The
Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as
Custer's Last Stand and, by the
IndiansNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
involved, as the
Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and
ArapahoThe Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...
people against the
7th Cavalry RegimentThe 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army Cavalry Regiment, whose lineage traces back to the mid-19th century. Its official nickname is "Garryowen," in honor of the Irish air Garryowen that was adopted as its march tune....
of the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. It occurred on June 25 and June 26, 1876, near the
Little Bighorn RiverThe Little Bighorn River is a tributary of the Bighorn River in the United States in the states of Wyoming and Montana. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought on its banks in 1876, as well as the Battle of Crow Agency in 1887....
in eastern
Montana TerritoryThe Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana.-History:...
, near what is now
Crow Agency, MontanaCrow Agency is a census-designated place in Big Horn County, Montana, United States and is near the actual location for the Little Bighorn National Monument and re-enactment known as Custer's Last Stand...
.
The battle was the most famous action of the Great Sioux War of 1876 (also known as the Black Hills War). It was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, led by several major war leaders, including
Crazy HorseCrazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
and
GallGall Lakota Phizí, was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.-Early years:...
, inspired by the visions of
Sitting BullSitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
(Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake). The U.S. Seventh Cavalry, including the Custer Battalion, a force of 700 men led by
George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
, suffered a severe defeat. Five of the Seventh's companies were annihilated; Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law. Total U.S. deaths were 268, including scouts, and 55 were wounded.
Public response to the Great Sioux War varied at the time. The battle, and Custer's actions in particular, have been studied extensively by historians.
Background
In 1875, Sitting Bull created the
Sun DanceThe Sun Dance is a religious ceremony practiced by a number of Native American and First Nations peoples, primarily those of the Plains Nations. Each tribe has its own distinct practices and ceremonial protocols...
alliance between the Lakota and the Cheyenne, a religious ceremony which celebrates the spiritual rebirth of participants. One had taken place around June 5, 1876, on the
Rosebud RiverRosebud River is a river in Alberta, Canada. It is a major tributary of the Red Deer River. The river passes through agricultural lands and ranchland for most of its course, and through badlands in its final reaches...
in
MontanaMontana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, involving Agency Native Americans who had slipped away from their reservations to join the hostiles. During the event, Sitting Bull reportedly had a vision of "soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky." At the same time, military officials had a summer campaign underway to force the Lakota and Cheyenne back to their
reservationsAn American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
, using
infantryInfantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
and cavalry in a three-pronged approach.
Col. John Gibbon'sJohn Gibbon was a career United States Army officer who fought in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars.-Early life:...
column of six companies (A, B, E, H, I, and K) of the
7th InfantryThe United States Army's 7th Infantry Regiment, known as "The Cottenbalers" from an incident that occurred during the Battle of New Orleans, while under the command of Andrew Jackson, when soldiers of the 7th Infantry Regiment held positions behind a breastwork of bales of cotton during the...
and four companies (F, G, H, and L) of the 2nd Cavalry marched east from
Fort EllisFort Ellis was an early United States Army outpost established August 27, 1867 to the eastern side of present-day Bozeman, Montana. The fort was established to protect and support settlers moving into the Gallatin Valley. The post was named for Civil War Colonel Augustus van Horne Ellis who was...
in western Montana on March 30, to patrol the
Yellowstone RiverThe Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National...
.
Brig. Gen. George Crook'sGeorge R. Crook was a career United States Army officer, most noted for his distinguished service during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars.-Early life:...
column of ten companies (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, L, and M) of the 3rd Cavalry, five (A, B, D, E, and I) of the 2nd Cavalry, two companies (D and F) of the 4th Infantry, and three companies (C, G, and H) of the 9th Infantry, moved north from
Fort FettermanFort Fetterman was a wooden fort constructed in 1867 by the United States Army on the Great Plains frontier in the Dakota Territory approximately 11 miles northwest of present-day Douglas, Wyoming. It was located high on the bluffs on the south side of the North Platte River...
in the
Wyoming TerritoryThe Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
on May 29, marching toward the
Powder RiverPowder River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately long in the southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming in the United States. It drains an area historically known as the Powder River Country on the high plains east of the Bighorn Mountains.It rises in three forks in eastern...
area.
Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry'sAlfred Howe Terry was a Union general in the American Civil War and the military commander of the Dakota Territory from 1866 to 1869 and again from 1872 to 1886.-Early life and career:...
column, including twelve companies (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, and M) of the 7th Cavalry under
Lieutenant ColonelLieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
's immediate command, Companies C and G of the 17th U.S. Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry departed westward from
Fort Abraham LincolnFort Abraham Lincoln State Park is located seven miles south of Mandan, North Dakota. The park is home to On-A-Slant Indian Village, the blockhouses and the Custer house...
in the
Dakota TerritoryThe Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota.The Dakota Territory consisted of...
on May 17. They were accompanied by teamsters and packers with 150 wagons and a large contingent of pack mules that reinforced Custer. Companies C, D, and I of the 6th U.S. Infantry, moved along the Yellowstone River from
Fort BufordFort Buford was a United States Army base at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in North Dakota, and the site of Sitting Bull's surrender in 1881....
on the
Missouri RiverThe Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
to set up a supply depot, and joined Terry on May 29 at the mouth of the
Powder RiverPowder River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately long in the southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming in the United States. It drains an area historically known as the Powder River Country on the high plains east of the Bighorn Mountains.It rises in three forks in eastern...
.
The coordination and planning began to go awry on June 17, 1876, when Crook's column was delayed after the
Battle of the RosebudThe Battle of the Rosebud occurred June 17, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and a force of Lakota Native Americans during the Black Hills War...
. Surprised and, according to some accounts, astonished by the unusually large numbers of Native Americans in the battle, a defeated Crook was compelled to pull back, halt and regroup. Unaware of Crook's battle, Gibbon and Terry proceeded, joining forces in early June near the mouth of the Rosebud River. They reviewed Terry's plan calling for Custer's regiment to proceed south along the Rosebud, while Terry and Gibbon's united forces would move in a westerly direction toward the
BighornThe Bighorn River is a tributary of the Yellowstone, approximately long, in the western United States in the states of Wyoming and Montana. The river was named in 1805 by fur trader François Larocque for the Bighorn Sheep he saw along its banks as he explored the Yellowstone River.The upper...
and Little Bighorn rivers. As this was the likely location of Indian encampments, all Army elements were to converge around June 26 or 27, attempting to engulf the Native Americans. On June 22, Terry ordered the 7th Cavalry, composed of 31 officers and 566 enlisted men under Custer, to begin a reconnaissance and pursuit along the Rosebud, with the prerogative to "depart" from orders upon seeing "sufficient reason." Custer had been offered the use of Gatling guns but declined, believing they would slow his command.
While the Terry/Gibbon column was marching toward the mouth of the Little Bighorn, on the evening of June 24, Custer's scouts arrived at an overlook known as the Crow's Nest, 14 miles (22.5 km) east of the Little Bighorn River. At sunrise on June 25, Custer's scouts reported they could see a massive pony herd and signs of the Native American village roughly 15 miles (24.1 km) in the distance. After a night's march, the tired officer sent with the scouts could see neither, and when Custer joined them, he was also unable to make the sighting. Custer's scouts also spotted the regimental cooking fires that could be seen from 10 miles away, disclosing the regiment's position.
Custer contemplated a surprise attack against the encampment the following morning of June 26, but he then received a report informing him several hostile Indians had discovered the trail left by his troops. Assuming his presence had been exposed, Custer decided to attack the village without further delay. On the morning of June 25, Custer divided his 12 companies into three battalions in anticipation of the forthcoming engagement. Three companies were placed under the command of Major
Marcus RenoMarcus Albert Reno was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Black Hills War against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne...
(A, G, and M); and three were placed under the command of Capt. Frederick Benteen (H, D, and K). Five companies (C, E, F, I, and L) remained under Custer's immediate command. The 12th, Company B, under Capt. Thomas McDougald, had been assigned to escort the slower pack train carrying provisions and additional ammunition.
Unknown to Custer, the group of Native Americans seen on his trail were actually leaving the encampment on the Big Horn and did not alert the village. Custer's scouts warned him about the size of the village, with scout
Mitch BouyerMitch Bouyer was an interpreter and guide in the Old West following the American Civil War. General John Gibbon called him "next to Jim Bridger, the best guide in the country"...
reportedly saying, "General, I have been with these Indians for 30 years, and this is the largest village I have ever heard of." Custer's overriding concern was that the Native American group would break up and scatter in different directions. The command began its approach to the Native American village at 12 noon and prepared to attack in full daylight.
Seventh Cavalry organization
The Seventh Cavalry was a veteran organization created just after the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Many men were veterans of the war, including most of the leading officers. A significant portion of the regiment had previously served four-and-a-half years at Ft. Riley,
KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, during which time it fought one major engagement and numerous skirmishes, experiencing casualties of 36 killed and 27 wounded. Six other troopers had died of drowning and 51 from
choleraCholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemics.
Half of the 7th Cavalry's companies had just returned from 18 months of constabulary duty in the
Deep SouthThe Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
, having been recalled to
Fort Abraham LincolnFort Abraham Lincoln State Park is located seven miles south of Mandan, North Dakota. The park is home to On-A-Slant Indian Village, the blockhouses and the Custer house...
to reassemble the regiment for the campaign. About 20 percent 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 Germany, just as many of the veteran troopers had been before their enlistments. Archaeological evidence suggests that many of these troopers were malnourished and in poor physical condition, despite being the best-equipped and supplied regiment in the army.
Of the 45 officers and 718 troopers then assigned to the 7th Cavalry (including a second lieutenant detached from the 20th Infantry and serving in Company L), 14 officers (including the regimental commander, Col.
Samuel D. SturgisSamuel Davis Sturgis was an American military officer who served in the Mexican-American War, as a Union general in the American Civil War, and later in the Indian Wars.-Early life:...
) and 152 troopers did not accompany the 7th during the campaign. The ratio of troops detached for other duty (approximately 22%) was not unusual for an expedition of this size, and part of the officer shortage was chronic, due to the Army's rigid seniority system: three of the regiment's 12 captains were permanently detached, and two had never served a day with the 7th since their appointment in July 1866. Three second lieutenant vacancies (in E, H, and L Companies) were also unfilled.
Number of Native American combatants
Historians continue to debate the number of Indian warriors participating in the battle. They estimate that in the overall battle, the warriors outnumbered the 7th Cavalry by approximately three to one, or roughly 1,800 against 600. In Custer's fight, this ratio could have increased to as high as nine to one (1,800 against 200) after his isolated command became the main focus of the fighting. Some historians, however, claim the ratio of the Custer fight to be as low as three to one. Custer's detachment was certainly outnumbered and was caught in the open on unfamiliar terrain. Within weeks of the battle, the public estimate by whites of the number of Indian warriors rapidly increased. For example, in a letter to his wife dated soon after the battle, Benteen indicates 3,000 Indians; his later estimates were much higher. However, some recent research points to a force of Indians much closer in size to Custer's own.
Military assumptions prior to the battle
As the Army moved into the field on its expedition, it was operating with incorrect assumptions as to the number of Indians it would encounter. The Army's assumptions were based on inaccurate information provided by the Indian Agents that no more than 800 hostiles were in the area. The Indian Agents based the 800 number on the number of Lakota led by Sitting Bull and other leaders off the reservation in protest of US Government policies. This was a correct estimate until several weeks before the battle, when the "reservation Indians" joined Sitting Bull's ranks for the summer buffalo hunt. As one historian wrote: "The (US) Army's strength estimate didn't change, because the civilian Indian agents on the reservations didn't tell the Army that large numbers of Indians had left." Nor did the agents take into account the many thousands of "reservation Indians" who had "unofficially" left the reservation to join their "uncooperative non-reservation cousins led by Sitting Bull". The latter were those groups who had indicated that they were not going to cooperate with the US Government and live on reservation lands. Thus, Custer unknowingly faced thousands of Indians, in addition to the 800 non-reservation "hostiles". All Army plans were based on the incorrect numbers. While after the battle, Custer was severely criticized for not having accepted reinforcements and for dividing his forces, it must be understood that he had accepted the same official Government estimates of hostiles in the area which Terry and Gibbon also accepted. Historian James Donovan, states that when Custer asked Gerard his estimate on the opposition, he estimated the force at between 1,500 to 2,500 warriors.
Additionally, Custer was more concerned with preventing the escape of the Lakota and Cheyenne than with fighting them. From his own observation, as reported by his trumpeter John Martin (Martini) Custer assumed the warriors had been sleeping in on the morning of the battle, as virtually every native account attested later, giving Custer a false estimate of what he was up against. When he and his scouts first looked down on the village from Crow's Nest across the Little Bighorn River, they could only see the herd of ponies. Looking from a hill 2.5 miles (4 km) away after parting with Reno's command, Custer could observe only women preparing for the day, and young boys taking thousands of horses out to graze south of the village. Custer's Crow scouts told him it was the largest native village they had ever seen. When the scouts began changing back into their native dress right before the battle, Custer released them from his command. While the village was enormous in size, Custer thought there were far fewer warriors to defend the village. He assumed most of the warriors were still asleep in their tepees.
Finally, Custer may have assumed that in the event of his encountering Native Americans, his subordinate Benteen with the pack train would quickly come to his aid. Rifle volleys were a standard way of telling supporting units to come to another unit's aid. In a subsequent official 1879 Army investigation requested by Major Reno, the Reno Board of Inquiry (RCOI), Benteen and Reno's men testified that they heard distinct rifle volleys as late as 4:30 pm during the battle.
Custer had wanted to take a day and scout the village before attacking; however, when men went back after supplies dropped by the pack train, they discovered they were being back-trailed by Indians. Reports from his scouts also revealed fresh pony tracks from ridges overlooking his formation. It became apparent that the warriors in the village were either aware of or would soon be aware of his approach. Fearing that the village would break up into small bands that he would have to chase, Custer began to prepare for an immediate attack.
Battle
Reno's attack
The first group to attack was Major Reno's second detachment (Companies M, A and G), conducted after receiving orders from Custer written out by Lt.
William W. CookeWilliam Winer Cooke was a military officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and the Black Hills War. He was the adjutant for George Armstrong Custer and was killed during the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Overview:Cooke was born in Mount Pleasant, Brant County, Ontario, to...
, as Custer's Crow scouts reported Sioux tribe members were alerting the village. Ordered to charge, Reno began that phase of the battle. The orders, made without accurate knowledge of the village's size, location, or the warriors' propensity to stand and fight, had been to pursue the Native Americans and "bring them to battle." Reno's force crossed the Little Bighorn at the mouth of what is today Reno Creek around 3:00 p.m. They immediately realized that the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne were present "in force and not running away."
Reno advanced rapidly across the open field towards the northwest, his movements masked by the thick bramble of trees that ran along the southern banks of the Little Bighorn river. The same trees on his front right shielded his movements across the wide field over which his men rapidly rode, first with two approximately forty-man companies abreast and eventually with all three charging abreast. The trees also obscured Reno's view of the Native American village until his force had passed that bend on his right front and was suddenly within arrow shot of the village. The tepees in that area were occupied by the Hunkpapa Sioux. Neither Custer nor Reno had much idea of the length, depth and size of the encampment they were attacking, as the village was hidden by the trees. When Reno came into the open in front of the south end of the village, he sent his Arikara/Ree and Crow Indian scouts forward on his exposed left flank. Realizing the full extent of the village's width, Reno quickly suspected what he would later call "a trap" and stopped a few hundred yards short of the encampment.
He ordered his troopers to dismount and deploy in a skirmish line, according to standard army doctrine. In this formation, every fourth trooper held the horses for the troopers in firing position, with five to ten yards separating each trooper, officers to their rear and troopers with horses behind the officers. This formation reduced Reno's firepower by 25 percent. As Reno's men fired into the village and killed, by some accounts, several wives and children of the Sioux leader,
Gall or PiziGall Lakota Phizí, was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.-Early years:...
, mounted warriors began streaming out to meet the attack. With Reno's men anchored on their right by the impassable tree line and bend in the river, the Indians rode hard against the exposed left end of Reno's line. After about 20 minutes of long-distance firing, Reno had taken only one casualty, but the odds against him had risen (Reno estimated five to one) and Custer had not reinforced him. Trooper Billy Jackson reported that by then, the Indians had begun massing in the open area shielded by a small hill to the left of the Reno's line and to the right of the Indian village. From this position the Indians mounted an attack of more than 500 warriors against the left and rear of Reno's line, turning Reno's exposed left flank. They forced a hasty withdrawal into the timber along the bend in the river. Here the Indians pinned Reno and his men down and set fire to the brush to try to drive the soldiers out of their position.
After giving orders to mount, dismount and mount again, Reno told his men, "All those who wish to make their escape follow me," and led a disorderly rout across the river toward the bluffs on the other side. The retreat was immediately disrupted by Cheyenne attacks at close quarters. Later Reno reported that three officers and 29 troopers had been killed during the retreat and subsequent fording of the river, with another officer and 13–18 men missing. Most of these men were left behind in the timber, although many eventually rejoined the detachment. Reno's hasty retreat may have been precipitated by the death of Reno's Arikara Scout
Bloody KnifeBloody Knife was an American Indian scout and guide with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and he has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S...
, who had been shot in the head as he sat on his horse next to Reno, his blood and brains splattering the side of Reno's face.
Reno and Benteen on Reno Hill
Atop the bluffs, known today as Reno Hill, Reno's shaken troops were joined by Captain Benteen's column (Companies D, H and K), arriving from the south. This force had been on a lateral scouting mission when it had been summoned by Custer's messenger, Italian bugler John Martin (Giovanni Martini) with the hand-written message "Come on...big village, be quick...bring pacs" ("pacs" referring to ammunition, meaning that by this time Custer was most likely aware of the large numbers of Indians they were having to face). Benteen's coincidental arrival on the bluffs was just in time to save Reno's men from possible annihilation. Their detachments were reinforced by McDougall's Company B and the pack train. The 14 officers and 340 troopers on the bluffs organized an all-around defense and dug
rifle pitsA defensive fighting position is a type of earthwork constructed in a military context, generally large enough to accommodate at least one person.- Terminology :...
using whatever implements they had among them, including knives. This practice had become standard during the last year of the American Civil War, with both Union and Confederates troops utilizing knives, eating utensils, mess plates and pans, to dig effective battlefield fortifications.
Despite hearing heavy gunfire from the north, including distinct volleys at 4:20 p.m., Benteen concentrated on reinforcing Reno's badly wounded and hard-pressed detachment, rather than continuing on toward Custer. Benteen's apparent reluctance to reach Custer prompted later criticism that he had failed to follow orders. Around 5:00 p.m., Capt.
Thomas WeirCaptain Thomas Benton Weir was an officer in the 7th Cavalry Regiment , notable for his participation in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand. A hill on the battlefield, Weir Point, is named in his honor.-Civil War Experience:Weir graduated from the University of...
and Company D moved out against orders to make contact with Custer. They advanced a mile, to what is today Weir Ridge or Weir Point, and could see in the distance Indian warriors on horseback shooting at objects on the ground. By this time, roughly 5:25 p.m., Custer's battle may have concluded. The conventional historical understanding is that what Weir witnessed was most likely warriors killing the wounded soldiers and shooting at dead bodies on the "Last Stand Hill" at the northern end of the Custer battlefield. Some contemporary historians have suggested that what Weir witnessed was a fight on what is now called Calhoun Hill. The destruction of Keogh's battalion may have begun with the collapse of L, I and C Company (half of it) following the combined assaults led by
Crazy HorseCrazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
,
White BullWhite Bull was the nephew of Sitting Bull, and a famous warrior in his own right. White Bull participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. For years it was said White Bull boasted of killing Lt. George Armstrong Custer at the famous battle...
, Hump,
GallGall Lakota Phizí, was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.-Early years:...
and others. Other Indian accounts contradict this understanding, however, and the time element remains a subject of debate. The other entrenched companies eventually followed Weir by assigned battalions, first Benteen, then Reno, and finally the pack train. Growing Indian attacks around Weir Ridge 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.
Benteen displayed calmness and courage by exposing himself to Indian fire and was hit in the heel of his boot by an Indian bullet. At one point, he personally led a counterattack to push back Indians who had continued to crawl through the grass closer to the soldier's positions.
Custer's fight
Interpretations of Custer's fight are conjecture, since none of his men survived the battle. The accounts of surviving Indians are conflicting and unclear.
While the gunfire heard on the bluffs by Reno and Benteen's men was probably from Custer's fight, the soldiers on Reno Hill were unaware of what had happened to Custer until General Terry's arrival on June 26. They were reportedly stunned by the news. When the army examined the Custer battle site, soldiers could not determine fully what had transpired. Custer's force of roughly 210 men had been engaged by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne about 3.5 miles (6 km) to the north. Evidence of organized resistance included apparent breastworks made of dead horses on Custer Hill. By this time, the Indians had already removed most of their dead from the field. The soldiers identified the 7th Cavalry's dead as best as possible and hastily buried them where they fell. By the time troops came to recover the bodies, they found most of the dead stripped of their clothing, ritually mutilated, and in an advanced state of decomposition, making identification of many impossible.
Custer was found with shots to the left chest and left temple. Either wound would have been fatal, though he appeared to have bled from only the chest wound, meaning his head wound may have been delivered
post-mortem. He also suffered a wound to the arm. Some Lakota oral histories assert that Custer committed suicide to avoid capture and subsequent torture. Several Indian accounts note several soldiers committing suicide near the end of the battle. The account of Custer's suicide is usually discounted since the wounds were inconsistent with his being known as right-handed. His body was found near the top of Custer Hill, which also came to be known as "Last Stand Hill." There the United States erected a tall memorial obelisk inscribed with the names of the 7th Cavalry's casualties.
Several days after the battle,
CurleyAshishishe , known as Curly , was a Crow scout in the United States Army during the Sioux Wars, best known for having been one of the few survivors on the United States side at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He did not fight in the battle, but watched from a distance, and was the first to report the...
, Custer's Crow scout who had left Custer near Medicine Tail Coulee, recounted the battle, reporting that Custer had attacked the village after attempting to cross the river. He was driven back, retreating toward the hill where his body was found. As the scenario seemed compatible with Custer's aggressive style of warfare and with evidence found on the ground, it was the basis of many popular accounts of the battle.
But Chief Gall, a major participant, told Lt.
Edward Settle GodfreyEdward Settle Godfrey was a United States Army Brigadier General who received the Medal of Honor for leadership as a captain during the Indian Wars.-Early life and education:...
that Custer never came close to the river. In turn, some Cheyenne and Sioux warriors criticized Gall's account of the battle, so there remain questions about what took place.
CheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
oral tradition credits
Buffalo Calf Road WomanBuffalo Calf Road Woman, or Brave Woman , was a Northern Cheyenne woman who saved her wounded warrior brother Chief Comes in Sight, in the Battle of Rosebud . Her rescue helped rally the Cheyenne warriors to win the battle. She fought next to her husband in the Battle of the Little Bighorn that...
with striking the blow that knocked Custer off his horse before he died.
Custer at Minneconjou Ford
Having isolated Reno's force and driven them away from the encampment, the bulk of the native 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 on the other side of the river, he could see Reno charging the village. Riding north along the bluffs, Custer could have descended into a drainage called Medicine Tail Coulee, which led to the river. Some historians believe that part of Custer's force descended the
couleeCoulee is applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone.The word coulee comes from the Canadian French coulée, from French word couler meaning "to flow"....
, going west to the river and attempting unsuccessfully to cross into the village. According to some accounts, a small contingent of Indian sharpshooters opposed this crossing.
White Cow Bull claimed to have shot a leader wearing a buckskin jacket off his horse in the river. While no other Indian account supports this claim, if White Bull did shoot a buckskin-clad leader off his horse, some historians have argued that Custer may have been seriously wounded by him. Some Indian accounts claim that besides wounding one of the leaders of this advance, a soldier carrying a company guidon was also hit. Troopers had to dismount to help the wounded men back onto their horses. The fact that each of the non-mutilation wounds to Custer's body (a bullet wound below the heart and a shot to the left temple) would have been instantly fatal casts doubt on his being wounded and remounted.
Reports of an attempted fording of the river at Medicine Tail Coulee might explain Custer's purpose for Reno's attack, that is, a coordinated "hammer-and-anvil" maneuver, with Reno's holding the Indians at bay at the southern end of the camp, while Custer drove them against Reno's line from the north. Other historians have noted that if Custer did attempt to cross the river near Medicine Tail Coulee, he may have believed it was the north end of the Indian camp, although it was only the middle. Some Indian accounts, however, place the Northern Cheyenne encampment and the north end of the overall village to the left (and south) of the opposite side of the crossing. The location of the north end of the village remains in dispute, however.
Other views of Custer's actions at Minneconjou Ford
Other historians 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, it was too late to break back to the south where Reno and Benteen could have provided assistance. Two men from the 7th Cavalry, the young Crow scout
Ashishishe (known in English as
CurleyAshishishe , known as Curly , was a Crow scout in the United States Army during the Sioux Wars, best known for having been one of the few survivors on the United States side at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He did not fight in the battle, but watched from a distance, and was the first to report the...
) and the trooper
Peter ThompsonPeter Thompson was a Scots-American soldier who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Biography:...
, claimed to have seen Custer engage the Indians. The accuracy of their recollections remains controversial, as accounts by battle participants and assessments by historians almost universally discredit Thompson's claim.
Scholars' interpretation of 20th-century findings of archaeological evidence and giving more credence to Indian testimony has given rise to a new interpretation of the battle. In the 1920s, battlefield investigators discovered hundreds of .45–70 shell cases along the ridge line, known today as Nye-Cartwright Ridge, between South Medicine Tail Coulee and the next drainage at North Medicine Tail (also known as Deep Coulee). Historians believe Custer divided his detachment into two (and possibly three) companies, retaining personal command of one while presumably delegating Captain George W. Yates to command the second.
The 1920s' evidence supports the theory that at least one of the companies made a feint attack southeast from Nye-Cartwright Ridge straight down the center of the "V" formed by the intersection at the crossing of Medicine Tail Coulee on the right and Calhoun Coulee on the left. The intent may have been to relieve pressure on Reno's detachment (according to the Crow scout Curley, possibly viewed by both Mitch Bouyer and Custer) by withdrawing the skirmish line into the timber on the edge of the Little Bighorn River. Had the US troops come straight down Medicine Tail Coulee, their approach to the Minneconjou Crossing and the northern area of the village would have been masked by the high ridges running on the northwest side of the Little Bighorn River.
That they might have come southeast, from the center of Nye-Cartwright Ridge, seems to be supported by Northern Cheyenne accounts of seeing the approach of the distinctly white-colored horses of the Company E, known as the Grey Horse Company. Its approach was seen by Indians at that end of the village. Behind them, a second company, further up on the heights, would have provided long-range cover fire. Warriors could have been drawn to the feint attack, forcing the battalion back towards the heights, up the north fork drainage, away from the troops' providing cover fire above. The covering company would have moved towards a reunion, delivering heavy volley fire and leaving the trail of expended cartridges discovered 50 years later.
Last stand
In the end, the hilltop was probably too small to accommodate the survivors and wounded. Fire from the southeast made it impossible for Custer's men to secure a defensive position all around Last Stand Hill. On Last Stand Hill, the soldiers put up their most dogged defense. According to native accounts, far more Indian casualties occurred in the attack on Last Stand Hill than anywhere else. The extent of the soldiers' resistance indicated they had few doubts about their prospects for survival. According to Cheyenne and Sioux testimony, the command structure rapidly broke down, although smaller "last stands" were apparently made by several groups. Custer's remaining companies (E, F, and half of C,) were soon eradicated.
By almost all accounts, the Lakota annihilated Custer's force within an hour of engagement. David Humphreys 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. Other Indian accounts said the fighting lasted only "as long as it takes a hungry man to eat a meal." The Lakota asserted that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of warriors who overwhelmed the cavalrymen in a surprise charge from the northeast, causing a breakdown in the command structure and panic among the troops. Many of these men threw down their weapons while Cheyenne and Sioux warriors rode them down, "
counting coupCounting coup refers to the winning of prestige in battle, rather than having to prove a win by injuring one's opponent. Its earliest known reference is from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" where Laertes and Hamlet conduct a mock swordfight before King Claudius and Queen Gertrude...
" with lances, coup sticks, and quirts. Some Indian accounts recalled this segment of the fight as a "buffalo run."
Debate over effectiveness of cavalry weapons
In defense of Custer, some historians claim that some of the Indians were armed with repeating
SpencerThe Spencer repeating rifle was a manually operated lever-action, repeating rifle fed from a tube magazine with cartridges. It was adopted by the Union Army, especially by the cavalry, during the American Civil War, but did not replace the standard issue muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the...
, Winchester and
Henry rifleThe Henry repeating rifle was a lever-action, breech-loading, tubular magazine rifle.-History:The original Henry rifle was a .44 caliber rimfire, lever-action, breech-loading rifle designed by Benjamin Tyler Henry in the late 1850s. The Henry rifle was an improved version of the earlier Volcanic...
s, while the 7th Cavalry carried single-shot
Springfield Model 1873The Model 1873 "Trapdoor" Springfield was the first standard-issued breech-loading rifle adopted by the United States Army...
carbines, caliber .45–70. These rifles had a slower rate of fire than the repeating rifles and tended to jam when overheated. The carbines had been issued with copper cartridges. Troopers soon discovered that the copper expanded in the breech when heated upon firing; the ejector would then cut through the copper and leave the case behind, thus jamming the rifle. Troopers were forced to extract the cartridges manually with knife blades; thus, the carbines were nearly useless in combat except as clubs. During Reno's fight, Captain French was reported to have sat in the open, completely exposed to native American gunfire, extracting jammed shells from guns, reloading, and then passing them back to troopers in exchange for other jammed weapons to clear.
The Springfield Model 1873 was selected by the Army Ordnance Board after extensive testing in competition with other rifles. It was considered to be the most reliable rifle after multiple weathering tests. The choice of a single-shot rifle over repeat-firing rifles was the Army's choice to prevent overuse of ammunition, following its emphasis at that time on marksmanship, as well as the costs of transporting cartridges along a 1000 miles (1,609.3 km) supply line. While Indian accounts of the Custer fight noted men throwing down their rifles, in panic or possibly anger, accounts of jammed Springfield carbines were not reported in other confrontations during the Indian Wars. The jamming could have been due to the men's lack of familiarity with the Springfields, as they had been issued only weeks before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Additionally, subsequent archaeological excavations of the battlefield from 1983 to present have discovered evidence that cast light on the issue of jammed weapons. Fox, in 1993, notes that only 3.4% (3 out of 88) of .45/55-caliber Springfield cartridge cases from the Custer battlefield and 2.7% (7 out of 257) cases from the Reno-Benteen field exhibit any indication they were pried from jammed weapons. These findings suggest accounts of jammed carbines were the result of misconception or a myth that grew after the defeat. The actual problem was that the carbines used inside primed, copper cased .45 calibre rounds with 55 grains of black powder. The copper cases expand as do brass cases, but do not contract after firing. The mouth of the case flashes back, leaving a residue. The residue builds up until subsequent cases are being forced in, as the breach closes. They then become hard to extract, and the steel extractors tear the softer case rims. Carbines do not have ram rods, as do the rifles of the same type, and the troopers could not turn to the ram rod, when the extractors failed to remove the spent cases. Custer had ordered the M1860 sabers left behind to reduce weight and attenuate noise. This left the troopers with nothing to use once they had expended their ammunition to the point of jamming.
Indian accounts were documented in
paintings on buffalo hidesPlains hide painting is a traditional Plains Indian artistic practice of painting on either tanned or raw animal hides. Tipis, tipi liners, shields, parfleches, robes, clothing, drums, and winter counts could all be painted.-Genres:...
. They indicated a fight between Indian bows and arrows and cavalry pistols. While this representation may support the claims of the Army's carbines malfunctioning, the single-shot Springfield rifles used by the 7th had a much greater range than the Winchester and Henry rifles supposedly used by the Indians. Thus, if the troopers used skirmishers covering fixed arcs of fire, the soldiers would have been able to keep the Indians at bay for some time. Indian leaders spoke of several of their charges against the soldiers' positions being repulsed, forcing the Indians to return to cover below the ridge.
As more Indians joined the fight, fire on Company L and Company C's two positions increased steadily in intensity. Indian accounts described warriors rushing army positions with bright robes to induce panic in the cavalry mounts. Another account related that soldiers (probably I Company, held initially in reserve over the crest of Finley Ridge) were rushed by warriors waving blankets and by lone warrior "bravery runs," which forced troopers to choose between holding horse reins, or letting go to return fire. Soldiers aiming at oncoming Indians also had their hands pulled upwards by the frightened mounts, resulting in weapons discharged uselessly in the air. When horses carrying ammunition packs were driven off, the Indians quickly gained control of them.
While some warriors were armed with rifles (including antiquated muzzle-loaders and Army Sharps carbines which they had acquired years before in trades with settlers), the Indians also carried a large variety of traditional weapons. These included bows and arrows and several styles of heavy, stone-headed war clubs. According to the Indian accounts, at least half of the Indian warriors were armed only with bows and "many arrows," making this the primary weapon. Many of the Indian participants, including the thirteen year-old
Black ElkHeȟáka Sápa was a famous Wičháša Wakȟáŋ of the Oglala Lakota . He was Heyoka and a second cousin of Crazy Horse.-Life:...
, claimed to have acquired their first gun from dead troopers at the battle. The Sioux warrior White Bull described the Indians' systematically stripping slain troopers of guns and cartridge belts. As the losses mounted among Custer's men, the soldiers' fire steadily decreased, while the gunfire by the Indians with newly acquired weapons increased until reaching a crescendo. Cheyenne participants gave similar testimony: the Indians' firepower was increased by the new carbines they took off the soldiers, and ammunition recovered from the saddlebags of the troopers' captured horses.
Lakota and Cheyenne bows and arrows gave a deadly advantage over the troopers on the ridge due to the exposed terrain of the battlefield. Unlike the valley, the heights above the Little Bighorn River are considered completely unsuited for mounted troops. Custer's men were essentially trapped on higher ground, from which direct fire at the Indians through the high, dense brush would have been difficult. On the other hand, the Lakota and Cheyenne were able to shoot their arrows from heavy sagebrush below the ridge by aiming their arrows upward over obstacles at the puffs of smoke from the troopers' weapons. Their large volume of arrows ensured severe casualties. Many of the slain troopers were found with numerous arrows protruding from their bodies. Many also had crushed skulls, likely from the Indians' stone-headed war clubs. Historians have not determined when the latter injuries occurred. Some accounts of the Indian wars describe Indian women coming onto the field after a battle and systematically bashing in the heads of the enemy dead and wounded alike.
More on Custer's final resistance
Recent archaeological work at the battlefield indicates that organized resistance in the form of skirmish lines probably took place. The remainder of the battle took on the nature of a running fight. Modern archeology and historical Indian accounts indicate that Custer's force may have been divided into three groups, with the Indians' attempting to prevent them from effectively reuniting. Indian accounts describe warriors (including women) running up from the village to wave blankets in order to scare off the soldiers' horses. Fighting dismounted, the soldiers' skirmish lines were overwhelmed. Studies show that it would have taken an hour to cover the long stretch of land over which the troopers died and by most accounts, the battle was over within this time. "As long as it takes a hungry man to eat his lunch," by one indian account. Army doctrine would have called for one man in four to be a horseholder behind the skirmish lines and, in extreme cases, one man in eight. Later, the troops would have bunched together in defensive positions and shot their remaining horse as cover. As individuals troopers were wounded or killed, initial defensive positions would have become untenable and abandoned.
Under threat of attack the first Americans on the battlefield hurriedly buried the troopers in shallow graves, more or less where they had fallen. A couple of years after the battle, markers were placed where men were believed to have fallen, so the placement of troops has been roughly construed. The troops evidently died in several groups, including on Custer Hill, around Captain
Myles KeoghMyles Walter Keogh was an Irishman who fought in Italy during the 1860 Papal War before volunteering for the Union side in the American Civil War . During the war years, he was promoted from the rank of Captain to that of Major, finally being awarded the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel...
, and strung out towards the Little Big Horn River.
Last break-out attempt by 28 troopers
Modern documentaries suggest that there may not have been a "
Last StandLast stand is a loose military term used to describe a body of troops holding a defensive position in the face of overwhelming odds. The defensive force usually takes very heavy casualties or is completely destroyed, as happened in "Custer's Last Stand" at the Battle of Little Big HornBryan Perrett...
", as traditionally portrayed in popular culture. Instead, archaeologists suggest that, in the end, Custer's troops were not surrounded but rather overwhelmed by a single charge. This scenario corresponds to several Indian accounts stating Crazy Horse's charge swarmed the resistance, with the surviving soldiers fleeing in panic. At this point, the fight became a rout with warriors riding down the fleeing troopers and hitting them with lances and
coup sticksCounting coup refers to the winning of prestige in battle, rather than having to prove a win by injuring one's opponent. Its earliest known reference is from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" where Laertes and Hamlet conduct a mock swordfight before King Claudius and Queen Gertrude...
. Many of these troopers may have ended up in a deep ravine 300–400 yards away from what is known today as Custer Hill. At least 28 bodies (the most common number associated with burial witness testimony), including that of scout
Mitch BouyerMitch Bouyer was an interpreter and guide in the Old West following the American Civil War. General John Gibbon called him "next to Jim Bridger, the best guide in the country"...
, were discovered in or near that gulch, their deaths possibly the battle's final actions. Although the marker for Mitch Bouyer has been accounted for as being accurate through archaeological and forensic testing, it is some 65 yards away from Deep Ravine. Other archaeological explorations done in Deep Ravine have found no human remains associated with the battle. According to Indian accounts, about 40 men made a desperate stand around Custer on Custer Hill, delivering volley fire. The great majority of the Indian casualties were probably suffered during this closing segment of the battle, as the soldiers and Indians on Calhoun Hill were more widely separated and traded fire at greater distances for most of their portion of the Battle than were the soldiers and Indians on Custer Hill. Some 47 marble markers, originally intended for Reno-Benteen Hill, were mistakenly taken to the Custer side of the battlefield. Soldiers told of placing two markers over a body, one at the head and one at the foot of the soldier's remains. This may explain the pairing of double markers at several places, especially on Calhoun Hill and at other places at that end of the battlefield.
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.) 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. On June 26, the column under General Terry approached from the north, and the Indians drew off in the opposite direction. The Crow scout
White Man Runs HimWhite Man Runs Him - was a Crow scout serving with George Armstrong Custer’s 1876 expedition against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne that culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Early life:...
was the first to tell General Terry's officers that Custer's force had "been wiped out." Reno and Benteen's wounded troops were given what treatment was available at that time; five later died of their wounds. One of the regiment's three surgeons had been with Custer's column, while another, Dr DeWolf, had been killed during Reno's retreat; the remaining doctor, Assistant Surgeon Henry R. Porter, was assisted by interpreter
Fred GerardFredrick Frances Gerard was a frontiersman, army scout, and civilian interpreter for George Armstrong Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry during the Little Bighorn Campaign...
.
News of the defeat arrived in the East as the U.S. was observing its
centennialThe Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
, and shocked people accustomed to battlefield victories and increasingly convinced of their
inherent superiorityAmerican exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation," and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty,...
and claim to
manifest destinyManifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
. The Army began to investigate, although their effectiveness was hampered by a concern for survivors, and the reputation of the officers. There was public feeling for Custer's widow,
Elizabeth Bacon CusterElizabeth Bacon Custer was the wife of General George Armstrong Custer. After his death, she became an outspoken advocate for her husband's legacy through her popular books and lectures...
, and she fiercely protected her husband's reputation. She lived until 1933, thus preventing much serious research until most of the evidence was long gone.
From the Indian perspective, the aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn had far-reaching consequences. It was the beginning of the end of the Indian Wars. The Indians who camped on the Little Bighorn River knew that their victory over Custer would not be the end of conflicts. Their scouts reported that a large contingent of U.S. troops was still active in the area. On June 26, the
SiouxThe Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
and
CheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
began to quickly pack their camps. Within 48 hours of their victory, they had dissolved and left the great Indian encampment.
Oglala Sioux
Black ElkHeȟáka Sápa was a famous Wičháša Wakȟáŋ of the Oglala Lakota . He was Heyoka and a second cousin of Crazy Horse.-Life:...
recounted the exodus this way: "We fled all night, following the Greasy Grass. My two younger brothers and I rode in a pony-drag, and my mother put some young pups in with us. They were always trying to crawl out and I was always putting them back in, so I didn't sleep much."
The U.S. Army aggressively mounted a campaign to force remaining free Indians on to reservations. General
Nelson A. MilesNelson Appleton Miles was a United States soldier who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War.-Early life:Miles was born in Westminster, Massachusetts, on his family's farm...
took command of the effort in October 1876. In May 1877,
Sitting BullSitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
escaped to Canada. Within days, Crazy Horse surrendered at Fort Robinson. The Great Sioux War ended on May 7 with Miles' defeat of a remaining band of
MiniconjouThe Miniconjou are a Native American people constituting a subdivision of the Lakota Sioux, who formerly inhabited an area from the Black Hills in South Dakota to the Platte River. The contemporary population lives mostly in west-central South Dakota...
Sioux.
As for the
Black HillsThe Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...
, the Manypenny Commission structured an arrangement in which the Sioux would cede the land to United States or the government would cease to supply rations to the reservations. Threatened with starvation, the Indians ceded
Paha Sapa to the United States, but the Sioux never accepted the legitimacy of the transaction. After lobbying Congress to create a forum to decide their claim, and subsequent litigation spanning 40 years, the United States Supreme Court in the 1980 decision
United States v. Sioux Nation of IndiansIn United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 the Supreme Court of the United States held that: 1) The enactment by Congress of a law allowing the Sioux Nation to pursue a claim against the United States that had been previously adjudicated did not violate the doctrine of separation...
acknowledged the United States had taken the Black Hills without just compensation. The Sioux refused the money offered, and continue to insist on their right to occupy the land.
The Sioux did not consider the Battle of Little Bighorn a singular action. Rather, they saw it as one battle within a series of conflicts with the US Army that led directly to the
Wounded Knee MassacreThe Wounded Knee Massacre happened on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, USA. On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M...
in 1890. In this action, soldiers from the 7th Cavalry killed 146 Indian men, women and children and brought the
Indian WarsAmerican Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...
to an end.
Indian casualties
Native American casualties have never been determined and estimates vary widely, from as few as 36 dead (from Native American listings of the dead by name) to as many as 300. The Sioux chief Red Horse told Col. W. H. Wood that the Native American suffered 136 dead and 160 wounded during the battle. Many historians do not agree with these categorical numbers, since Native Americans did not keep such statistics.
7th Cavalry casualties
The 7th Cavalry suffered 52 percent casualties: 16 officers and 242 troopers killed or died of wounds, 1 officer and 51 troopers wounded. Every soldier in the five companies with Custer was killed (3 Indian scouts and several troopers had left that column before the battle; an Indian scout, Curley, was the only survivor to leave after the battle had begun), although for years rumors persisted of survivors. Among the dead were Custer's brothers Boston and Thomas, his brother-in-law James Calhoun, and his nephew Henry Reed. The sole surviving animal reportedly discovered on the battlefield by General Terry's troops was Captain Keogh's horse
ComancheComanche was a mixed Mustang/Morgan horse who survived General George Armstrong Custer's detachment of the United States 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Biography:...
. (Though other horses were believed to have been captured by the Indians.)
In 1878, the army awarded 24
Medals of HonorThe Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
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. Few on the non-Indian side questioned the conduct of the enlisted men, but many questioned the tactics, strategy and conduct of the officers. Indian accounts spoke of soldiers' panic-driven flight and suicide by those unwilling to fall captive to the Indians. While such stories were gathered by Thomas Bailey Marquis in a book in the 1930s, it was not published until 1976 because of the unpopularity of such assertions. Inexperienced, they believed captives would be tortured. Indians generally killed men outright, and took as captive for adoption only young women and children. Indian accounts also noted the bravery of soldiers who fought to the death.
Reconstitution of the 7th Cavalry, July 1876
Beginning in July, the 7th Cavalry was assigned new officers and recruiting efforts begun to fill the depleted ranks. The regiment, reorganized into eight companies, remained in the field as part of the Terry Expedition, now based on the Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Big Horn and reinforced by Gibbon's column. On August 8, 1876, after Terry was further reinforced with the 5th Infantry, the expedition moved up Rosebud Creek in pursuit of the Lakota. It met with Crook's command, similarly reinforced, and the combined force, almost 4,000 strong, followed the Lakota trail northeast toward the
Little Missouri RiverThe Little Missouri River is a tributary of the Missouri River, 560 mi long, in the northern Great Plains of the United States. Rising in northeastern Wyoming, in western Crook County about west of Devil's Tower, it flows northeastward, across a corner of southeastern Montana, and into South Dakota...
. Persistent rain and lack of supplies forced the column to dissolve and return to its varying starting points. The 7th Cavalry returned to Fort Lincoln to reconstitute.
The expansion of the US Army
The US Congress authorized appropriations to expand the Army by 2,500 men to meet the emergency after the defeat of the 7th Cavalry. For a session, the
Democratic PartyThe Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
-controlled
House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
abandoned its campaign to reduce the size of the Army. Word of Custer's fate reached the
44th United States CongressThe Forty-fourth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1875 to March 4, 1877, during the seventh and...
as a conference committee was attempting to reconcile opposing appropriations bills approved by the House and the
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. They approved a measure to increase the size of cavalry companies to 100 enlisted men on July 24. The committee temporarily lifted the ceiling on the size of the Army by 2,500 on August 15.
The role of Indian noncombatants in Custer's strategy
The Sioux and Northern Cheyenne encampment on the Little Big Horn River comprised a key component in Lt. Colonel George A. Custer's field strategy at the Battle of the Little Big Horn: Indian noncombatants.
Women, children, the elderly or disabled were targeted for capture to serve as hostages and human shields. Custer's battalions intended to "ride into the camp and secure noncombatant hostages" and "forc[e] the warriors to surrender". Author Evan S. Connell observed that if Custer could occupy the village, before widespread resistance developed, the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors "would be obliged to surrender, because if they started to fight, they would be shooting their own families."
Custer asserted in his book
My Life on the Plains, published just two years before the Battle of the Little Big Horn, that:
"Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed."
On Custer's decision to advance up the bluffs and descend on the village from the east, Lt. Edward Godfrey of Company K surmised:
"[Custer] must …have counted on finding the squaws and children fleeing to the bluffs on the north, for in no other way do I account for his wide detour [east of the village]. He must have counted on Reno's success, and fully expected the scatteration of the non-combatants with the pony herds. The probable attack upon the families and capture of the herds were in that event counted upon to strike consternation in the hearts of the warriors, and were elements for success upon which Custer counted."
The Sioux and Cheyenne fighters were acutely aware of the danger posed by the military engagement of noncombatants and that "even a semblance of an attack on the women and children" would draw the warriors back to the village, according to historian John S. Gray. Such was their concern that merely a "feint" by Cpt. Yates's E and F Companies at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee (Minneconjou Ford) caused hundreds of warriors to disengage from the Reno valley fight and return to deal with the threat to the village.
Custer proceeded with a wing of his battalion (Yates's Troops E and F) north and opposite the Cheyenne circle at a crossing referred to by Fox as Ford D which provided "access to the [women and children] fugitives." Indeed, Yates's force "posed an immediate threat to fugitive Indian families…" gathering at the north end of the huge encampment.
Custer persisted in his efforts to "seize women and children" even as hundreds of warriors were massing around Keogh's wing on the bluffs. Yates's wing, descending to the Little Bighorn River at Ford D encountered "light resistance", undetected by the Indian forces ascending the bluffs east of the village.
Custer was almost within "striking distance of the refugees" before being repulsed by Indian defenders and forced back to Custer Ridge.
Captain Robert G. Carter, writing to author W.A. Graham in 1925, discussed the vulnerability of U.S. Army troops to interception and destruction by Indian defenders, outside the context of the Indian villages:
"Who knows that the same Indians [who destroyed Custer's battalion] might have done to [the column commanded by] Gibbon and Terry, had not Custer attacked …on the 25th, instead [attacking on] the 26th…and Sioux and Cheyenne forces "moving toward [Terry and Gibbon], do the very same thing [to their column] – overwhelm them by force of numbers…"
Battle controversies
The Battle Of The Little Bighorn was the subject of an 1879 U.S. Army Court of Inquiry, made at Reno's request, in Chicago, during which his 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. Thomas Rosser, James O'Kelly, and others questioned the conduct of Reno throughout the years due to his hastily ordered retreat. Reno defenders at his trial point out that while the retreat was disorganized, Reno did not withdraw from his position until it was clear that he was outnumbered and outflanked.
Benteen has been criticized for "dawdling" on the first day of the fight, and supposedly disobeying Custer's written orders to bring "pacs" (ammunition). However, many historians recognize Benteen for supporting and defending Reno's men on Reno Hill.
General Terry and others, claimed that Custer made strategic errors from the start of the campaign. For instance, he refused to use a battery of Gatling guns and turned down General Terry's offer of an additional battalion of the 2nd Cavalry. Custer believed that the Gatling guns would impede his march up the Rosebud and hamper his mobility. Considering his rapid march en route to the Little Big Horn, averaging almost 30 miles (48.3 km) a day, this was an accurate assessment. Each gun was hauled by four horses, and soldiers often had to drag the heavy guns by hand over obstacles. The Gatling guns may have been a decided equalizer in the face of Indian warrior superiority of numbers.
Custer believed that the 7th Cavalry could handle any Indian force encountered, and that the addition of the four companies of the 2nd would not alter the outcome. When the offer of the 2nd Cavalry was made, he reportedly replied that the 7th "could handle anything." There is evidence that Custer suspected that he would be outnumbered by the Indians, although he did not know by how much. By dividing his forces, Custer created a situation in which the entire column could have been defeated in detail, had it not been for Benteen and Reno linking up to make a desperate yet successful stand on the bluff above the southern end of the camp.
The division of his force into four smaller detachments (including the pack train) can be attributed to inadequate reconnaissance on his part, and ignoring the warnings given by his Crow scouts and Charley Reynolds It was also a clear tactical error by the military doctrine of his time. In some respects, events overtook Custer, so that by the time the battle began, he had already divided his forces into three battalions of differing sizes. He kept the largest with him. Consequently, his men were widely scattered and unable to support each other. Custer was most concerned that the combined tribes would escape to the south and scatter into different groups. Thus he considered an immediate attack on the south end of the camp to be the best course of action.
Criticism of Custer was not universal, however. Lieutenant General
Nelson A. MilesNelson Appleton Miles was a United States soldier who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War.-Early life:Miles was born in Westminster, Massachusetts, on his family's farm...
wrote in 1877, while investigating the battlefield, "The more I study the moves here [on the Little Big Horn], the more I have admiration for Custer." Facing major budget cutbacks, the U.S. Army did not need any additional bad press and found ways to exculpate Custer. Instead, they blamed the defeat on the Indians' alleged possession of large numbers of repeating rifles and their great numerical superiority.
The widowed Elizabeth Bacon Custer, who never remarried, wrote three popular books that upheld her husband's reputation and Captain Frederick Whittaker published a hugely successful book elaborately supportive of General Custer. She outlived almost all of General Custer's critics. In the battle for memory, the perception of the fight at the Little Bighorn was recreated along tragic
VictorianThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
lines in numerous books, films and other media for the next 80 years. Custer's legend became embedded in the American imagination as a heroic officer's fighting valiantly against savage forces, an image popularized in
Wild WestWild West Shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe. The first and prototypical wild west show was Buffalo Bill's, formed in 1883 and lasting until 1913...
extravaganzas hosted by showman
"Buffalo Bill" CodyWilliam Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
,
Pawnee BillPawnee Bill , born Gordon William Lillie, was a Wild West showman and performer.Best known for his short partnership with Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill was born February 14, 1860, in Bloomington, Illinois. Pawnee Bill and his show made several false starts during the latter part of the nineteenth...
, and others. The first critical note came with Frederick van de Water's biography,
Glory Hunter (1934). But it was not until the last half of the 20th century that historians developed a more critical view of the actions of Custer which led to the deaths of him and his entire command.
In November 2006, an
ethnologistEthnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
theory by Thomas Bailey Marquis in his 1933 book
The Cheyennes of Montana was revived. Marquis stated that the Indians present at Little Bighorn (and on the Plains in general) considered the Sioux War of 1876 to be a misnomer, that in actuality the Lakota participated not as the main antagonist of the U.S. government but only as allies of the Cheyenne, whom they considered the actual objective of the military campaign. Had the Lakota, who did not have the tribal unity and central authority epitomized by the Cheyenne, not taken this view, the theory concludes that the close alliance between the peoples would not have occurred and the outcomes of the campaign could have been greatly different.
By the end of the 20th century, the general recognition of the mistreatment of the various Indian tribes in the settling of the American West, and the perception of U.S. Cavalry's role in it, have altered the image of the battle (and by extension, of Custer) to that of a confrontation between relentless U.S. westward expansion and Native Americans defending their traditional lands and way of life.
Battlefield preservation
The site was first preserved as a national cemetery in 1879, to protect graves of the 7th Cavalry troopers buried there. It was redesignated
Custer Battlefield National MonumentA National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a National Park except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of Congress. National monuments receive less funding and...
in 1946, and later renamed
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991. In 1967, Major Marcus Reno was reinterred to the cemetery with honors including an eleven-gun salute.
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).
Indian leaders and warriors in the battle
- Hunkpapa (Lakota): Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
, Four Horns, Crow KingCrow King , Medicine Bag That Burns or Burns The Medicine Bag and just plain Medicine Bag. Crow King was a Hunkpapa Sioux war chief at the time of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Crow King was one of Sitting Bull's war chiefs at the Battle, he led eighty warriors against Custer's men on Calhoun...
, GallGall Lakota Phizí, was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.-Early years:...
, Black MoonBlack Moon Wi Sapa was a Miniconjou Lakota headman with the northern Lakota during the nineteenth century, not to be confused with the Hunkpapa leader by the same name.-Biography:...
, Rain-in-the-FaceRain-in-the-Face was a warchief of the Lakota tribe of Native Americans. His mother was a Dakota related to the band of famous Chief Inkpaduta. He was among the Indian leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer and the U.S...
, Moving Robe Women, Spotted Horn Bull, Iron Hawk, One BullHenery Oscar One Bull was a Lakota Sioux man best known for being the nephew and adopted son of the great holy man, Sitting Bull. He was also the younger brother of White Bull, a famous Lakota warrior and chief contributor to Stanley Vestal's biography of their uncle...
, Bull Head, Chasing Eagle
- Sihasapa (Blackfoot Lakota): Crawler, Kill Eagle
- Minneconjou (Lakota): Chief Hump, Black Moon
Black Moon Wi Sapa was a Miniconjou Lakota headman with the northern Lakota during the nineteenth century, not to be confused with the Hunkpapa leader by the same name.-Biography:...
, Red Horse, Makes Room, Looks Up, Lame DeerJohn Fire Lame Deer, , also known as Lame Deer, John Fire, John Lame Deer and later The Old Man, was a Lakota holy man, member of the Heyoka society, grandson of the Miniconjou head man Lame Deer, father of Archie Fire Lame Deer.John Fire Lame Deer was a Mineconju-Lakota Sioux born on the...
, Dog-with-Horn, Dog Back Bone, White BullWhite Bull was the nephew of Sitting Bull, and a famous warrior in his own right. White Bull participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. For years it was said White Bull boasted of killing Lt. George Armstrong Custer at the famous battle...
, Feather Earring, Flying By
- Sans Arc (Lakota): Spotted Eagle, Red Bear, Long Road, Cloud Man
- Oglala (Lakota): Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
, He DogHe Dog . A member of the Oglala Lakota, He Dog was closely associated with Crazy Horse during the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.-Biography:...
, Chief Long Wolf, Black ElkHeȟáka Sápa was a famous Wičháša Wakȟáŋ of the Oglala Lakota . He was Heyoka and a second cousin of Crazy Horse.-Life:...
, White Cow Bull, Running EagleRunning Eagle, aka Brown Weasel Woman, was a Blackfoot woman who rescued her father after his horse was shot by an enemy tribe. The name Running Eagle was bestowed upon her for her bravery, and she was invited to join a warrior society, and acted as a female war chief...
- Brule (Lakota): Two Eagles, Hollow Horn Bear
Hollow Horn Bear was a Brulé Sioux leader during the Indian Wars on the Great Plains of the United States....
, Brave Bird
- Wahpekute (Dakota): Inkpaduta
Inkpaduta was a war chief of the Santee Sioux during the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre and the 1862 Dakota War against the United States Army in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory.-Early life:Inkpaduta was born in what later became the Dakota...
, Sounds-the-Ground-as-He-Walks, White Eagle, White Tracking Earth
- Two Kettles (Lakota): Runs-the-Enemy,
- Northern Cheyenne: Two Moons
Two Moons , pronounced ‘Ishaynishus’ was the son of Carries the Otter, an Arikara captive who married into the Cheyenne tribe...
, Wooden LegWooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne warrior who fought against Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.-Biography:...
, Old Bear, Lame White ManLame White Man, or Ve'ho'enohnenehe, was a Cheyenne battle chief who fought at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876 and was killed there. He was also known as Bearded Man and Mad Hearted Wolf...
, American HorseWašíčuŋ Tȟašúŋke or American Horse was a chieftain of the Oglala Lakota during the Sioux Wars of the 1870s. He was also the nephew of the elder American Horse and son-in-law of Red Cloud....
, Brave Wolf, Antelope Women, Big Nose, Yellow Horse, Little Shield, Horse Road, Bob Tail Horse, Yellow Hair, Bear-Walks-on-a-Ridge, Black Hawk, Buffalo Calf Road WomanBuffalo Calf Road Woman, or Brave Woman , was a Northern Cheyenne woman who saved her wounded warrior brother Chief Comes in Sight, in the Battle of Rosebud . Her rescue helped rally the Cheyenne warriors to win the battle. She fought next to her husband in the Battle of the Little Bighorn that...
, Crooked Nose, Little Bird, Noisy Walking
- Arapahoes: Waterman, Sage, Left Hand, Yellow Eagle,
Notable scouts/interpreters in the battle
The 7th Cavalry was accompanied by a number of scouts and interpreters:
- Charley Reynolds
"Lonesome" Charley Reynolds was a scout in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. He was noted as an expert marksman, frontiersman and hunter. He had also been a scout with Buffalo Bill.-Biography:Charles Alexander Reynolds was...
: scout (killed)
- Bloody Knife
Bloody Knife was an American Indian scout and guide with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and he has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S...
: Arikara/Lakota scout (killed)
- Curley
Ashishishe , known as Curly , was a Crow scout in the United States Army during the Sioux Wars, best known for having been one of the few survivors on the United States side at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He did not fight in the battle, but watched from a distance, and was the first to report the...
: Crow scout
- Mitch Bouyer
Mitch Bouyer was an interpreter and guide in the Old West following the American Civil War. General John Gibbon called him "next to Jim Bridger, the best guide in the country"...
: scout/interpreter (killed)
- Isaiah Dorman
Isaiah Dorman was a former slave who served as an interpreter for the United States Army during the Indian Wars. He perished at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the only black man killed in the fight....
: interpreter (killed)
- Fred Gerard
Fredrick Frances Gerard was a frontiersman, army scout, and civilian interpreter for George Armstrong Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry during the Little Bighorn Campaign...
: interpreter
- White Man Runs Him
White Man Runs Him - was a Crow scout serving with George Armstrong Custer’s 1876 expedition against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne that culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Early life:...
: Crow scout
- Goes Ahead
Goes Ahead was a Crow scout for George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne...
: Crow scout
- Hairy Moccasin
Hairy Moccasin was a Crow scout for George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne...
: Crow scout
- White Swan: Crow scout (severely wounded)
- Half Yellow Face: Crow scout
- Red Star: Arikara scout
- Bob Tailed Bull: Arikara scout (killed)
- Little Brave: Arikara scout (killed)
- Red Bear: Arikara scout
- Running Wolf: Arikara scout
- Young Hawk: Arikara scout
- Strikes Two: Arikara scout
- Soldier: Arikara scout
- Little Sioux: Arikara scout
- Goose: Arikara scout (wounded in the hand by a 7th Cavalry trooper)
- Owl: Arikara scout
- William Jackson: half-Pikuni and half Blackfoot scout
- Peter Jackson: half-Pikuni and half Blackfoot brother of William, scout
- Sitting Bear: Arikara scout
- Boy Chief: Arikara scout
- One Feather: Arikara scout
- Curly Head: Arikara scout
- Strikes The Lodge: Arikara scout
7th Cavalry officers at the Little Bighorn
- Commanding Officer: Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
(killed)
- Maj. Marcus Reno
Marcus Albert Reno was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Black Hills War against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne...
- Adjutant: 1st Lt. William W. Cooke
William Winer Cooke was a military officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and the Black Hills War. He was the adjutant for George Armstrong Custer and was killed during the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Overview:Cooke was born in Mount Pleasant, Brant County, Ontario, to...
(killed)
- Assistant Surgeon George Edwin Lord
George Edwin Lord was a U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon in the 7th Cavalry who was killed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana Territory during the Black Hills War....
(killed)
- Acting Assistant Surgeon James Madison DeWolf
Dr. James Madison DeWolf was an acting assistant surgeon in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn....
(killed)
- Acting Assistant Surgeon Henry Rinaldo Porter
Henry Rinaldo Porter was an Acting Assistant Surgeon in the 7th U.S. Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn....
- Chief of Scouts: 2nd Lt. Charles Varnum
Charles Albert Varnum was a career United States Army officer. He was most noted as the commander of the scouts for George Armstrong Custer in the Little Bighorn Campaign during the Black Hills War, as well as receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions in a conflict following the Battle of...
(detached from A Company, wounded)
- 2nd in command of Scouts: 2nd Lt. Luther Hare
Luther Rector Hare was an officer in the 7th U.S. Cavalry, best known for participating in the Battle of the Little Big Horn....
(detached from K Company)
- Pack Train commander: 1st Lt. Edward Gustave Mathey (detached from M Company)
- A Company: Capt. Myles Moylan, 1st Lt. Charles DeRudio
Charles Camillo DeRudio was an Italian aristocrat, would-be assassin of Napoleon III, and later a career U.S. Army officer who fought in the 7th U.S. Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Early life:...
- B Company: Capt. Thomas McDougall, 2nd Lt. Benjamin Hodgson (killed)
- C Company: Capt. Thomas Custer
Thomas Ward Custer was a United States Army officer and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor for bravery during the American Civil War...
(killed), 2nd Lt. Henry Moore HarringtonHenry Moore Harrington was a military officer in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who perished with George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Montana Territory....
(killed)
- D Company: Capt. Thomas Weir
Captain Thomas Benton Weir was an officer in the 7th Cavalry Regiment , notable for his participation in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand. A hill on the battlefield, Weir Point, is named in his honor.-Civil War Experience:Weir graduated from the University of...
, 2nd Lt. Winfield Edgerly
- E Company: 1st Lt. Algernon Smith
Algernon Emory Smith was an officer in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory....
(killed), 2nd Lt. James G. Sturgis (killed)
- F Company: Capt. George Yates
*Classic Battles: Little Big Horn 1876, Peter Panzieri, ISBN 1-85532-458-X*Crazy Horse and Custer, Stephen E. Ambrose, 1975, ISBN 0-385-47966-2*Cavalier in Buckskin, Robert M. Utley, 1988, ISBN 0-8061-2150-5...
(killed), 2nd Lt. William Reily (killed)
- G Company: 1st Lt. Donald McIntosh
Donald McIntosh was an officer in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Montana Territory.-Biography:...
(killed), 2nd Lt. George Wallace
- H Company: Capt. Frederick Benteen
Frederick William Benteen was a military officer during the American Civil War and then during the Black Hills War against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. He is notable for being in command of a battalion of the 7th U. S...
, 1st Lt. Francis Gibson
- I Company: Capt. Myles Keogh
Myles Walter Keogh was an Irishman who fought in Italy during the 1860 Papal War before volunteering for the Union side in the American Civil War . During the war years, he was promoted from the rank of Captain to that of Major, finally being awarded the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel...
(killed), 1st Lt. James PorterJames Ezekiel Porter was one of General Custer's officers killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand....
(killed)
- K Company: 1st Lt. Edward Settle Godfrey
Edward Settle Godfrey was a United States Army Brigadier General who received the Medal of Honor for leadership as a captain during the Indian Wars.-Early life and education:...
- L Company: 1st Lt. James Calhoun (killed), 2nd Lt. John J. Crittenden
John Jordan Crittenden III was an officer in the United States Army and a member of the Crittenden family, who were prominent in political and military circles throughout the 19th century. He was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Montana Territory while on temporary assignment in the...
(killed)
- M Company: Capt. Thomas French
Civilians killed
- Boston Custer
Boston Custer was the youngest brother of U.S. Army General George Armstrong Custer and two-time Medal of Honor recipient Captain Thomas Custer...
: brother of George and Thomas, forager for the 7th
- Mark Kellogg
Mark Kellogg was a newspaper reporter killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Kellogg rode with George Armstrong Custer during the battle and was evidently one of the first men killed by the Sioux and Cheyenne. His dispatches were the only press coverage of Custer and his men in the days...
: reporter
- Henry Armstrong Reed
Henry Armstrong Reed was the nephew of George Armstrong Custer, Thomas Custer, and Boston Custer. Although not an official soldier, he was killed along with them at the Battle of the Little Bighorn at the age of 18....
: nephew of Custer's, herder for the 7th
Battle of the Little Bighorn in popular culture
In paintings
- In 1896, Anheuser-Busch commissioned from Otto Becker a lithographed, modified version of Cassily Adam's painting "Custer's Last Fight", which was distributed as a print to saloons all over America. It is reputed to still be in some bars today.
- Edgar Samuel Paxson
Edgar Samuel Paxson was an American frontier painter, scout, soldier and writer, based mainly in Montana. He is best known for his portraits of Native Americans in the Old West and for his depiction of the Battle of Little Bighorn in his painting "Custer's Last Stand".- Biography :Paxson was born...
completed his painting "Custer's Last Stand" in 1899. In 1963 Harold McCrackenHarold McCracken was an American author, Alaskan grizzly bear hunter, biplane stunt photographer, cinematographer, producer and museum director...
, the noted historian and Western art authority, deemed Paxson's painting "the best pictoral representation of the battle" and "from a purely artistic standpoint...one of the best if not the finest pictures which have been created to immortalize that dramatic event."
- Noted artist Charles Marion Russell
Charles Marion Russell , also known as C. M. Russell, Charlie Russell, and "Kid" Russell, was an artist of the Old American West. Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western United States, in addition to bronze sculptures...
painted "The Custer Fight" in 1903, concentrating on the Indians.
- In 1996 Allan Mardon completed one of his most significant works, "The Battle of Greasy Grass," which remains in the permanent collection of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art in Cody, Wyoming.
In film and television
- In 1912, the first movie about the battle titled Custer's Last Fight
The silent film Custer's Last Fight is the first movie about George Armstrong Custer and his final stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was shot in Inceville, Santa Ynez Canyon and Los Angeles, California.- Cast :...
was released.
- The 1936 film serial
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
Custer's Last StandCuster's Last Stand is an independent film serial based on the historical Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn River.It was produced by the Poverty Row studio Stage & Screen Productions, which went bust shortly afterwards as a victim of the Great Depression...
is a heavily fictionalized version of events leading up to the battle.
- One of the most famous films based on the incident was They Died with Their Boots On
They Died with Their Boots On is a 1941 western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Despite being rife with historical inaccuracies, the film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the last of eight Flynn–de Havilland collaborations.Like...
(1941), a highly fictionalized account of the battle with Custer portrayed by Errol FlynnErrol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
.
- The climactic battle scene in the 1948 film Fort Apache
Fort Apache is a 1948 Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda. The film was the first of the director's "cavalry trilogy" and was followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande , both also starring Wayne...
starring Henry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and John WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
was inspired by the events at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The lead character Lt. Col. Owen Thursday, played by Henry Fonda, was loosely based on Lt. Col. George A. Custer. The plot is similar to events surrounding Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
- In the 1954 western Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull is a 1954 Western film directed by Sidney Salkow and René Cardona that was filmed in Mexico in CinemaScope. In a greatly fictionalised form, it depicts the war between Chief Sitting Bull and the American forces, leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Custer's Last Stand. It...
, Chief Sitting BullSitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
of the Sioux tribe is forced by the Indian-hating General Custer to react with violence, resulting in the famous Last Stand at Little Bighorn.
- The 1958 Walt Disney Studios
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
film Tonka is a highly fictionalized history of the horse ComancheComanche was a mixed Mustang/Morgan horse who survived General George Armstrong Custer's detachment of the United States 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.-Biography:...
that survived the battle. This was the first film to tell the story from the Indian point of view, with a fairly accurate version of the battle taking place near the end of the film.
- In a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
titled "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms"The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" is an episode of the CBS American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Serling.-Summary:Three United States Army National Guard soldiers "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" is an episode of the CBS American television anthology series The...
", three members of a modern National Guard troop suddenly join the battle on the side of Custer but are unable to use their M5 Stuart tank.
- The 1965 film The Great Sioux Massacre stars Philip Carey
-Biography:He was born as Eugene Joseph Carey in Hackensack, New Jersey. A former U.S. Marine, Carey was wounded as part of the ship's detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War....
as Custer and Darren McGavinDarren McGavin was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker and his portrayal in the film A Christmas Story of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his son overhears...
as Captain Benteen.
- A 1967 television series Custer, starring Wayne Maunder in the title role, lasted 17 episodes before cancellation.
- The 1967 film Custer of the West
Custer of the West is a 1967 American Western film directed by Robert Siodmak. It tells a highly fictionalised version of the life and death of George Armstrong Custer. It was directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Robert Shaw as Custer, Robert Ryan and Mary Ure...
stars Robert ShawRobert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
as Custer and concludes with the Little Big Horn battle.
- The 1970 film Little Big Man portrays a manic and somewhat psychotic Custer (Richard Mulligan
Richard Mulligan was an American television and film actor best known for his role as Burt Campbell in the 1970s sitcom Soap and later as Dr. Harry Weston on The Golden Girls and its spin-off Empty Nest.-Early life:He was born in New York City, the younger brother of director Robert Mulligan...
) realizing to his horror that he and his command are "being wiped out." (Mulligan later reprised his "crazy Custer" character in the 1984 film Teachers# "Teacher, Teacher" - 38 Special# "Cheap Sunglasses" - ZZ Top# "Foolin' Around" - Freddie Mercury# "I Can't Stop the Fire" - Eric Martin# "Edge of a Dream" - Joe Cocker# " Teacher" - Ian Hunter# "One Foot Back in Your Door" - Roman Holliday...
).
- The 1977 television film The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer, starring James Olson
-Life and career:Olson was born in Evanston, Illinois and graduated from Northwestern University. He performed stage work in and around Chicago before his 1956 film debut in The Sharkfighters...
as Custer, was based on a controversial best-selling novel by Douglas C. Jones in which Custer survives the battle and must explain his actions in court.
- The television miniseries Son of the Morning Star
Son of the Morning Star is a TV movie released by Chrysalis based on Evan S. Connell's best-selling book of the same name. It starred Gary Cole and featured Dean Stockwell , Roseanna Arquette , Rodney A...
, based on Evan S. Connell'sEvan Shelby Connell, Jr. is an American novelist, poet, and short story-writer. He has also published under the name Evan S. Connell, Jr. His writing has covered a variety of genres, although he has published most frequently in fiction.In 2009, Connell was nominated for the Man Booker...
bestselling book, debuted in 1991. The film recounted the story of Custer (Gary ColeGary Michael Cole is an American actor. Cole is known for his supporting roles in numerous film and television productions since the 1990s.-Early life:...
) and the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
- In the 2003 film The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai is a 2003 American epic drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay based on a story by John Logan. The film was inspired by a project developed by writer and director Vincent Ward, who had previously filmed the movie in 1990, starring...
, the central character Captain Nathan Algren (Tom CruiseThomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
) alludes to this battle several times.
- The 2005 TV miniseries Into the West
Into the West is a 2005 miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks, with six two-hour episodes . The series was first broadcast in the U.S. on Turner Network Television on six Fridays starting on June 10, 2005...
included a version of the battle.
- In 2007 the BBC presented a docu-drama titled Custer's Plan. http://custer.over-blog.com/article-10444776.html
- In the 2009 film Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, Custer is a main character in the film played for comedy as a vain and inept military tactician by Bill Hader
William "Bill" Hader is an American actor, comedian, producer and writer. He is best known for his work as a creative consultant on the hit show South Park and as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for his supporting roles in comedy films such as Superbad, Hot Rod, Tropic Thunder,...
.
In fiction
- The 1956 novel The Dice of God written by Hoffman Birney features a fictionalized account of the battle. It was filmed by Levy-Gardner-Laven
Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions was an American film production company based in Beverly Hills, California.The principals, Jules V. Levy, Arthur Gardner, and Arnold Laven, met while serving in the Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit during World War II. While serving, they decided to form their...
in 1965 as The Glory GuysThe Glory Guys is a 1965 motion picture based on the novel The Dice of God by Hoffman Birney. Filmed by Levy-Gardner-Laven and released by United Artists, it stars Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, and Michael Anderson, Jr. The film's screenplay was written by Sam Peckinpah long...
.
- George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
placed his fictional anti-hero Flashman at the battle in his book Flashman and the RedskinsFlashman and the Redskins is a 1982 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the seventh of the Flashman novels.-Plot introduction:Presented within the frame of the supposed discovery of a trunkful of papers detailing the long life and career of a Victorian officer, this series centres around...
.
- Frederick J. Chiaventone wrote A Road We Do Not Know: A Novel of Custer at the Little Bighorn in 1996.
- Marching to Valhalla: A Novel of Custer's Last Days was written by Michael Blake, who also wrote Dances with Wolves.
- Fictional character Morgan Kane
Morgan Kane is a fictional character created by Kjell Hallbing under the pseudonym Louis Masterson.The Morgan Kane series has become the biggest success in modern Norwegian leisure reading literature...
fought under Custer in the book Where the Eagles die, one of the 83 books in the Morgan KaneMorgan Kane is a fictional character created by Kjell Hallbing under the pseudonym Louis Masterson.The Morgan Kane series has become the biggest success in modern Norwegian leisure reading literature...
book series.
In music
- In 1960, country singer Johnny Horton
John Gale "Johnny" Horton was an American country music and rockabilly singer most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which began the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s...
released the album Johnny Horton Makes History featuring the song "Comanche (The Brave Horse)" about the only animal from the American forces to survive the Battle of Little Big Horn. That same year Larry VerneLarry Verne was an American novelty song singer. Verne scored two U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart hit singles in 1960: "Mister Livingston" and "Mr. Custer" . "Mr. Custer" was written by Fred Darian, Al DeLory, and Joe Van Winkle. The record sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc. In the...
released a comedy hit song titled "Please, Mr. Custer" (I don't want to die) about a fictitious cavalryman who asked Custer not to join the battle after a nightmare he experienced the night before. This song was later re-recorded by Marty RobbinsMartin David Robinson , known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist...
.
- The Blazon Stone
Blazon Stone is the sixth album by German band Running Wild.The album has sold over 340,000 records worldwide. According to Rolf Kasparek in an interview to a Brazilian heavy metal/hard rock magazine Blazon Stone is the sixth album by German band Running Wild.The album has sold over 340,000 records...
album by German power metalPower metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...
band Running WildRunning Wild is a German heavy metal band, formed in 1976 in Hamburg. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid 1980s. The band has carved its niche in the metal world as the first "pirate metal" band, a theme which took off with the release of Under...
includes a song depicting the battle titled "Little Big Horn".
- The Return Of The Pride
Return of the Pride is the fifth studio album by White Lion. The album was released in 2008 on March 14 , April 9 , April 29...
album by rock band White LionWhite Lion is an American/Danish hard rock/heavy metal band that was formed in New York City in 1983 by Danish vocalist Mike Tramp and American guitarist Vito Bratta. Mainly active in the 1980s and early 1990s, the band achieved double platinum status with their #8 hit "Wait" and #3 hit "When the...
includes a song depicting the battle titled "Battle at Little Big Horn".
- In 1989, British keyboard player Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
composed the song "Custer´s Last Stand", released on his 1988 album The Time MachineThe Time Machine is a progressive rock album released in 1988 by Rick Wakeman. The album features guest vocals from Roy Wood.-Track listing:# "Custer's Last Stand" - 4:05# "Ocean City" - 4:04# "Angel of Time" - 4:51# "Slaveman" - 6:44# "Ice" - 4:52...
.
- The title track from The Minutemen album The Punch Line
The Punch Line is the first 12-inch and third record release by influential American punk rock band Minutemen, and the fourth-ever release from SST Records. Less than half the length of most LPs, the total playing time for all eighteen songs is a mere fifteen minutes...
(1981) documents the battle in a facetious manner.
In video games
- The video game Darkest of Days
Darkest of Days is a first-person shooter video game developed by 8monkey Labs and published by Phantom EFX. It was released in North America on September 8, 2009 for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox 360...
has the player participate in the battle as a soldier under Custer's command.
- The battle appears on a level of the computer game Age of Empires III: The War Chiefs
Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs is the first official expansion pack for the real-time strategy game Age of Empires III. It was announced by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Game Studios on March 7, 2006. The demo version was released October 4, 2006. The full game for PC was released on October...
where the player must kill Custer and his troops as part of the Indian army.
Further reading
- Chiaventone, Frederick J., A Road We Do Not Know: A Novel of Custer at the Little Bighorn. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. ISBN 0-684-83056-6.
- Connell, Evan S.
Evan Shelby Connell, Jr. is an American novelist, poet, and short story-writer. He has also published under the name Evan S. Connell, Jr. His writing has covered a variety of genres, although he has published most frequently in fiction.In 2009, Connell was nominated for the Man Booker...
, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little BighornSon of the Morning Star is a 1984 non-fiction book on the subject of George Armstrong Custer, with the subtitle 'Custer and the Little Bighorn'. A 1991 television film was based on the book. Both the book and the film chronicle the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the personalities involved, and the...
. New York: North Point Press, 1984. ISBN 0-86547-510-5.
- Gray, John S., Custer's Last Campaign: Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn Reconstructed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8032-7040-2.
- Hammer, Kenneth M. Men with Custer: Biographies of the 7th Cavalry: June 25, 1876. (Ronald H. Nichols, editor). Hardin, Montana: Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association, 2000. ISBN 1-892258-05-6.
- Hammer, Kenneth (editor), Custer in '76: Walter Camp's notes on the Custer Fight. Provo: Brigham Young University, 1976. ISBN 0-8061-2279-X.
- Keegan, John
Sir John Keegan OBE FRSL is a British military historian, lecturer, writer and journalist. He has published many works on the nature of combat between the 14th and 21st centuries concerning land, air, maritime, and intelligence warfare, as well as the psychology of battle.-Life and career:John...
, Warpaths. London: Pimlico, 1996. ISBN 1-55013-621-6.
- Michno, Gregory F., Lakota Noon: The Indian Narratives of Custer's Defeat. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0-87842-349-4.
- Michno, Gregory F., The Mystery of E Troop: Custer's Grey Horse Company at the Little Bighorn. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing, 1994. ISBN 0-87842-304-4.
- Sandoz, Mari
Mari Susette Sandoz was a novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She was one of Nebraska's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians, and has been occasionally referred to as Mari S...
, The Battle of the Little Bighorn. Lippincott Major Battle Series. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966. ISBN 0-8032-9100-0.
- Philbrick, Nathaniel
Nathaniel Philbrick is an American author and a winner of the National Book Award for his 2000 work of maritime history In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. He is member of the Philbrick literary family.-Life:...
, "The Last Stand, Custer, Sitting Bull, and The Battle of the Little Bighorn" Viking Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-14-242769-9.
- Scott, Douglas D. & Connor, Melissa: Context Delicti: Archaeological Context in Forensic Work. In: Haglund, W.D. & Sorg, M.H. (eds.): Forensic Taphonomy: The Postmortem Fate of Human Remains, CRC Press, pp.: 27–38; Boca Raton, 1997.
- Sklenar, Larry, To Hell with Honor, General Custer and the Little Big Horn, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8061-3472-0.
- Utley, Robert, Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press; Revised edition, 2001. ISBN 0-8061-2292-7.
- Welch, James and Stekler, Paul, Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians. New York: Norton, 1994. ISBN 0-393-32939-9.
External links