We spent the afternoon at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument. After going through the visitors’ center, we purchased a CD that allowed us to take a narrated driving tour through the national park. Driving, listening to the tape and studying a map provided when we arrived at the park gave us the opportunity to share in the details of what happened at this site 130 years ago.
In the spring and summer of 1876, the United States Government launched a military campaign to capture a large group of Lakota Teton Sioux Indians who had refused to live on the Great Sioux Reservation. A group of the Sioux had entered into a treaty with the government and had taken up residence on the reservation, but a substantial portion of the tribe had refused to sign the treaty. This latter group had joined with their ally, the Northern Cheyenne, and had reached hunting grounds in southeastern Montana where they were involved in an increasing number of conflicts with settlers and the resident Crow tribe.
By the time of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, a number of the Sioux from the reservation had rejoined the non-treaty group, complaining that the United States had not honored the many commitments they had made as incentives to their signing the treaty. Members of several other tribes had also joined the large group.
General Philip Sheridan responded by ordering three military expeditions to approach the gathering Indians from the East, West and South. The Army anticipated the off-reservation Sioux would be found in Eastern or South Central Montana Territory. As the military threat tightened around them, the various groups of Indians began to gather together for protection. Sitting Bull became the spiritual and political headman for the combined village. A few weeks before the Battle, Sitting Bull conducted a Sun Dance during which he experienced a vision of a great victory over soldiers.
Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry, comprised of 647 men, in an eastern column under the command of General Alfred H. Terry. Custer’s route in the campaign was south along Rosebud Creek. Ahead of the main column of Custer and his men, Custer's 6 Crow and 39 Arikara Indian Scouts discovered the massive village of Sitting Bull along the banks of the Little Bighorn River.
On June 25th, 1876, Custer, believing that his column had been discovered by the Indians, instituted an attack upon the village. Doing so was in defiance of orders from General Terry to notify and await the other columns arrival when the Indians had been located. Initial intelligence had indicated that the number of warriors was likely to be 1,000 or less. In reality, in the gathering of the tribes, there were over 1,700 warriors. By the time the battle was over, 263 cavalrymen lay dead, including George Custer, his two brothers, his brother-in-law and a nephew.
