (from Indian listings of the dead by name) to as many as 300. The 7th Cavalry suffered 52% casualties: 16 officers and 242 troopers killed or died of wounds, 1 officer and 51 troopers wounded. Every soldier in Custer's detachment was killed, although for years rumors persisted of survivors.Graham, 146. Lt. Edward Godfrey reported finding a dead 7th Cavalry horse (shot in the head), a grain sack, and a carbine at the mouth of the Rosebud; he conjectured that a soldier had escaped Custer's fight and rafted across the river, abandoning his played out horse. The sole survivor that was found by General Terry's troops was Captain Keogh's horse Comanche (horse).Comanche, badly wounded, had been overlooked or left behind by the Native Americans, who had taken the other surviving horses. Comanche was taken back to the steamer Far West and returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln to be nursed back to health.

By July, the 7th cavalry had been restocked with officers and new recruiting efforts were underway. It would again take the field in pursuit of its adversaries, but its legacy remains the Little Bighorn.

In 1878, the army awarded 24 Medal of Honor to participants in the fight on the bluffs for bravery, most for risking their lives to carry water from the river up the hill to the wounded. U.S. Army Medal of Honor website. Few questioned the conduct of the enlisted men, but many questioned the tactics, strategy, and conduct of the officers.

The Reno Court of Inquiry The battle was the subject of an army Court of Inquiry, made at Reno's request, in 1879 in Chicago, in which Reno's conduct was scrutinized. Some testimony was presented suggesting that he was drunk and a coward, but since none of this came from army officers, Reno's conduct was found to be without fault. However, Lieutenant Jesse Lee, Reno Court of Inquiry transcriber, wrote the following letter to General Miles, who was accusing Reno and Benteen of betrayal:

Benteen has been criticized for "dawdling" on the first day of the fight, and disobeying Custer's order. The charge of cowardice can easily be leveled at Reno, who ordered a panicked retreat after his own Indian scout was shot in the face, splattering blood and brains over Reno's face. Reno defenders point out that while the retreat was indeed disorganized, Reno did not withdraw from his position until it was clear that he was outnumbered and outflanked.

Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, the US highest military commander in 1895 and one of the most successful Indian fighters of all times, wrote in 1877 while studying the battlefield: "The more I study the moves here the Little Big Horn, the more I have admiration for Custer." Sklenar, page 341.

Still, Custer made strategic errors from the start of the campaign, leaving a battery of Gatling guns at the steamboat Far West on the Yellowstone River on 21 June, and refusing General Terry's offer an additional battalion of soldiers, which Custer surely could have used. Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, in his book On War, said that "the greatest possible number of troops should be brought into action at the decisive point", and that "the superiority at the decisive point is a matter of capital importance".http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/VomKriege2/BK3ch08.html Custer, who knew he was outnumbered although he did not know how much, divided his smaller force into three smaller detachments (not counting the fourth detachment, for the pack train, which was unavoidable), exposing each to defeat by a massively superior enemy force. Additionally, Custer failed to perform an adequate reconnaisance and sent Benteen's detachment off with no clear objective, away from the main battle. At the crucial moment, as the 7th's fate hung in the balance, Custer's men were widely scattered and unable to support each other, and Custer's own detachment had neither the numbers and the firepower to stave off the massed Indian assault.Goodrich, Thomas. Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997. p. 233; Wert, Jeffry D. Custer: The controversial life of George Armstrong Custer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964/1996. p. 327.

For years a debate raged as to whether Custer himself had disobeyed Terry's order not to attack the village until reinforcements arrived. Finally, almost a hundred years after the fight, a document surfaced which indicated that Terry actually had given Custer considerable freedom to do as he saw fit (Maria Adam's controversy, which eventually stated that the story was true Researcher William Graham doubted the story, which stated that Custer's black servant Mary Adams had heard a conversation between Custer and Terry, the latter saying that the former had complete freedom. Graham found that Mary Sadams wasn't with the 7th cavalry in 1876. However, recent studies have shown that Maria Adams, Mary's sister, was Custer's servant.).

Custer's widow Libby Custer actively affected the historiography of the battle by suppressing criticism of her husband. A number of participants decided to wait for her death before disclosing what they knew; however, she outlived almost all of them. As a result, the event was recreated along tragic Victorian era lines in numerous books, films and other media. The story of Custer's purported heroic attack across the river, however, was undermined by the account of participant Chief Gall, who told Lt. Edward Godfrey that Custer never came near the river.Godfrey incorporated this into his important publication in 1892 in The Century Magazine. In spite of this counterclaim, however, other Indian witnesses dismissed Gall's own account as self-serving, and questioned his role in the fight.Michino, 1997, p. 296 At any rate, Custer's legend was embedded in the American imagination as a heroic officer fighting valiantly against savage forces, an image popularized in Wild West Shows extravaganzas hosted by showman Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill, and others.

By the end of the 20th century, the general recognition of the mistreatment of the various Indian tribes in the conquest of the American West, and the perception of Custer's role in it, have changed the image of the battle and of Custer. The Little Bighorn is now viewed by some as a confrontation between relentless U.S. westward expansion and warriors defending their land and way of life.

Battlefield preservation The site was first preserved as a U.S. National Cemetery in 1879, to protect graves of the 7th Cavalry troopers buried there. It was redesignated Custer Battlefield U.S. National Monument in 1946, and later renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991.

Memorialization on the battlefield began in 1879 with a temporary monument to U.S. dead. This was replaced with the current marble obelisk in 1881. In 1890 the marble blocks that dot the field were added to mark the place where the U.S. cavalry soldiers fell. The bill that changed the name of the national monument also called for an Indian Memorial to be built near Last Stand Hill. On Memorial Day 1999, two red granite markers were added to the battlefield where Native American warriors fell. As of December 2006, there are now a total of ten warrior markers (three at the Reno-Benteen Defense Site, seven on the Custer Battlefield).National Park Service website for the Little Bighorn Battlefield

7th Cavalry officers at the Little Bighorn

Crittenden was on loan to the 7th Cavalry from the 20th U.S. Infantry, since the cavalry regiment was short on officers.

on Battle Ridge looking toward Last Stand Hill top center. Wooden Leg Hill can be seen at the far top right.

Civilians killed

Notable scouts/interpreters in the battle

Prominent Native Americans in the battle

Battle of the Little Big Horn in popular culture

























See also Cultural depictions of George Armstrong Custer.

References

Notes

Further reading



External links



Battle of the Little Bighorn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 45°33′54″N 107°25′44″W  /  45.565, -107.42889  (Battle of the Little Big Horn)

Battle of Little Bighorn - interactive storyboard - www.SchoolHistory ...
Back to storyboard index

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876
An eyewitness account of Custer's last stand. ... Buffalo Hunt, 1846 California Gold Rush, 1849 Vigilante Justice, 1851 Pony Express Rider, 1861

PBS - THE WEST - The Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of Little Bighorn An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse recorded in pictographs and text at the Cheyenne River Reservation, 1881

Little Bighorn, Battle of the - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about ...
Little Bighorn, Battle of the. Engagement on a tributary of the Bighorn River in Montana, USA, on 25 June 1876, in which Lt-Col George Custer suffered a crushing defeat by Sioux ...

Category:Battle of Little Bighorn - Wikimedia Commons
Media in category "Battle of Little Bighorn" The following 24 files are in this category, out of 24 total.

BBC - GCSE Bitesize - History | Schools History Project | American ...
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was the most decisive defeat for the US Army during the whole of the Indian wars.

Battle of Little Bighorn - MSN Encarta
Little Bighorn, Battle of the, also known as Custers Last Stand, American military engagement fought on June 25, 1876, in what is now Montana,...

Welcome to the Little Bighorn History Alliance!
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was the most successful action fought by the American Indians against the United States ...

Little Bighorn, Battle of - definition of Little Bighorn, Battle of by ...
Noun: 1. Battle of Little Bighorn - a battle in Montana near the Little Bighorn River between United States cavalry under Custer and several groups of Native Americans (1876)

 

Battle Of Little Bighorn



 
Copyright © 2008 Hintcenter.com - All rights reserved.
Home | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
All Trademarks belong to their repective owners. Many aspects of this page are used under
commercial commons license from Yahoo!