JUNE 25:

June 25, 1876:  Col.George Custer will be commanding Troops C,E,F,I, and L; Major Marcus Reno will have troops A,G, and M. Captain Frederick Benteen will lead Troops H,D, and K. Captain Thomas McDougall will guard the supply wagons with Troop B. 

The following soldiers will receive Congressional Medals of Honor for actions during this battle today and tomorrow: Private Neil Bancroft, Company A; Pvt. Abram B.Brant, Co. D; Pvt. Thomas J.Callen, Co. B; Sgt. Benjamin C.Criswell, Co. B; Corporal Charles Cunningham, Co. B; Pvt. Frederick Deetline, Co. D; Sgt. George Geiger, Co. H; Pvt. Theodore Goldin, Troop G; Pvt. David W.Harris, Co. A; Pvt. William M.Harris, Co. D; Pvt. Henry Holden, Co. D; Sgt. Rufus D.Hutchinson, Co. B; Blacksmith Henry Mechlin, Co. H; Sgt. Thomas Murray, Co. B; Pvt. James Pym, Co. B; Sgt. Stanislaus Roy, Co. A; Pvt. George Scott, Co. D; Pvt. Thomas Stivers, Co. D; Pvt. Peter Thompson, Co. C; Pvt. Frank Tolan, Co. D; Saddler Otto Voit, Co. H; Sgt. Charles Welch, Co. D; Pvt. Charles Windolph, Co. H.
 

BACKGROUND:
 

1876 Federal authorities order the Lakota chiefs to report to their reservations by January 31. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and others defiant of the American government refuse.

General Philip Sheridan orders General George Crook, General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon to drive Sitting Bull and the other chiefs onto the reservation through a combined assault. On June 17, Crazy Horse and 500 warriors surprise General Crook's troops on the Rosebud River, forcing them to retreat. On June 25, George Armstrong Custer, part of General Terry's force, discovers Sitting Bull's encampment on the Little Bighorn River. Terry had ordered Custer to drive the enemy down the Little Bighorn toward Gibbon's forces, who were waiting at its mouth, but when he charges the village Custer discovers that he is outnumbered four-to-one. Hundreds of Lakota warriors overwhelm his troops, killing them to the last man, in a battle later called Custer's Last Stand. News of the massacre shocks the nation, and Sheridan floods the region with troops who methodically hunt down the Lakota and force them to surrender. Sitting Bull, however, eludes capture by leading his band to safety in Canada.
 

>From http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/events/1870_1880.htm
 
 

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>From http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm
 

The Battle of Little Bighorn
An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse recorded in pictographs and text at the Cheyenne River Reservation, 1881
 

Five springs ago I, with many Sioux Indians, took down and packed up our tipis and moved from Cheyenne river to the Rosebud river, where we camped a few days; then took down and packed up our lodges and moved to the Little Bighorn river and pitched our lodges with the large camp of Sioux.

The Sioux were camped on the Little Bighorn river as follows: The lodges of the Uncpapas were pitched highest up the river under a bluff. The Santee lodges were pitched next. The Oglala's lodges were pitched next. The Brule lodges were pitched next. The Minneconjou lodges were pitched next. The Sans Arcs' lodges were pitched next. The Blackfeet lodges were pitched next. The Cheyenne lodges were pitched next. A few Arikara Indians were among the Sioux (being without lodges of their own). Two-Kettles, among the other Sioux (without lodges).

I was a Sioux chief in the council lodge. My lodge was pitched in the center of the camp. The day of the attack I and four women were a short distance from the camp digging wild turnips. Suddenly one of the women attracted my attention to a cloud of dust rising a short distance from camp. I soon saw that the soldiers were charging the camp. To the camp I and the women ran. When I arrived a person told me to hurry to the council lodge. The soldiers charged so quickly we could not talk (council). We came out of the council lodge and talked in all directions. The Sioux mount horses, take guns, and go fight the soldiers. Women and children mount horses and go, meaning to get out of the way.

Among the soldiers was an officer who rode a horse with four white feet. [This officer was evidently Capt. French, Seventh Cavalry.] The Sioux have for a long time fought many brave men of different people, but the Sioux say this officer was the bravest man they had ever fought. I don't know whether this was Gen. Custer or not. Many of the Sioux men that I hear talking tell me it was. I saw this officer in the fight many times, but did not see his body. It has been told me that he was killed by a Santee Indian, who took his horse. This officer wore a large-brimmed hat and a deerskin coat. This officer saved the lives of many soldiers by turning his horse and covering the retreat. Sioux say this officer was the bravest man they ever fought. I saw two officers looking alike, both having long yellowish hair.

Before the attack the Sioux were camped on the Rosebud river. Sioux moved down a river running into the Little Bighorn river, crossed the Little Bighorn river, and camped on its west bank.

This day [day of attack] a Sioux man started to go to Red Cloud agency, but when he had gone a short distance from camp he saw a cloud of dust rising and turned back and said he thought a herd of buffalo was coming near the village.

The day was hot. In a short time the soldiers charged the camp. [This was Maj. Reno's battalion of the Seventh Cavalry.] The soldiers came on the trail made by the Sioux camp in moving, and crossed the Little Bighorn river above where the Sioux crossed, and attacked the lodges of the Uncpapas, farthest up the river. The women and children ran down the Little Bighorn river a short distance into a ravine. The soldiers set fire to the lodges. All the Sioux now charged the soldiers and drove them in confusion across the Little Bighorn river, which was very rapid, and several soldiers were drowned in it. On a hill the soldiers stopped and the Sioux surrounded them. A Sioux man came and said that a different party of Soldiers had all the women and children prisoners. Like a whirlwind the word went around, and the Sioux all heard it and left the soldiers on the hill and went quickly to save the women and children.

>From the hill that the soldiers were on to the place where the different soldiers [by this term Red-Horse always means the battalion immediately commanded by General Custer, his mode of distinction being that they were a different body from that first encountered] were seen was level ground with the exception of a creek. Sioux thought the soldiers on the hill [i.e., Reno's battalion] would charge them in rear, but when they did not the Sioux thought the soldiers on the hill were out of cartridges. As soon as we had killed all the different soldiers the Sioux all went back to kill the soldiers on the hill. All the Sioux watched around the hill on which were the soldiers until a Sioux man came and said many walking soldiers were coming near. The coming of the walking soldiers was the saving of the soldiers on the hill. Sioux can not fight the walking soldiers [infantry], being afraid of them, so the Sioux hurriedly left.

The soldiers charged the Sioux camp about noon. The soldiers were divided, one party charging right into the camp. After driving these soldiers across the river, the Sioux charged the different soldiers [i.e., Custer's] below, and drive them in confusion; these soldiers became foolish, many throwing away their guns and raising their hands, saying, "Sioux, pity us; take us prisoners." The Sioux did not take a single soldier prisoner, but killed all of them; none were left alive for even a few minutes. These different soldiers discharged their guns but little. I took a gun and two belts off two dead soldiers; out of one belt two cartridges were gone, out of the other five.

The Sioux took the guns and cartridges off the dead soldiers and went to the hill on which the soldiers were, surrounded and fought them with the guns and cartridges of the dead soldiers. Had the soldiers not divided I think they would have killed many Sioux. The different soldiers [i.e., Custer's battalion] that the Sioux killed made five brave stands. Once the Sioux charged right in the midst of the different soldiers and scattered them all, fighting among the soldiers hand to hand.

One band of soldiers was in rear of the Sioux. When this band of soldiers charged, the Sioux fell back, and the Sioux and the soldiers stood facing each other. Then all the Sioux became brave and charged the soldiers. The Sioux went but a short distance before they separated and surrounded the soldiers. I could see the officers riding in front of the soldiers and hear them shooting. Now the Sioux had many killed. The soldiers killed 136 and wounded 160 Sioux. The Sioux killed all these different soldiers in the ravine.

The soldiers charged the Sioux camp farthest up the river. A short time after the different soldiers charged the village below. While the different soldiers and Sioux were fighting together the Sioux chief said, "Sioux men, go watch soldiers on the hill and prevent their joining the different soldiers." The Sioux men took the clothing off the dead and dressed themselves in it. Among the soldiers were white men who were not soldiers. The Sioux dressed in the soldiers' and white men's clothing fought the soldiers on the hill.

The banks of the Little Bighorn river were high, and the Sioux killed many of the soldiers while crossing. The soldiers on the hill dug up the ground [i.e., made earth-works], and the soldiers and Sioux fought at long range, sometimes the Sioux charging close up. The fight continued at long range until a Sioux man saw the walking soldiers coming. When the walking soldiers came near the Sioux became afraid and ran away.
 
 
 

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From
http://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/history/Documents/War/America/Indian/1876-BigHorn-Reno.htm
 

Report on the Battle of Little Big Horn
Major M.A. Reno
 
 

Camp on the Yellowstone River, 5 July 1876

The command of the regiment having developed upon me as the senior surviving officer from the battle of the 25th and 26th of June, between the Seventh Cavalry and Sitting Bull's band of hostile Sioux, on the Little Big Horn River, I have the honor to submit the following report of its operations from the time of leaving the main column unitl the command was united in the vicinity of the Indian village:

The regiment left the camp at the mouth of the Rosebud River, after passing in review before the department commander, under command of Bvt. Maj. Gen. G. A. Custer, lieutenant-colonel, on the afternoon of the 22nd day of June, and marched up the Rosebud 12 miles and encamped; 23rd, marched up the Rosebud, passing many old Indian camps, and following a very large pole-trail, but not fresh, making 33 miles; 24th, the march was continued up the Rosebud, the trail and signs freshening with every mile, until we had made 28 miles, and we then encamped and waited for information from the scouts. At 9:25 p.m. Custer called the officers together and informed us that beyond a doubt the village was in the valley of the Little Big Horn, and in order to reach it it was necessary to cross the divide between the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn, and it would be impossible to do so in the day-time without discovering our march to the Indians; that we would prepare to march at 11 p.m. This was done, the line of march turning from the Rosebud to the right up one of its branches which headed near the summit of the divide. About 2 a.m. on the 25th the scouts told him that he could not cross the divide before daylight. We then made coffee and rested for three hours, at the expiration of which time the march was resumed, the divide crossed, and about 8 a.m. the command was in the valley of one of the branches of the Little Big Horn. By this time Indians had been seen and it was certain that we could not suprise them, and it was determined to move at once to the attack. Previous to this, no division of the regiment had been made since the order had been issued on the Yellowstone annuling wing and battalion organizations, but Custer informed me that he would assign commands on the march.

I was ordered by Lieut. W. W. Cooke, adjutant, to assume command of Companies M, A, and G; Captain Benteen of Companies H, D, and K. Custer retained C, E, F, I, and L under his immediate command, and Company B, Captain McDougall, in rear of the pack- train.

I assumed command of the companies assigned to me, and, without any definite orders, moved forward with the rest of the column, and well to its left.

I saw Benteen moving farther to the left, and, as they passed, he told me he had orders to move well to the left, and sweep everything before him. I did not see him again until about 2.30 p.m. The command moved down to the creek toward the Little Big Horn Valley, Custer with five companies on the right bank, myself and three companies on the left bank, and Benteen farther to the left, and out of sight.

As we approached a deserted village, and in which was standing one tepee, about 11 a.m., Custer motioned me to cross to him, which I did, and moved nearer to his column until about 12.30 a.m. when Lieutenant Cook, adjutant, came to me and said the village was only two miles above, and running away; to move forward at as rapid a gait as prudent, and to charge afterward, and that the whole outfit would support me. I think those were his exact words. I at once took a fast trot, and moved down about two miles, when I came to a ford of the river. I crossed immediately, and halted about ten minutes or less to gather the battalion, sending word to Custer that I had everything in front of me, and that they were strong. I deployed, and, with the Ree scouts on my left, charged down the valley, driving the Indians with great ease for about two and a half miles. I, however, soon saw that I was being drawn into some trap, as they would certainly fight harder, and especially as we were nearing their village, which was still standing; besides, I could not see Custer or any other support, and at the same time the very earth seemed to grow Indians, and they were running toward me in swarms, and from all directions. I saw I must defend myself and give up the attack mounted. This I did. Taking possession of a front of woods, and which furnished, near its edge, a shelter for the horses, dismounted and fought them on foot, making headway through the woods. I soon found myself in the near vicinity of the village, saw that I was fighting odds of at least five to one, and that my only hope was to get out of the woods, where I would soon have been surrounded, and gain some high ground. I accomplished this by mounting and charging the Indians between me and the bluffs on the opposite side of the river. In this charge, First Lieut. Donald McIntosh, Second Lieut. Benjamin H. Hodgson, Seventh Cavalry, and Acting Assistant Surgeon J. M. De Wolf, were killed.

I succeeded in reaching the top of the bluff, with a loss of three officers and twenty-nine enlisted men killed and seven wounded. Almost at the same time I reached the top, mounted men were seen to be coming toward us, and it proved to be Colonel Benteen's battalion, Companies H, D, and K. We joined forces, and in a short time the pack-train came up. As senior, my command was then A, B, D, G, H, K, and M, about three hundred and eighty men, and the following officers: Captains Benteen, Weir, French and McDougall, First Lieutenants Godfrey, Mathey, and Gibson, and Second Lieutenants Edgerly, Wallace, Varnum, and Hare, and Acting Assistant Surgeon Porter.

First Lieutenant De Rudio was in the dismounted fight in the woods, but, having some trouble with his horse, did not join the command in the charge out, and hiding himself in the woods, joined the command after night-fall on the 26th.

Still hearing nothing of Custer, and, with this re-enforcement, I moved down the river in the direction of the village, keeping on the bluffs.

We had heard firing in that direction and knew it could only be Custer. I moved to the summit of the highest bluff, but seeing and hearing nothing sent Captain Weir with his company to open communication with him. He soon sent word by Lieutenant Hare that he could go no farther, and that the Indians were getting around him. At this time he was keeping up a heavy fire from his skirmish line. I at once turned everything back to the first position I had taken on the bluffs, and which seemed to me the best. I dismounted the men and had the horses and mules of the pack-train driven together in a depression, put the men on the crests of the bluffs, and which seemed to me the best. I dismounted, the men and had the horses and mules of the pack-train driven together in a depression, put the men on the crests of the hills making the depression, and had hardly done so when I was furiously attacked. This was about 6 p.m. We held our ground, with a loss of eighteen enlisted men killed and forty-six wounded, until the attack ceased, about 9 p.m. As I knew by this their overwhelming numbers, and had given up any support from that portion of the regiment with Custer, I had the men dig rifle pits, barricade with dead horses and mules, and boxes of hard bread, the opening of the depression toward the Indians in which the animals were herded, and made every exertion to be ready for what I saw would be a terrific assault the next day. All this might night the men were busy, and the Indians holding a scalp-dance underneath us in the bottom and in our hearing. On the morning of the 26th I felt confident that I could hold my own, and was ready, as far as I could be, when at daylight, about 2.30 a.m., I heard the crack of two rifles. This was the signal for the beginning of a fire that I have never equaled. Every rifle was handled by an expert and skilled marksman, and with a range that exceeded our carbines, and it was simply impossible to show any part of the body before it was struck. We could see, as the day brightened, countless hordes of them pouring up the valley from the village and scampering over the high points toward the places designated for them by their chiefs, and which entirely surrounded our position. They had sufficient numbers to completely encircle us, and men were struck from opposite sides of the lines from where the shots were fired. I think we were fighting all the Sioux Nation, and also all the deparadoes, renegades, half-breeds, and squaw-men between the Missouri and the Arkansas and east of the Rocky Mountains, and they must have numbered at least twenty-five hundred warriors.

The fire did not slacken until about 9.30 a.m., and then we found they were making a last desperate effort and which was directed against the lines held by Companies H and M. In this charge they came close enough to use their bows and arrows, and one man lying dead within our lines was touched with the coup-stick of one of the foremost Indians. When I say the stick was only ten or twelve feet long, some idea of the desperate and reckless fighting of these people may be understood.

This charge of theirs was gallantly repulsed by the men on that line, lead by Colonel Benteen. They also came close enough to send their arrows into the line held by Companies D and K, but were driven away by a like charge of the line, which I accompanied. We now had many wounded, and the question of water was vital, as from 6 p.m. the previous evening until now, 10 a.m., about sixteen hours, we had been without.

A skirmish line was formed under Colonel Benteen to protect the descent of volunteers down the hill in front of his position to reach the water. We succeeded in getting some canteens, although many of the men were hit in doing so. The fury of the attack was now over, and to our astonishment the Indians were seen going in parties toward the village. But two solutions occured to us for this movement; that they were going for something to eat, more ammunition, (as they had been throwing arrows,) or that Custer was coming. We took advantage of this lull to fill all vessels with water, and soon had it by camp- kettles full. But they continued to withdraw, and all firing ceased save occasional shots from sharp-shooters sent to annoy us about the water. About 2 p.m. the grass in the bottom was set on fire and followed up by Indians who encouraged its burning, and it was evident to me it was done for a purpose, and which purpose I discovered later on to be the creation of a dense cloud of smoke behind which they were packing and preparing to move their village. It was between 6 and 7 p.m. that the village came out from behind the dense clouds of smoke and dust. We had a close and good view of them as they filed away in the direction of the Big Horn Mountains, moving in almost perfect military order. The length of the column was full equal to that of a large division of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac as I have seen it in its march.

We now thought of Custer, of whom nothing had been seen and nothing heard since the firing in his direction about 6 p.m. on the eve of the 25th, and we concluded that the Indians had gotten between him and us and driven him toward the boat at the mouth of the Little Big Horn River. The awful fate that did befall him never occurred to any of us as within the limits of possibility.

During the night I changed my position in order to secure an unlimited supply of water, and was prepared for their return, feeling sure they would do som as they were in such numbers; but early in the morning of the 27th, and while we were on the qui vire for Indians, I saw with my glass a dust some distance down the valley. There was no certainty for some time what they were, but finally I satisfied myself they were cavalry, and, if so, could only be Custer, as it was ahead of the time that I understood that General Terry could be expected. Before this time, however, I had written a communication to General Terry, and three volunteers were to try and reach him. (I had no confidence in the Indians with me, and could not get them to do anything.) If this dust were Indians it was possible they would not expect any one to leave. The men started, and were told to go as near as it was safe to determine whether the approaching column was white men, and to return at once in case they found it so, but if they were Indians to push on to General Terry. In a short time, we saw them returning a note from Terry to Custer saying Crow scouts had come to camp saying he had been whipped, but that it was not believed. I think it was about 10.30 a.m. when General Terry rode into my lines, and the fate of Custer and his brave men was soon determined by Captain Benteen proceeding to the battle-ground, and where was recognized the following officers, who were surrounded by the dead bodies of many of their men; Gen G. A. Custer, Col. W. W. Cook, adjutant; Capts. M. W. Keogh, G. W. Yates, and T. W. Custer; First Lieuts. A. E. Smith, James Calhoun; Second Lieuts. W. V. Reily, of the Seventh Cavalry and J. J. Crittenden, of the Twelfth Infantry, temporarily attached to this regiment. The bodies of Lieut. J. E. Porter and Second Lieuts. H. M. Harrington and J. G. Sturgis, Seventh Cavalry, and Asst. Surg. G. W. Lord, U. S. A., were not recognized; but there is every reasonable probability they were killed. It was more certain that the column of five companies with Custer had been killed.

The wounded in my lines were, during the afternoon and evening of the 27th, moved to the camp of General Terry, and at 5 a.m. of the 28th I proceeded with the regiment to th battleground of Custer, and buried 204 bodies, including the following-named citizens: Mr. Boston Custer, Mr. Reed (a young nephew of General Custer,) and Mr. Kellog, (a correspondent for the New York Herald.) The following-named citizens and Indians who were with my command were also killed: Charles Reynolds, guide and hunter; Isaiah Dorman, (colored,) interpreter; Bloody Knife, who fell from immediately by my side; Bobtail Bull, and Stab, of the Indian scouts.

After traveling over his trail, it was evident to me that Custer intended to support me by moving farther down the stream and attacking the village in flank; that he found the distance greater to ford than he anticipated; that he did charge, but his march had taken so long, although his trail shows that he had moved rapidly, that they were ready for him; that Companies C and I, and perhaps part of E, crossed to the village or attempted it; at the charge were met by a staggering fire, and that they fell back to find a position from which to defend themselves, but they were followed too closely by the Indians to permit time to form any kind of a line.

I think had the regiment gone in as a body, and from the woods from which I fought advanced upon the village, its destruction was certain. But he was fully confident they were running away, or he would not have turned from me. I think (after the great number of Indians that were in the village,) that the following reasons obtain for the misfortune; His rapid marching for two days and one night before the fight; attacking in the day-time at 12 m., and when they were on the qui vire, instead of early morning; and lastly, his unfortunate division of the regiment into three commands.

During my fight with Indians, I had the heartiest support from officers and men, but the conspicuous services of Bvt. Col. F. W. Benteen I desire to call attention to especially, for if ever a soldier deserved recognition by his Government for distinguished services he certainly does. I inclose herewith his report of the operations of his battalion from the time of leaving the regiment until we joined commands on the hill. I also inclose an accuate list of casaulties, as far as it can be made at the present time, separating them into two lists: A, those killed in General Custer's command; B, those killed and wounded in the command I had.

The number of Indians killed can only be approximated until we hear through the agencies. I saw the bodies of eighteen, and Captain Ball, Second Cavalry, who made a scout of thirteen miles over their trail, says that their graves were many along their line of march. It is simply impossible that numbers of them should not be hit in the several charges they made so close to my lines. They made their approaches through the deep gulches that led from the hill-top to the river, and, when the jealous care with which the Indian guards the bodies of killed and wounded is considered, it is not astonishing that their bodies were not found. It is probable that the stores left by them and destroyed the next two days was to make room for many of these on their travois. The harrowing sight of the dead bodies crowning the height on which Custer fell, and which will remain vividly in my memory until death, is too recent for me not to ask the good people of this country whether a policy that sets opposing parties in the field, armed, clothed, and equipped by one and the same Government should not be abolished.
 

Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1876, 44th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 476-480.
 

*****
 

From http://www.argusleader.com/specialsections/2001/bighorn/Sundayfeature.shtml
 

Custer sealed fate of the Hills By STEVE YOUNG Argus Leader

published: 6/24/01

Tensions of the past linger today

LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD -- It began benignly enough with children playing in the river, their mothers smiling as they dug for wild turnips nearby and their fathers still asleep.

In a few hours, the sun would boil overhead -- the temperature steaming into the mid-90s and the haze over the Little Bighorn River valley mingling with the dust of 30,000 ponies.

And when it did, the ancestral rhythms of Lakota life would explode in a cataclysm of gunfire that would echo across Indian-white relations on the Northern Plains for generations to come.

The date was June 25, 1876 -- 125 years ago Monday; the place -- near the Bighorn Mountains in southeastern Montana. And the moment -- the unfolding drama of one of the last great conflicts between the U.S. military and the warrior societies of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes.

The battle is known in the annals of history as Custer's Last Stand.

"We won the fight," says Johnson Holy Rock of Pine Ridge, whose father, Jonas, was a 10-year-old boy at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. "And, unfortunately, lost a way of life."

In many ways, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's assault on the massive tipi village at Little Bighorn is linked inexorably to another anniversary in 2001 --the federal government's unlawful seizure of the Black Hills in western South Dakota, 125 years ago this fall.

To most historians, one never would have taken place without the other. For it was Custer's foray into the Black Hills in 1874, ostensibly to seek out sites for an Army post, that led to the discovery of gold and a subsequent rush of miners.

In turn, the mad dash of white America for the mineral-rich fields of Dakota and Montana brought thousands of trespassers onto lands promised to the Lakota under the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties.

Angrily, the Sioux and Cheyenne retaliated by attacking intruders who ignored the treaties and entered their territories. Frustrated U.S. Army officials struggled with the dual missions of trying to protect white people from Indian attacks and the Indian people from white intrusions onto their land.

Ultimately, President Ulysses S. Grant decided he didn't have the means or manpower to do both. Since Indians didn't vote, he opted to quit policing the miners, a decision made early in November 1875.

Soon after, the Army ordered all Indians outside of the Great Sioux Reservation created in western South Dakota by the 1868 Fort Laramie to return to the reservation by Jan. 31, 1876, or be considered hostile and thus subject to Army force.

In southeastern Montana, chiefs like Sitting Bull, Gall and Crazy Horse weren't about to abandon their hunting grounds. And so the stage was set for the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

"I think it's pretty obvious that if it wasn't for the Black Hills and the squabble with all of those illegal prospectors, there couldn't have been a Little Bighorn," says historian Bob Lee of Sturgis, who has written extensively on the history of the Black Hills.

Today, the arrogance, greed and ignorance that typified the cultural conflict of 125 years ago reverberate in symbolism throughout the Little Bighorn River valley, 45 miles southeast of Billings.

In the 1870s, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and the others were bent on keeping the Northern Pacific rail lines from pushing west to Yellowstone. The iron horse scared the buffalo and other game. It used up scarce firewood supplies along the way.

Today, ironically, Interstate 90 cuts through the heart of the Little Bighorn valley, in the exact spot where the tipis of Sitting Bull's people sat at the time of the battle. And coal trains pulled by Burlington Northern Santa Fe engines rumble through it as well on their way from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to the Pacific Northwest.

Skirmishes fought by Red Cloud and others to keep those trains out of their homelands continue yet today, says Oliver Red Cloud of Pine Ridge, great-grandson of the chief. Now, the battle is with the Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, which wants to use new and existing lines through the Black Hills to haul coal from Wyoming through South Dakota to the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

"They had a meeting in Rapid City about it," says Oliver Red Cloud, 82, chairman of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Council, an intertribal organization that advises Sioux tribes on their treaty claims. "We told them no. We're still trying to settle things from the treaties of 1851 and 1868.

"There are a lot of old graves out there that would be disturbed. There's land that was taken from us that we want back. We don't want no trains running through there. We told them no; that should be it."

Tension exists today

At Little Bighorn, the animosities that drove two cultures to fight in 1876 exist in various shades today as well.

It can be as subtle as the emotions spawned by the battle re-enactments that take place there every year. The chamber of commerce in Hardin, Mont., 15 miles up the road from the battlefield, stages one such depiction. Ken Real Bird, a Crow Indian with land within the battlefield boundaries, puts on another.

Real Bird believes his event more accurately depicts the Indian account of Little Bighorn. But the Hardin chamber insists that its performance is based on Crow tribal elder Joseph Medicine Crow's translation of oral and written Indian narratives.

"There's some tension there that has to do with who is more fair to the Indian point of view," says Marvin Dawes, an instructor at nearby Little Big Horn College at Crow Agency who teaches tribal people how to be tour guides at the battlefield.

Being fair to Indians is a rather new concept, Dawes says and then laughs. It certainly wasn't a great concern among the U.S. Army in 1876.

Even today, he runs into the kind of arrogance that drove Custer and white America to believe they could simply take what they wanted from the native people.

During a recent tour of the battlefield, Dawes stopped to watch three adults and several children pile out of a minivan with Florida license plates.

The adults emerged from the van with beer bottles in hand, then ignored private property signs to scramble up a hillside for a better view. When Dawes advised them that they couldn't trespass, they told him they had permission to access the property, then quickly backtracked and mumbled something about trying to find out how to solicit that permission.

"You see," Dawes said afterward, shaking his head as the group drove away, "not much has changed in 125 years, has it?"

In some ways, it seems, he could be right. Certainly 19th century America had its biases against the country's aboriginal people, stereotypes that were similar to some of the racist views that exist today.

But in 1876, the reservation system that emerged from treaty promises and made the Lakota reliant on the government for their subsistence hadn't really evolved yet. It hadn't developed into a welfare society dependent on the Great White Father for its education, health care and housing. Back then, the Lakota were very much entrenched in a nomadic lifestyle, a horse-and-buffalo existence that took them seasonally across the Plains.

Sizing up Indians

Custer's relatives, like Ken Custer of Murrieta, Calif., don't believe the officer harbored any innate hatred for the Lakota.

"I don't view him as someone who hated Indians," says Ken Custer, 47, whose great-grandfather was a first cousin to George Custer. "I view him as an ambitious soldier who did what he had to do based upon his ambition to climb in rank."

Yet interviews George Custer gave in the months before the battle at Little Bighorn suggested that he had no great respect for native people.

In a story in the Toledo, Ohio, Sunday Journal published in March 1876, Custer speculated about a potential presidential run by Gen. William Sherman and how Sherman might conduct Indian policy if elected.

"There would be one grand Indian war, and then there would be no more Indians," Custer was quoted in the story reprinted in the March 9, 1876, Sioux Falls Independent. "It would settle the Indian question beyond the tomfoolery of Quakers and sentimentalists who don't seem to know that every Indian everywhere is simply a brute. You can't civilize an Indian any more than you can teach a rooster to lay goose eggs."

In other words, they were savages, Custer insinuated, people with no written language and no apparent religion who were best dealt with through force.

But as he himself would soon find out, such a characterization wasn't that simple.

Of course, fighting Indians in the late 1860s and 1870s was no easy proposition. America in Custer's day was just emerging from the Civil War. Much of its military strength was directed to reconstruction in the South. Its economy along the East Coast struggled amidst a depression.

Job options for a steady flow of immigrants pouring into New York were limited. With few choices, newcomers to the country often enlisted in the military --a fact illustrated in the makeup of Custer's 7th Cavalry troops that fought at Little Bighorn.

Half of his 586 soldiers were born outside of the U.S., including 128 in Ireland, 125 in Germany, 53 in England and others from places such as Russia, Greece, Italy and Scandinavia.

The gold fields of California also beckoned. Oregon had been opened, and with the Mormon migration to Utah, thousands trekked west along the Platte River Road through Nebraska and southern Wyoming.

Treaties for trails

When California became a state in 1850, securing a route west across the Great Plains became an important federal policy. So the government called for a council with the Plains Indians at Fort Laramie in Wyoming in September 1851 to negotiate the sale of what became known as the Oregon-California Trail.

In exchange for agreeing to allow settlers to pass unharmed, and for allowing the government to establish roads and military posts along the way, the Indians were promised unconditional use of the land extending north and south of the trail. They also bargained for $50,000 in goods yearly for 50 years as payment for injuries to their hunting and wintering grounds.

Yet, soon after the 1851 treaty was signed, the U.S. Senate reneged, modifying the treaty, reducing the annuity to 10 years.

That didn't sit well with the Lakota, who began exacting their grievances against settlers on the trail. By 1855 and 1856, the Army was engaging bands of Teton Sioux in Dakota Territory, providing a preview of hostilities that would begin in earnest the next decade.

Unfortunately, the necessary Civil War reconstruction in the South left the U.S. military with few options to address the Indian problems. When gold was discovered in southwestern Montana in 1862, the flood of fortune seekers only exacerbated the situation with the Indians.

The opening of Colorado gold fields, along with the Montana gold rush, led to demands for separate routes to connect those areas to the east.

After researching several trails, those headed for Montana settled on the Bozeman route, cutting through eastern Wyoming, north and then west through Montana. To pacify the region and insure the safety of the Bozeman Trail, the government sent out a call in the fall of 1866 to leaders of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho for a conference the following spring.

The Indians wanted no part of that. Sioux leaders protested that opening the Bozeman Trail would destroy their last decent hunting ground. Soldiers placed on the trail while negotiations were still ongoing proved to be the last straw for Indian leaders like Oglala Chief Red Cloud.

"The Great Father sends us presents and wants us to sell him the road," Red Cloud said. "But the White Chief goes with soldiers to steal the road before the Indians say yes or no."

The chiefs of the Powder River country angrily left the council. Meanwhile, the military established posts at Fort Reno east of present Kaycee, Wyo.; Fort Phil Kearny north of present Buffalo, Wyo.; and Fort C.F. Smith west of what is now Lodge Grass, Mont.

Through 1866 and 1867, the forts were under a virtual state of siege by the Indians. On Dec. 21, 1866, Capt. William Fetterman and 80 of his men were killed as they tried to protect a wood-gathering detail near Fort Kearny.

The Indian wars went little better in 1867. The Army could hold its forts, but the Indians owned the trails.

With too few soldiers to commit to battle, Congress decided to pursue a policy of peace. It called for another council with the Indians, again at Fort Laramie. A treaty would be signed in 1868, though Sioux leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull didn't sign it.

In essence, that agreement created a Great Sioux Reservation in western South Dakota for the undisturbed use of the Lakota. In exchange, the warring was supposed to end.

Of course, it didn't.

Earlier, in 1866, the U.S. Army had established a new cavalry unit at Fort Riley, Kan., to help with the Indian wars. That same year, a young Civil War hero named George Custer was named a lieutenant colonel in the new unit. Custer had gained fame fighting the Confederacy, including routing Gen. Jeb Stuart and his troops at Gettysburg.

But Custer also ran into some trouble after the war and was court-martialed during his first year at Fort Riley for an unauthorized visit to his wife, misuse of government materials, abandoning wounded men and ordering deserters shot without trial.

Suspended from his rank and pay for a year, Custer vowed to resurrect his career in the Indian wars. And, for a time he did throughout the American Midwest and Northern Plains.

Black Hills treasure

Then, in the spring of 1873, he was assigned to Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, N.D. The Lakota, disenchanted with the government's reneging on treaty promises, continued to attack settlers along the Bozeman Trail. So in the summer of 1874, Custer and an expedition were sent to the Black Hills to find a suitable site for a military post from which to try to rein in the Lakota.

On July 30, 1874, two miners in Custer's party claimed they found gold in the Black Hills. That opened a floodgate to fortune seekers. Try as it might to honor the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, the military didn't have the manpower to keep the intruders out of the Lakota's sacred Black Hills. Nor was it succeeding in keeping Indians from assaulting the trespassers.

So, in 1875, Congress tried to negotiate with the Lakota through the Allison Commission to lease or buy the land the Indians called the Paha Sapa, or Black Hills. The Sioux roundly refused.

President Grant saw no possible resolution. So, in November 1875, he decided to ignore the 1868 treaty and allow miners into the Black Hills without fear of arrest by the military.

By then, many of the Indians who had agreed to give up their nomadic ways for reservation life were growing more disenchanted. Sedentary life didn't sit well with them. Indian agents on the reservations treated them with little regard for their native traditions. And the goods promised them in the treaties were either inferior or never showed up at all.

Hundreds of reservation Indians poured out into eastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana to join brethren who had refused to live on reservations in the first place. Committed to controlling them, the government turned control of the Indians over to the War Department. In 1876, the Lakota and Cheyenne were ordered back to the Great Sioux Reservation in western Dakota Territory.

Under the spiritual and political guidance of Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull, the Sioux and Cheyenne showed no interest in bowing to threats. They stayed put in the Powder River country of Wyoming and Montana and waited.

On May 17, 1876, Gen. Alfred Terry and Custer led a column of 1,000 soldiers out of Fort Abraham Lincoln to escort the Indians from camps in the Powder River basin to the reservation.

At the same time, more than 1,000 troops under Gen. George Crook were moving up from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming to assist Terry, as were 500 soldiers under Col. John Gibbon of Fort Ellis in Bozeman, Mont.

It was a long, hard march for the 7th Cavalry soldiers. They earned a paltry $13 a month. In addition, they had to subsist on meager rations -- coffee beans they ground themselves, a pouch of sugar, hardened peas and beans that were Civil War surplus, at least 11 years old.

The Army issued them a deck of cards, a tin cup and a mess kit that included a fry pan and plate, both good for digging trenches.

In exchange, they had to march 10 to 15 miles a day. They hunted antelope and deer along the way to supplement their diet. And when they camped at night, details would be sent around to pierce the dirt with bayonets to ensure that no rattlesnakes would crawl into their blankets.

What awaited them in the valley of the Little Bighorn River was a village of 1,000 tipis stretching a mile and a half, up to 10,000 tribal people --including 1,500 to 2,000 warriors --and as many as 30,000 horses.

What no one understood at the time was that the Sioux and Cheyenne were formidable adversaries of the white man's own making. Prior to 1750, the tribes had no horses, and thus no great mobility on the Plains. Those animals only arrived in North America with Columbus and the white people that followed. The white traders also brought other instruments that the Indians eventually used against them -- metal blades for tomahawks, metal tips for arrows. And guns.

All of which made them potent adversaries on the morning of June 25, 1876, a day that unfolded innocently enough with Sioux children splashing in the Little Bighorn River, with their mothers foraging for food and their fathers sleeping off a night of dancing and socializing.

Fifteen miles to the east, a young lieutenant colonel, George Custer, peered through his binoculars at the clouds of dust and smoke rising from the valley and made ready for battle.

He had no idea that on a day when the sun would boil, the blood of some 260 of his soldiers, scouts and civilians would spill on the sagebrush-covered ridges in the distance.

No one could know then that it would be the last great victory the Sioux and Cheyenne would ever know on the battlefield. By 1890, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall and Red Cloud were either dead or living on reservations. And their horse-and-buffalo culture lay decimated in the bloody snows of Wounded Knee in southwestern South Dakota, destroyed by a vengeful 7th Cavalry.

What remained afterward in the echoes of all that gunfire were two mass graves --one for the 198 dead soldiers buried on Last Stand Hill at the Little Bighorn, and one for the 300 Lakota slaughtered at Wounded Knee.

That and the reverberations of mistrust that have hounded Indian-white relations on the Northern Plains ever since.

Reach reporter Steve Young at syoung@argusleader.com or 331-2306