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Battle of the Little Bighorn / Sioux Campaign of 1876 / Centennial Campaign

Over the course of 20 months in 1876 and 1877, the so-called Great Sioux War triggered 13 major contests and several smaller ones as troops and Indians ranged over a tract encompassing some 120,000 square miles in what is now Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Principal fighting occurred at Powder River (March 1876), Rosebud Creek (June 1876), Little Big Horn River (June 1876), Slim Buttes (September 1876), Cedar Creek (October 1876), Red Fork of Powder River (November 1876) and at Wolf Mountains (January 1877).

Few finer historical examples of the victory disease exist than the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought along the ridges, steep bluffs, and ravines of the Little Bighorn River, in south-central Montana on June 25-26, 1876. The combatants were warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, battling men of the 7th Regiment of the US Cavalry. The Battle of the Little Bighorn has come to symbolize the clash of two vastly dissimilar cultures: the buffalo/horse culture of the northern plains tribes, and the highly industrial/agricultural based culture of the United States. This battle was not an isolated soldier versus warrior confrontation, but part of a much larger strategic campaign designed to force the capitulation of the non-reservation Lakota and Cheyenne.

From the 1860s through the 1870s the American frontier was filled with Indian wars and skirmishes. In 1865 a congressional committee began a study of the Indian uprisings and wars in the West, resulting in a “Report on the Condition of the Indian Tribes,” which was released in 1867. This study and report by the congressional committee led to an act to establish an Indian Peace Commission to end the wars and prevent future Indian conflicts. The U.S. Government set out to establish a series of Indian treaties that would force the Indians to give up their lands and move further west onto reservations. In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, which resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory.

In 1868, many Lakota leaders agreed to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie. This treaty created a large reservation in the western half of present-day South Dakota. The United States wanted tribes to give up their nomadic life which brought them into conflict with other Indians, white settlers and railroads. Agreeing to the treaty meant accepting a more stationary life and relying on government-supplied subsidies. Lakota leaders such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse rejected the reservation system. Likewise, many roving bands of hunters and warriors did not sign the 1868 treaty. They felt no obligation to conform to its restrictions, or to limit their hunting to the unceded hunting land assigned by the treaty. Their forays off the set aside lands brought them into conflict with settlers and enemy tribes outside the treaty boundaries.

Arrogance, the primary symptom of the victory disease, shows up in the military mind-set in sev-eral ways. First, the military force suffering from arrogance views itself as nearly invincible, which comes from a high level of demonstrated military prowess and allows military leaders and planners to believe their forces candefeat any foe. The famous Battle of the Little Bighorn, “Custer’s Last Stand,” clearly illustrates a direct cause and effect relationship between the symptoms of the victory disease and the outcome of a tactical battle. In this example, one clearly sees all the victory disease symptoms involved.

A nation reunited after a bloody civil war expanded along the western frontier and came into violent contact with the indigenous population, the Plains Indians. The US Army, arrogant from its victory over the Confederacy, viewed the Indians with contempt and underestimatedtheir capacity to wage war. Over the years, as the US Army gained experience fighting the Indians, patterns emerged establishing how one should go about defeating them. These three symptoms combined to produce a shocking and unprecedented tactical defeat of American arms.

The Stage is Set

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 ended Red Cloud’s War. This treaty created the Great Sioux Reservation, ensured tribal ownership of the Black Hills, and provided an “unceeded territory” for Indian use. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty made between the United States and the Sioux Nation granting the Sioux almost all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River. This treaty further granted the Sioux “unceded Indian territory” east of the Bighorn Mountains and north of the North Platte River that, in essence, was also off-limits to settlers and travelers.

Although the treaty held the peace on the Northern Plains for several years, it was doomed by the seemingly irresistible march ofsettlersto theWest.The entire region was the responsibility of Major General Philip H. Sheridan, the commander of Military Division of the Missouri. His area of responsibility extended from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to Mexico. In 1873, the Sioux rejected overtures for a right-of-way for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Their resistance to the survey parties led Sheridan to the dispatch of a large military expedition under Colonel David Stanley up the Yellowstone Valley. During that expedition, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry fought two large skirmishes with the Sioux on 4 and 11 August 1873.

Tension between the United States and the Lakota escalated in 1874, when Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was ordered to make an exploration of the Black Hills inside the boundary of the Great Sioux Reservation. This encroachment on the Black Hills, a sacred area known to the Sioux as the Pa Sapa, helped force the two societies into violent conflict. Encroachment on sacred Sioux territory directly violated the Fort Laramie Treaty.

Custer was to map the area, locate a suitable site for a future military post, and to make note of the natural resources. During the expedition, professional geologists discovered deposits of gold. Word of the discovery of mineral wealth triggered a gold rush to the Black Hills. Custer’s report and findings revealing the existence of gold rekindled the nation’s optimism after the “Great Financial Panic of 1873.” The invasion of miners and entrepreneurs to the Black Hills in direct violation of the treaty of 1868. The United States negotiated with the Lakota to purchase the Black Hills, but the offered price was rejected by the Lakota. The climax came in the winter of 1875, when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs issued an ultimatum requiring all Sioux to report to a reservation by January 31, 1876. The deadline came with virtually no response from the Indians, and matters were handed to the military.

General Philip Sheridan, commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, devised a strategy that committed several thousand troops to find and to engage the Lakota and Cheyenne, who now were considered "hostile," with the goal of forcing their return to the Great Sioux Reservation. The campaign was set in motion in March of 1876, when a 450-man force of combined cavalry and infantry commanded by Colonel John Gibbon, marched out of Fort Ellis near Bozeman, Montana. General George Crook set out from Fort Fetterman in central Wyoming Territory with around 1,000 cavalry and infantry in late May. A few weeks before that, General Alfred Terry left from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Bismarck (Dakota Territory) with 879 men. The bulk of this force was the 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.

It was expected that any one of these three forces would be able to deal with the 800-1,500 warriors they likely were to encounter. The three commands of Gibbon, Crook, and Terry were not expected to launch a coordinated attack on a specific Indian village at a known location. Inadequate, slow, and often unpredictable communications hampered the army's coordination of its expeditionary forces. Furthermore, the nomadic lifestyle of the Lakota and Cheyenne people meant they were constantly on the move. No officer or scout could be certain how long a village might remain stationary, or which direction the tribe might choose to go in search of food, water, and grazing areas for their horses.

Sheridan’s plan called for immediate action against the hostiles as military leaders on the frontier viewed winter campaigns the best way to bring the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne to battle. Experience had shown that summer campaigns only produced endless marches in search of the elusive foe; yet, during the winter months the Indians were more easily surprised in their often snow-bound villages. Furthermore, destroying or capturing a village during the winter could essentially defeat the Indians.

Sheridan ordered Generals George Crook and Alfred Terry, commanders of the Department of the Platte and the Department of the Dakota respectively, to attack the hostile bands thought to be located along the Yellowstone River in the Montana Territory. General Terry further ordered Colonel John Gibbon, commander of the District of Montana, to participate in this campaign. As envisioned, Sheridan’s plan would consist of three converging columns with Terry advancing westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln, near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota; Gibbon moving in from the west advancing from Fort Shaw, north of present-day Helena, Montana; and Crook attacking north from Fort Fetterman, located along the North Platte River, near present-day Douglas, Wyoming. The military commanders were convinced these columns could defeat the hostiles without support from another force.

Sheridan’s winter campaign did not come to pass because his sub-ordinates could not quickly prepare for and execute one on the frozen northern plains. Only General Crook was able to mount a winter expedition, Crook’sattack on the Powder River village on 28 February 1876 only served notice to the hostilesthat the US Army was preparing to strike.

The purpose of the Big Horn Expedition, March 1-27, 1876, consisting of 10 companies of cavalry and 2 companies of infantry under the leadership of Brigadier General George Crook and Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, was to search for Sitting Bull’s as well as other non-reservation Sioux winter encampments, break their will to live off the reservation, and bring these people to the Sioux reservations. The fight that occurred on the banks of the Powder River, March 17, 1876 was the climactic event of the Big Horn Expedition.

Visions and Reconnaissance

The tribes had come together for a variety of reasons. The region containing the Powder, Rosebud, Bighorn, and Yellowstone rivers was a productive hunting ground. The tribes regularly gathered in large numbers during early summer to celebrate their annual sun dance ceremony. This ceremony had occurred about two weeks earlier near present-day Lame Deer, Montana. During the ceremony, Sitting Bull received a vision of soldiers falling upside down into his village. He prophesized there soon would be a great victory for his people.

Crook again made the first significant contact with the enemy, thistime on the banks of Rosebud Creek on 17 June 1876. Although this engagement was not extremely consequential, Crook failed significantly by not informing Terry and Gibbon of his battle, the aggressiveness of the Indians, or of the large force of warriors encountered. On 10 June 1876, Terrydispatched Major Marcus Reno, Custer’s second in command, with sixcompanies of the 7th Cavalry on a reconnaissance mission. Reno estimated that the Indian village consisted of approximately 400 lodges. Using the standard frontier calculation of two warriors per lodge,the village was believed to contain approximately 800 warriors.

On the morning of June 25, the camp was ripe with rumors about soldiers on the other side of the Wolf Mountains, 15 miles to the east, yet few people paid any attention. In the words of Low Dog, an Oglala Lakota: "I did not think anyone would come and attack us so strong as we were."

On June 22, General Terry decided to detach Custer and his 7th Cavalry to make a wide flanking march and approach the Indians from the east and south. Custer was to act as the hammer, and prevent the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies from slipping away and scattering, a common fear expressed by government and military authorities. General Terry and Colonel Gibbon, with infantry and cavalry, would approach from the north to act as a blocking force or anvil in support of Custer's far ranging movements toward the headwaters of the Tongue and Little Bighorn Rivers. The Indians, who were thought to be camped somewhere along the Little Bighorn River, "would be so completely enclosed as to make their escape virtually impossible." Unfortunately for Custer and his command, and as is often the case in war, enemy actions played a role in the battle’s outcome.

Custer Takes Position

On the evening of June 24, Custer established a night camp twenty-five miles east of where the fateful battle would take place on June 25-26. The Crow and Arikara scouts were sent ahead, seeking actionable intelligence about the Lakota and Cheyenne. The returning scouts reported that the trail indicated the village turned west toward the Little Bighorn River and was encamped close by. Custer ordered a night march that followed the route that the village took as it crossed to the Little Bighorn River valley. Early on the morning of June 25, the 7th Cavalry Regiment was positioned near the Wolf Mountains about twelve miles distant from the Lakota/Cheyenne encampment along the Little Bighorn River.

Today, historians estimate the village numbered 8,000, with a warrior force of 1,500-1,800 men. Custer's initial plan had been to conceal his regiment in the Wolf Mountains through June 25th, which would allow his Crow and Arikara scouts time to locate the Indian village. Custer then planned to make a night march, and launch an attack at dawn on June 26; however, the scouts reported the regiment's presence had been detected by Lakota or Cheyenne warriors. Custer, judging the element of surprise to have been lost, feared the inhabitants would attack or scatter into the rugged landscape, causing the failure of the Army's campaign. Custer ordered an immediate advance to engage the village and its warrior force. Custer seems to have focused on locating the Indian village and striking it before it could disperse. Most military leaders on this expedition seemed to fear the dispersion of an Indian village before attack since this was the Indians most common defense.

Custer’s mistaken belief that the Indians were attempting to break camp and run away was continually reinforced. Indicators, such as reports of small warrior parties withdrawing as the cavalry moved west and the huge dust cloud seen growing over the bluffs screening the Little Bighorn valley, helped convince Custer swift attack was essential to prevent the elusive foe from escaping.

At the Wolf Mountain location, Custer ordered a division of the regiment into four segments: the pack train with ammunition and supplies, three companies (125 men) commanded by Captain Frederick Benteen, three companies (140 men) commanded by Major Marcus Reno and five companies (210 men) commanded by Custer. Benteen was ordered to march southwest with the objective of locating any Indians, "pitch into anything" he found, and send word to Custer. Custer and Reno's advance placed them in proximity to the village, but still out of view. When it was reported that the village was scattering, Custer ordered Reno to lead his 140 man battalion, plus the Arikara scouts, and to "pitch into what was ahead" with the assurance that he would "be supported by the whole outfit".

Major Reno's Command

The Lakota and Cheyenne village lay in the broad river valley bottom, just west of the Little Bighorn River. As instructed by Custer, Major Reno crossed the river about two miles south of the village and began advancing downstream toward its southern end. Though initially surprised, the warriors quickly rushed to fend off Reno's assault. Reno halted his command, dismounted his troops and formed them into a skirmish line which began firing at the warriors who were advancing from the village. Mounted warriors pressed their attack against Reno's skirmish line and soon endangered his left flank. Reno withdrew to a stand of timber beside the river, which offered better protection. Eventually, Reno ordered a second retreat, this time to the bluffs east of the river. The Lakota and Cheyenne, likening the pursuit of retreating troops to a buffalo hunt, rode down the troopers. Soldiers at the rear of Reno's fleeing command incurred heavy casualties as warriors galloped alongside the fleeing troops and shot them at close range, or pulled them out of their saddles onto the ground.

Reno's now shattered command recrossed the Little Bighorn River and struggled up steep bluffs to regroup atop high ground to the east of the valley fight. Meanwhile, Captain Benteen had returned after finding no evidence of Indians or their movement to the south. He arrived on the bluffs in time to meet Reno's demoralized survivors. A messenger from Custer previously had delivered a written communication to Benteen that stated, "Come on. Big Village. Be Quick. Bring Packs. P.S. Bring Packs." An effort was made to locate Custer after heavy gunfire was heard downstream. Led by Captain Weir's D Company, troops moved north in an attempt establish communication with Custer.

Assembling on a high promontory (Weir Point a mile and a half north of Reno's position), the troops could see clouds of dust and gun smoke covering the battlefield. Large numbers of warriors approaching from that direction forced the cavalry to withdraw to Reno Hill where the Indians held them under siege from the afternoon of June 25, until dusk on June 26. On the evening of June 26, the entire village began to move to the south.

Custer's Fate

The Siouxand Northern Cheyenne were able to mass over 1,000 warriors against Custer’s command and they quickly overwhelmed the beleaguered defend-ers, killing every single member. Exactly how Custer’s battalion was destroyed is a matter of speculation, since all of the white, first hand participants of this battle were killed. Custer’s Seventh Cavalry command fell before a Sioux-Cheyenne coalition under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, and Two Moon.

The existing Indian accounts are quite confusing for a multitude of reasons. First, the Indians do not have a common measure of time easily understood by modern researchers. Second, the Indians did not develop a chronological history of the battle but instead collected various warrior accounts that were combined to develop the oral tribal history. Finally, many historians consider the Indian accounts suspect since many stories were told after the Indians surrendered to the whites and by participants likely fearing retribution from an angry white society.

From Indian accounts, archeological finds, and positions of bodies, historians can piece together the Custer portion of the battle, although many answers remain elusive. It is known that after ordering Reno to charge the village, Custer rode northward along the bluffs until he reached a broad drainage known as Medicine Tail Coulee, a natural route leading down to the river and the village. Archeologial finds indicate some skirmishing occurred at Medicine Tail ford. For reasons not fully understood, the troops fell back and assembled on Calhoun Hill. The warriors, after forcing Major Reno to retreat, now began to converge on Custer's maneuvering command as it forged north along what today is called Custer or Battle Ridge.

Dismounting at the southern end of the ridge, companies C and L appear to have put up stiff resistance before being overwhelmed. Company I perished on the east side of the ridge. The survivors rushed toward the hill at the northwest end of the long ridge. Company E may have attempted to drive warriors from the deep ravines on the west side of the ridge, before being consumed in fire and smoke in one of the very ravines they were trying to clear. Company F may have tried to fire at warriors on the flats below the National Cemetery before being driven to the Last Stand Site.

About 40 to 50 men of the original 210 were cornered on the hill where a stone monument now stands. Hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors surrounded them. Toward the end of the fight, soldiers, some on foot, others on horseback, broke out in a desperate attempt to get away. All were pulled down and killed in a matter of minutes. The warriors quickly rushed to the top of the hill, dispatching the last of the wounded. Superior numbers and overwhelming firepower brought the Custer portion of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to a close.

The next day the combined forces of Terry and Gibbon arrived in the valley where the village had been encamped. The badly battered and defeated remnant of the 7th Cavalry was now relieved. Scouting parties discovered the dead, naked, and mutilated bodies of Custer's command on the ridges east of the river.

Aftermath

On July 6, 1876, just two days after the United States’ 100th birthday, the nation received news of Custer’s defeat. This timing was crucial – Custer’s defeat clashed with the centennial celebrations of American progress. Writers, poets and politicians romanticized Custer’s death, painting him as a hero to aspire to. As magazine editor E.M. Stannard wrote, “Custer fell! But not until his manly worth had won for him imperishable honor. Pure as a virgin, frank and open-hearted as a child, opposed to the use of tobacco, liquors, and profane language, free from political corruption, cool and courageous in the midst of the fiercest battle, he has left to us the model of a Christian warrior.”

The battle was a momentary victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne. The death of Custer and his troops became a rallying point for the United States to increase their efforts to force native peoples onto reservation lands. With more troops in the field, Lakota hunting grounds were invaded by powerful Army expeditionary forces determined to conquer the Northern Plains Indians. Most of the declared "hostiles" had surrendered within one year of the fight, and the Black Hills were taken by the US government without compensation.

Subsequent campaigning by Colonel Nelson A. Miles in the YellowstoneMissouri country of Montana and by Brigadier General George Crook in the Powder River region of Wyoming promoted surrenders at Indian agencies in Dakota and Nebraska of the non-reservation Lakotas and the Northern Cheyennes, thereby concluding the country’s largest Indian war. This conflict, and particularly the epic Little Big Horn engagement, captured public attention as most previous army-Indian campaigns had not.

Near the end of the fighting in 1877, Sitting Bull and his followers took refuge in Canada; when Sitting Bull returned four years later his surrender effectually symbolized the end of non-reservation life for the Plains Indians.

Not everyone thought of Custer in such noble terms, but these dissenters were fairly quiet until the 1930s when criticism of Custer became more mainstream. The Great Depression made it hard to believe in glowing tales like the legend of Custer. In 1934, one year after Custer’s widow died, Frederic F. Van de Water published the biography Glory-Hunter, which portrayed Custer in an extremely unfavorable light. Van de Water saw Custer as a proud, immature and foolish man “with little to recommend him beyond a headlong bravery and a picturesque appearance. He’d have made a damned spectacular United States Senator, but he was a deplorable soldier.”

Perceptions of Custer were mixed for several decades. The 1941 movie They Died with Their Boots On once again portrayed a heroic, charismatic Custer and was released just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. However by the 1960s, growing empathy for Native Americans and backlash from the Vietnam War caused Custer to be perceived more than ever as a foolish villain.