On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River.
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Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, leaders of the Sioux tribe on the Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River–which they called the Greasy Grass–in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked.
In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered Custer’s 7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements.
At mid-day, Custer’s 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer’s desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and every last one of his soldier were dead.
The Battle of Little Bighorn–also called Custer’s Last Stand–marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations.
For an interesting perspective, read Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk was a 13 year old witness to the battle (Note: Black Elk use the terms Greasy Grass=Little Big Horn River, Pahuska=Custer, Wasichus=White Folks). My favorite passage is on I believe page 60: “Pahuska had found there much of that yellow metal that makes the Wasichus crazy” lol. Black Elk also describes one of Custer’s soldiers surviving the battle by hiding in bushes, only to be discovered the morning after by Black Elk and some other boys, and killed by warriors.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1d9njt6
Apparently we have a long history of breaking promises/treaties.
What does this say about us?
The same thing it says about everyone else in history since it would be rather hard to find any nation or people that doesn’t have the same history.
We? Us? I wasn’t there. And I don’t drink the lowest common denominator koolaid, either…that’s duck & cover bs.
Sherman, Custer, et al, burned the South to the ground. Then were turned loose against the West. The higher ups military had sweetheart payout deals with the politically connected (corrupt) trans con railroads for their help with the land-grabbing & genocide. These people were all scum. Too bad there weren’t more Little Big Horns.
Kool-Aid is a registered trademark owned by Kraft Foods, Inc. I’m sure the shareholders would apprecate it if everyone stopped using their property in this context. Just sayin. Also, evidence indcates it was actually Flavor-Aid made by Jel-Sert Corporation used at the Jonestown mass suicide.
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:hrty6p.2.12
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/stop-saying-drink-the-kool-aid/264957/
Except if I’d written stop reading the word-aid Ed would hum another bar of 9x weird. Now that I have written it tho, stop reading the IP word-aid…and, Kraft “foods” has been using the citizenry, their divided property interest, for a long time. Those shareholders can be Little Big Horned & it won’t bother me a bit.
Nah, that wasn’t weird. I don’t think everything you write is weird, but when I see something that looks weird, I say so. Even when you’re saying weird shit, I usually agree with you on the principle expressed.
I always thought the Kool-aid they were talking about was the Ken Kesey type, you know LSD spiked the way some of these liberals think,talk and act.
And this was a big one: Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=42
What does Jack Daniels and Custer have in common? Jack Daniels is still killin’ Indians!
Of course Miles Mathis has something to say on Custer’s interesting history.
http://mileswmathis.com/custer.pdf
Giovanni Martino (aka John Martin) survived the battle. Custer had dispatched him with a message to Benteen so he missed the final assault. He retired from the army after the Spanish-American War, and died in 1922 after being struck while crossng a street in Brooklyn, NY. I contacted the Natonal Archves about obtaining his records (using both names), the archives responded “we know who you are refering to and his records have been lost”. bummer.
“There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Calvary”
George Custer
Should be the quote of the day also.
A very good read is the book “Son Of The Morning Star” by Evan Connell. Quite a work of art, both highly entertaining yet informative. Custer was a real piece of work, had Presidential aspirations, and some think Grant sent him purposely to get killed. Custer had been in a trial for the prosecution concerning Grant’s brother who was a thieving Indian agent.
Too bad it was not Andrew Jackson leading the column.
It was too little too late. Should have fought them on the beaches, not in the interior. Dumbass redskins screwed up.
This all too human approach is a game of pin the tail on the dumbass. And the turns at being pinned go round & round.
The Europeans had guns. And numbers. The end result was preordained. Manifest destiny.
Geronimo & the boys had guns. Human waves was the issue. That led to FL – wonder if he saw waves there – in G’s case. Dances with Wolves & Stands with a Fist left just in time. Close one. And now tech waves is the issue. Well, that & manifold desensity. Nonsensity? Max density? Religious gooberosity. Lol…
Iska – if the Indians had taken to slaughtering the pilgrims and assorted others as soon as they landed, it would be a very, very different situation in the US today. It would have taken a large-scale invasion, which would have eventually occurred. But steady sniping would have hindered the process substantially. And perhaps forced real treaties to be made and adhered to.
As an amateur student of Little Bighorn who has read various accounts of the battle and visited the battleground, here’s my take. George Armstrong Custer not literally killed himself along with 230-233, accounts vary, of his men for one simple reason: impetuous bravery. Not bravado, bravery. Consider this.
In the Civil War, Custer gained fame for his successful and numerous attacks on Confederate forces WITHOUT gathering any meaningful intelligence on the size of the force he was attacking. In other words, he used the element of surprise over and over again and won. It worked, and he reaped the rewards of fame as a daring and winning field commander. Custer embraced Vince Lombardi’s dictum long before Lombardi said it: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
He took that fame to the war against the Plains Indians. His Civil War experience worked until it didn’t. Here’s what happened on that fateful day.
The Crow scouts led Custer’s 7th Cavalry to an overlook of the (mainly) Sioux/Northern Cheyenne encampment on the west bank of the Little Bighorn River. Problem: haze on the hot summer day obscured the actual size of the indian settlement. Custer had no idea of its size. Zero. Discounting women, children, and the elderly, the encampment had an estimated 2,000 warriors. Estimated. But it was probably correct.
Custer ordered Captain Frederick Benteen to take his company to block a southern escape route from the village. He then ordered Major Marcus Reno to take his company to attack the southern part of the village. Without waiting to see how Reno’s company was doing (it was getting smashed), Custer marched the remaining company to the north to attack the village there. We know what happened.
Custer took his available fighters and cut them down to one-third of the size that arrived that day. One-third. He faced Cochise who had perhaps up to a ten-to-one advantage at the Last Stand. The luck and fame that he gained during the Civil War just ran out. Custer’s body was stripped nude but not desecrated as were every other fallen soldier that day. He is buried at West Point.
“He faced Cochise who had perhaps up to a ten-to-one advantage at the Last Stand.”
—-Me
Wrong. Custer faced Crazy Horse, not Cochise. My boo-boo.
Custer’s body was initially buried at Little Bighorn and later disinterred and buried at West Point. Major Marcus Reno’s grave site is at the Little Bighorn cemetery near the visitor center. He survived the battle and elected years later to be buried at the national battlefield monument.
Nice to see you SSS. Have missed your stuff. Thanks for the history lesson.
Little Bighorn was June 25, 1876. Just 9 days away from the nation’s 100th anniversary on July 4th. The Midwest and East had been gearing up for months to celebrate. Parties all over. News travelled slowly those days, especially from places as remote as southeastern Montana.
Perhaps a day or two prior to the Centennial, the news hit the general public and started to spread. Talk about a wet blanket on a significant national holiday. It destroyed any public support and confidence in President Grant’s “Peace Policy” with the western tribes. Game over.
Peace policy – wow. Who would have thunk driving the Indians by force onto reservations was a peace policy. Glad it was not a war policy – that could have been violent!
Learned something new again. Thanks SSS.
Please focus on three words I said below. “19th Century mindset.”
I am among the most knowledgeable persons you will ever meet on American Indians, who have been incredibly abused/betrayed and, at the same time, incredibly stupid. Yes, stupid, not ignorant.
Argue that.
No argument here!
I agree.
“I am among the most knowledgeable persons you will ever meet on American Indians”
Oh, God Damn. Another fucking federal retiree who knows every fucking thing there is to know about American Indians. Excuse me while I puke.
Ed – you are an imbecile. SSS is one of the most esteemed of TBP posters, and has contributed greatly here for many years. He is educated, skilled, wise, honorable, and a patriot in the truest sense of the word. He, along with Stucky, Admin, and a few others, have my undying admiration.
You, on the other hand, are a fuckwit, and have made to date zero contribution to this site. You shoot your mouth off and have zero understanding of that which you speak.
Our government’s wars with the western Indian tribes left so much to be desired. So many mistakes, so many broken promises, so much bitterness left behind. Such a shame, every bit as bad as the Trail of Tears.
I cannot undo what was done, but I can see clearly that a better result was possible. I also cannot rewire my brain to a 19th Century mindset, so the best I and you can do is try to understand what happened and ………. WHY?
Unless you understand that there is no such thing as “our government” and that all wars are bankers wars, you will never understand history. You should also note that people today are less intelligent than people of 140 years ago and devolution of human intelligence is accelerating. Technology combined with socialism ensures this.
Unless you understand that there is no such thing as “our government” and that all wars are bankers wars, you will never understand history.
—-DurangoDan
Tell that to Genghis Khan, Dan. Be sure to bring detailed notes to brief him on what the fuck a bank is. Want to continue this discussion on your stupid myopic vision of “all wars are bankers wars”? I just know you don’t.
Smallpox and assorted other contagious illnesses brought to the continent from Europe decimated Native American Indian populations even before the Pilgrims arrived. It is estimated that by the time the Virginia colonies were established, the native American population had been reduced by 80%+.
Inadvertent germ warfare enabled the conquest of America.