The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer's Last Stand, was an engagement between a Lakota-Cheyenne combined force and the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army that took place on June 25, 1876 near the Little Bighorn River in the eastern Montana Territory. The battle was the most famous incident in the Indian Wars and was a crushing victory for the Lakota and their allies. The U.S. cavalry detachment commanded by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was killed to the last man.

The American forces were sent to attack the natives based on Indian Inspector's E.C. Watkins report (issued on November 9, 1875) that stated that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were hostile to the United States.

As the advance guard of the troops under Gen. Alfred Terry, Custer's force arrived at the junction of the Bighorn and Little Bighorn rivers, in what is now the state of Montana, on the night of June 24. The main body was due to join him on the 26th.

The presence of what was judged a very large encampment of Indians was reported to the general by his Crow Indian scouts. Despite this warning, on June 25, Custer divided his regiment into three commands and moved forward to surround and attack the encamped Indians.

One command, under Fredrick Benteen, never got into the fight. The second command, led by Major Marcus Reno launched its own offensive from the south, only to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of Indians who counterattacked on foot and on horseback. Reno ordered a retreat to the nearby woods as the Indians cut down his men one by one.

General Custer and 201 men under his command attacked the encampment from the north, only to be trapped and surrounded in a nearby ridge and killed to the last man. Accounts of the last moments of Custer's forces vary, but all agree that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of Sioux who overwhelmed the cavalrymen. Custer was one of the last to be killed.

Of the 264 US Cavalrymen killed at Little Bighorn, 201 were killed along with Custer while another 63 died serving under Reno. Casualty figures on the Indian side are not known; they carried off their own dead from the battlefield as was the custom.

Custer's widow helped popularize this defeat in memory of her husband and the event as recreated in numerous films as a heroic American officer fighting valiantly against savage forces. By the end of the 20th century, the general recognition of the mistreatment of the various Native American nations in the conquest of the American west, and Custer's role in it, has changed the image of the battle to one of a bloodthirsty conqueror meeting his match against courageous warriors defending their land and way of life. One of the Native Americans _ Crazy Horse - played a leading role in this battle and the Battle of Rosebud one week before.

On Memorial Day 1999 the first of five red granite markers denoting where warriors fell during the battle were placed on the battlefield for Cheyenne warriors, Lame White Man and Noisy Walking The warrior markers dot the ravines and hillsides like the white marble markers representing where soldiers fell. Since then, markers have been added for the Sans Arc warrior, Long Road and the Minniconjou, Dog's Back Bone. On June 25, 2003 an unknown Sioux warrior marker was placed on Wooden Leg Hill, east of Last Stand Hill to honor a warrior who was killed during the battle as witnessed by the Cheyenne warrior, Wooden Leg.

The first Indian Memorial was dedicated on June 25, 2003. The bill that changed the name of the battlefield from Custer Battlefield National Monument to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument also called for an Indian Memorial to be built near Last Stand Hill. President George H. W. Bush signed the bill into law on December 10, 1991. The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is located in southeastern Montana near Crow Agency, Montana and administered by the National Park Service.

For more information about the Battle of the Little Bighorn and updates from the battlefield, including the Indian Memorial dedication and warrior markers, see the website of the Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the only non-profit organization affiliated with the Little Bighorn Monument.

Further reading

• Wind on the Buffalo Grass, The Indians' Own Account of the Battle at the Little Big Horn River, & the Death of their Life on the Plains, collected and edited by Leslie Tillett, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1976, Illustrated hardback, 158 pages with many drawings by Native Americans, ISBN 0-690-01155-5.

• Custer: Cavalier in Buckskin, by Robert Utley, Univ of Oklahoma Pr; Revised edition (June 2001),176 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.73 x 13.28 x 10.20, ISBN 0-806-13347-3.

• Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by Douglas Scott, Univ of Oklahoma Pr; Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd); (September 2000) 328 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x 9.93 x 6.86,ISBN 0-806-13292-2.

• Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors / Stephen E. Ambrose. - 1975.

• Centennial Campaign / John S.Gray . - 1976.

External links

• The NPS official website (http://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm)
• Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield website (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com)
• Black Elk Speaks (includes first-hand accounts of the battle in Chapter 9) (http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/blackelk.pdf)
• Photos below of warrior markers courtesy of Bob Reece, President Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield
  • Lame White Man: [1] (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/images/Lame%20Man.jpg)
  • Noisy Walking marker: [2] (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/images/Noisy-Walking-2.jpg)
  • Long Road marker: [3] (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/images/Long-Road-Marker.jpg)
  • Dog's Back Bone marker: [4] (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/images/Dogs-Back-Bone-Marker.jpg)
    
• Photo of unknown Sioux warrior marker courtesy of Mike Semenock
  • Unknown Sioux Warrior marker: [5] (http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/Unknown-Warrior-5.jpg)