We loved time in the Black Hills but were ready to move on to new sights and sounds, so we packed up our gear and headed out early that morning, making a quick stop for coffee and breakfast in Custer (at Wicked Expresso).  After this quick stop, we headed out for a day we knew would be busy, as we drove through territory packed with a history of strife but beauty and peace today.

The drive out of South Dakota, through upper Wyoming and into Montana was breathtaking, but with my historian roots we could not pass up the chance to visit and experience the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  This would be the highlight of the drive on this day, as I had studied the tactics and personalities involved in the battle but had never actually gotten a chance to walk the ground.  In this case, it would be a faster visit than I would have liked, as the family was with me and we needed to eventually make it to Billings to wash off three days of camping.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Without question, the drive along the 90 freeway into the Bighorn Valley is stunning.  We didn’t realize we had been on a Native American Reservation since entering the state of Montana, as the Crow Indian Reservation is massive and covers land that appears to have been preserved perfectly.  History starts to flow as you approach the battlefield and start to recognize names and terrain land marks.  The 90 freeway roughly parallels the Little Bighorn and basically cuts directly through the valley where the more than 8000 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes were peacefully gathered before the battle.

Upon entering the battleground/National Monument areas, you are basically driving up the hill to where the final battle and last stand took place, able to walk that ground after you have parked near the Veterans Cemetery.  We spent time listening to the excellent presentation about some of the lessor known history of the battle and the battlefield from a Park Service Interpretive Guide who was Crow, on whose traditional land we were standing.

I am not going to rehash the battle; as you can find excellent books and websites dedicated to every nuance of every decision made and the battlefield itself.  Today these are subjects at numerous US military schools and a battlefield tour is the highlight of the year.

Facts that resonated with me:

-We didn’t know that the whole area was (and still is) Crow land/reservation even back into the 1800’s…and the confederation of tribes who fought at the Little Bighorn Battle (Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho) had basically walked off “official” reservations and were following the buffalo, (hunting) on Crow land.

-Custer  had 12 Companies and 684 men in his command as they approached the Little Bighorn.  They were NOT all killed in the battle.  We have direct battlefield correlation of facts from both 7th Calvary Soldiers and Native Americans that give fairly clear insight into the various stages of the battle.  One of those who fought and lived through the battle died in 1950. 

-Custer went into battle with four close/direct relatives with him and under his command.  They all died in the battle.  These were his two brothers, his teenage nephew and his bother in law.  So in all, five Custers died in this battle, making this one of the worst military family tragedies in our history.  A note on the family- one of Custer’s brothers had already earned (2) two Medals of Honor, the highest award for bravery in the United States.

-Custer and his brothers were found dead near each other close to the top of Last Stand Hill.  But, there’s some corroboration that Custer may have been killed or wounded elsewhere.  At least two different Native American Indian Warriors (who lived) claim to have shot Custer.  He may have been assisted up the hill by his solders/scouts on his horse, then near the top of Last Stand Hill there’s another direct account of Custer being pushed off his horse (named Victory/Vic) by another Native American Warrior, to come to rest in the spot where his death marker lies today beside that of one of his brothers.  One does not know if these stories are true.  Some say there were other Officers in the 7th Calvary with similar horses and buckskin jackets.

-During a previous encounter with the Cheyenne, Custer and a tribal leader named Rock Forehead smoked the peace pipe to end that round of hostilities.  But, during the encounter Custer was told that if he went against the peace pipe (made war on the Cheyenne) he and his men would be killed.  The tribal leader Rock Forehead was keeper of sacred Medicine Arrows and Chief Black Kettle’s cousin.

-Upon arriving at the battlefield, I thought the soldiers killed at the battle were interred in the very obvious Veterans Cemetery on battlefield grounds.  But I was wrong.  Three days after the battle, survivors under the command of Major Reno arrived to secure the battlefield (the Native Americans had returned to reservations or moved to Canada).  The dead of the 7th Calvary were found and buried where they were killed, until the memorial marker at the top of Last Stand Hill was installed.  The dead were then reburied in a mass grave under the marker in 1881.  There were no dead Native Americans left on the battlefield as they were collected after the battle and buried in the traditions of their tribes.

-Buffalo Soldiers and the Veterans Cemetery-  The Battle at Little Bighorn would be one of the last major battles between US Calvary and Native Americans.  But the US Army had troops garrisoned at the battlefield while other forts in the surrounding areas became irrelevant.  So smaller garrisons and forts started to be abandoned, but the US Army didn’t want to leave the graves and dead from these fort alone and forgotten.  The garrison of Buffalo Soldiers (African American) at Fort Custer started to travel to these various Army garrisons to collect the dead and move them to a more permanent cemetery at Little Bighorn .  Today the Veterans Cemetery at Little Bighorn has occupants at rest from the Indian Wars, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.  Capacity was reached in 1978, but people are still dying to get in.

Seeing the Little Bighorn Battlefield after reading about it and studying its effects was something I had always wanted to do.  But even the short time we spent there was sobering and I could feel a pall of melancholy as we walked from the Visitors Center up Last Stand Hill.  This was definitely a place where men fought and died.  It also struck me that this is one of the few National Monuments in the US where there is no visiting after dark, as it’s considered a battlefield/graveyard with active archeological work in progress and respect for the Native American traditions involved with dying and the dead, even today

Our drive from the Little Bighorn Battlefield onward to Billings continued to be beautiful.  Billings is an oil town, so it’s a bit more industrialized than other places we passed through on the trip but a good overnight stop for us.    

Other posts from this travel series:

Roadtripping and Camping In The Western US With Kids-1

Roadtripping and Camping In The West With Kids (Zion)-2

Roadtripping and Camping In The West With Kids- The Road To Dinosaur-3

Roadtripping And Camping With Kids- Dinosaur National Monument- 4

Roadtripping and Tent Camping In the West W/Kids- Dinosaur To Cheyenne-(5)

Roadtripping and Camping In The West W/ Kids: “Hell On Wheels” Rodeo- 6

Roadtripping And Camping In The West With Kids: Cheyenne To The Black Hills- (7)

Roadtripping And Camping In The West With Kids: Mt Rushmore, Seeing History For Ourselves-(8)

Exploring Wind Cave And The Mammoth Site At Hot Springs, SD – (9)

Sources:

1. He went against the Peace Pipe by Review-a-Day: Custerology: The enduring legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer by Michael Elliot and reviewed by Larry McMurtry
2. Custers Ghosthunters:  History.net
3. US National Park Service