Battle of the Little Bighorn: The Fall of Custer and the 7th Cavalry

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, which went down on June 25-26, 1876, is probably the most well-known clash from the Great Sioux War (1876-1877). In just one day, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and five divisions of the 7th Cavalry were completely wiped out by a mix of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors led by Sitting Bull.

Custer found Sitting Bull’s camp near the Little Bighorn River (or Greasy Grass, as the local Native Americans called it) in what’s now Montana. However, he had no clue about the size of the camp or how many warriors were there. Given the green light to go all out against the Plains Indians, Custer split his forces like he did back in 1868 during the Washita Massacre. His plan was to hit the camp from both sides and trap them, aiming to capture women and kids as hostages while forcing any surviving warriors to surrender. He sent Captain Frederick Benteen to scout around and Major Marcus Reno to get ready for an attack from the far side.

But when Reno made his move, he ran into a big group of warriors led by Sioux war chief Gall. Benteen, who was supposed to bring ammo to Custer, ended up trying to help Reno but ended up retreating with him instead. While Gall was pushing Reno and Benteen back, Crazy Horse, another Sioux war chief, charged at Custer’s position.

This battle turned out to be a major win for the Native Americans, but they couldn’t really take advantage of it because people were demanding revenge for Custer’s death. Custer and all five of his companies were killed in what’s now known as Custer’s Last Stand. Even though it was a big win for the Native Americans, the public outcry for revenge overshadowed it, especially since Custer was a well-known hero from the Civil War and had a reputation as an Indian Fighter.

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn (or the Battle of the Greasy Grass), the Native American leaders scattered to avoid being captured or executed. The last significant battles of the Great Sioux War ended up being US victories (or a draw at Wolf Mountain), and with the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and others being pushed onto reservations, the Great Plains became open for colonization.

Background

So, according to Chief Lone Dog’s Winter Count from the Yanktonai Sioux, white soldiers first showed up in their area around 1823-1824. The Sioux didn’t really interact with them until 1854 when 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan went to Sioux Chief Conquering Bear’s camp and insisted they hand over a guy he accused of stealing a cow from some Mormons. Conquering Bear said no, which led to Grattan’s men opening fire and fatally wounding him. In retaliation, the Sioux killed Grattan and his 30 soldiers in what became known as the Grattan Fight or Grattan Massacre, kicking off the First Sioux War from 1854 to 1856.

Before all this went down, the US government had made deals with several Plains Indian nations, including the Sioux and Cheyenne, through the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. This treaty basically said that the US had no claim to the lands these tribes were living on. Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle was one of the signers, but the US never kept its word. Things got messy in 1858 when gold was found in the area, leading to the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush and a flood of settlers. This encroachment sparked the Colorado War from 1864 to 1865, during which Black Kettle’s peaceful village—flying both the American flag and a white flag of truce—was attacked in the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864.

As more settlers moved in and claimed Native American land, Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud started Red Cloud’s War from 1866 to 1868 to protect his people’s territory and get the US to stick to its treaty. The war ended with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, but later that same year, Black Kettle, his wife, and around 60 to 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed by troops under Custer’s command during the Washita Massacre on November 27. The 1868 treaty created the Great Sioux Reservation, but it was broken in 1874 when Custer found gold in the Black Hills, which were sacred to the Sioux and part of the land promised to them. The discovery led to the Black Hills Gold Rush in 1876, which ignited the Great Sioux War when the US government demanded the Sioux sell the Black Hills, and the Sioux flat-out refused.

Custer, Grant & Command

George Armstrong Custer was a Union general during the Civil War (1861-1865) who became famous after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. After he left the army in 1866, he took on the rank of Lt. Colonel in the peacetime army. By 1867, he was working with Major General Winfield Scott Hancock in campaigns against the Cheyenne. On April 19, 1867, Hancock surrounded a Cheyenne village at Pawnee Fork, but when he ordered an attack, he discovered that everyone had already fled. Custer kept this experience in mind later when he surrounded Chief Black Kettle’s camp during the Washita Massacre on November 27, 1868, and again at the Little Bighorn in 1876.

After the Sioux turned down President Ulysses S. Grant’s offer to buy the Black Hills, he gave them an ultimatum: either move to designated reservations by January 31, 1876, or be labeled ‘hostiles.’ Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds campaigned against the Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota Sioux in 1875, and when the Sioux continued to ignore Grant’s demands, Generals George R. Crook and Alfred H. Terry were sent to deal with them in February 1876.

Custer was supposed to support Crook and Terry, but in March 1876, he was called to Washington, D.C. to testify about allegations that Secretary of War William W. Belknap and Grant’s brother Orville were creating monopolies on trading posts out west, making life tough for settlers, miners, and soldiers.

Custer’s testimony led to Belknap being impeached and Orville facing public backlash over corruption in Grant’s administration. Feeling like he had done his duty, Custer got ready to head back to his troops, but Grant pulled him from command and told him to stay in Washington. When Custer ignored that order and left the city, Grant had him arrested when he arrived in Chicago. The media picked up on the arrest, causing public outrage over how Grant treated a war hero. General Philip Sheridan and others urged the president to release Custer, which he eventually did, but he didn’t give Custer full command and instead put him under General Terry.

Sitting Bull’s Camp & Battle of the Rosebud

After getting back out west with his troops, Custer was told by Terry to find and attack Sitting Bull’s camp, which was believed to be near the Rosebud or Little Bighorn rivers. Terry pretty much gave Custer the green light to take full control of the 7th Cavalry and do whatever he wanted once he found the camp—this included taking out warriors, capturing women and kids, and destroying their horses and food supplies. This approach matched Sheridan’s ‘total war’ strategy that Custer had already used during the Washita Massacre.

While Custer was on the lookout for what he thought was just one chief’s village, Sitting Bull was busy gathering a massive group of Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho to stand together against the invasion of their land and the broken treaties. Scholar Joseph M. Marshall III points out:

Sitting Bull, like many others of his time, saw how the growing number of white settlers in Lakota territory started to disrupt everyday life. It quickly escalated into a full-blown invasion that wiped out most of the buffalo herds in the northern plains by 1875, and more white miners flooded into the Black Hills after gold was discovered there. These were just some of the serious issues Sitting Bull wanted to tackle before it was too late. To make a change, he needed to connect with the leadership among the Lakota, talking to the older men who led families and villages, as well as his peers. That’s why he called for people to gather in the spring of 1876.

In early June, during the Sun Dance, Sitting Bull had a vision where soldiers kept falling all around him, which he took as a sign from the spirit world promising a big victory.While Sitting Bull was holding meetings, Crazy Horse had scouts out keeping an eye out for US soldiers. He found out that General Crook was nearby at the Rosebud and decided to attack on June 17 (this battle is called the Battle of the Rosebud, or as the Cheyenne refer to it, the Battle Where the Girl Saved her Brother). Crook would’ve been totally caught off guard, but his Crow and Shoshone scouts tipped him off about Crazy Horse coming, so he managed to get ready for a fight. Even though he claimed he won, Crazy Horse actually came out on top. The Cheyenne name for this battle comes from the moment when Buffalo Calf Road Woman saved her brother, Comes-in-Sight, after his horse got shot. Sitting Bull’s camp was still buzzing with excitement from this win as Custer was on his way.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

General Terry and Colonel John Gibbon were leading their troops towards the Little Bighorn when, just before dawn on June 25, Custer stumbled upon Sitting Bull’s camp. Among his scouts were some Crow and Arikara folks, including Bloody Knife, a Sioux-Arikara who was tight with Custer. Bloody Knife and a few other Native American scouts warned Custer that the village was bigger than he realized and could have more warriors, but he brushed off their concerns.

Custer decided to use the same strategy he had at Washita, splitting his twelve companies into three battalions. He took charge of five, Reno got three, Benteen had three, and the 12th stayed behind to guard the pack train. Back at Washita, Custer had successfully sent his officers to surround the village, so he figured it would work again without any issues. He sent Benteen to scout, Reno to hit the village from one side, and Custer would come in from another. Reno thought he’d catch the camp off guard and scatter the warriors, but he had no clue how many there actually were or how determined they might be. When he attacked, he faced heavy resistance, and things quickly turned chaotic as Chief Gall led a counterattack. Tragically, Bloody Knife, who was with Reno, was shot in the head.

After getting pushed back, Reno crossed the river and met up with Benteen’s group. Benteen received a note from Custer via bugler John Martin, telling him to hurry and bring the packs—referring to the mules carrying ammo. However, Benteen, who had been harboring resentment towards Custer since Washita, ignored the order and chose to stick with Reno instead. They could hear gunfire and assumed Custer was fighting the enemy but didn’t feel compelled to jump in, especially since they had their own problems. Captain Thomas Weir disregarded Reno’s command to stay put and rode out to help Custer, but once he reached a hilltop and saw the massive number of Native American warriors below, he realized it was a lost cause and headed back to his position.It’s still a mystery who actually got to Custer’s spot first and what exactly went down during Custer’s Last Stand.

After Gall held Reno back, Crazy Horse charged at Custer. Captain Myles Keogh’s battalion was completely wiped out by a combined attack from Crazy Horse and Gall. However, the details about who reached Custer first and what happened during that fateful moment remain unclear. According to Cheyenne accounts, Custer was thrown off his horse by Buffalo Calf Road Woman and then killed. There’s some debate over who actually delivered the fatal blow, with some saying it was the Sioux warrior Rain-in-the-Face, but he denied it. He also noted how chaotic the battle was, filled with dust that made it hard to see anything clearly. Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota Sioux visionary and medicine man who was just twelve at the time, described the scene in Black Elk Speaks:

It was all dust and cries and thunder…Off toward the west and north they were yelling, Hoka Hey! like a big wind roaring, and making the tremolo and you could hear eagle bone whistles screaming. The valley went darker with dust and smoke and there were only shadows and a big noise of many cries and hoofs and guns. (68)

On top of all that chaos, Native American veterans later said they had no clue Custer – whom they referred to as Son of the Morning Star for his dawn attacks – was even there until much later. So, it’s likely that even the person who took Custer down didn’t know who he was.

Here’s a Cheyenne artist’s take on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.Since none of Custer’s men made it out alive, we don’t really know what went down during his final moments. The classic image of him with long blonde hair, a wide-brimmed hat, and a buckskin jacket, guns blazing, is actually something his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, created later on to build his reputation as a great American hero through her books and speeches. In reality, Custer had shaved his head before the battle, the buckskin was too hot for June in Montana, and we have no clue what weapons he had when he died. His body was discovered on June 27 when Terry and Gibbon showed up. He was found naked with a gunshot wound to his left chest and another to his left temple.

It’s believed that the shot to his chest was the fatal one, while the headshot happened later when warriors fired at the bodies to ensure they were dead. Unlike the rest of his troops, Custer’s body wasn’t mutilated or scalped. According to the Cheyenne, this was because he had taken Monahsetah, the daughter of Cheyenne chief Little Rock (who died in the Washita Massacre), as a mistress, which made him part of their “family.” Some stories even say that Cheyenne women poked sewing awls into Custer’s ears so he could hear better in the afterlife and wouldn’t harm innocent women and kids. But these tales clash with others that claim nobody even knew Custer was on the battlefield that day.

Conclusion

The Arapaho-Cheyenne-Sioux alliance had been on a winning streak during the Great Sioux War, but everything changed after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. When news broke about Custer’s death and his troops being wiped out, people in the Euro-American community were furious and wanted revenge. The issue was that the military couldn’t track down Sitting Bull or any of the other leaders. After the battle, Native American leaders took different routes: Gall and Sitting Bull headed to Canada, while Crazy Horse kept dodging the cavalry by moving around the Great Plains.

There were some smaller clashes, like the Battle of Warbonnet Creek in July, but no major battles. On August 15, 1876, the US government passed the Indian Appropriations Act, which forced the Sioux to sell the Black Hills at a price set by the government, threatening to cut off supplies for those living on reservations if they didn’t comply. However, Crazy Horse and others weren’t ready to give up their land and kept fighting.

The Battle of Slim Buttes (September 9-10, 1876) marked the first significant engagement after Little Bighorn, resulting in a win for General Crook, who destroyed the village of American Horse the Elder. Colonel Nelson Miles (January 8, 1877) fought Crazy Horse to a standstill at the Battle of Wolf Mountain but claimed it as a victory anyway. The Battle of Muddy Creek (May 7, 1877) turned into a massacre for the village of Lakota chief Lame Deer, but it was definitely a win for the US military and effectively wrapped up the Great Sioux War. Crazy Horse surrendered on May 5, and others would follow suit in the years to come. The Battle of the Little Bighorn ended up being the last major win for the Plains Indians in their fight to protect their lands, which were then taken over by the US government and settled by its citizens.