The Battle of the
Little Bighorn
(By Mark Henckel)
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    "The Battle of the Little Bighorn" as told by Mark Henckel, and illustrated by John Potter, is a fine example of modern literature.  Through this simplistic children's version of the story, the battle comes to life through pictures and an excellent narrative.
     Though aimed at 10-11 year olds, I feel this rendition of the battle is a very good resource for anyone who wants to know not only the basics of the battle but also a great deal of detailed information.  This story is very to the point and cut and dried, no extra theories or ideas presented here.  Just good old factual storytelling at it's best.
     Whether you are a student of the battle or simply want to learn a little about something new, this guide is great.  With all due respect, I would highly recommend this rendition of the story of the battle as our "Idiot's Guide to the Battle of the Little Bighorn!"
     To understand exactly what I am talking about, please read this word for word re-typing of the story for yourself.
A Turning Point in History
The Battle of the Little Bighorn Continued
    On a hot summer day in 1876, hundreds of U.S. Army soldiers and Indian warriors spurred their horses into a battle that would become a legend--the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
     In those days, the West rang with the clash of many battles between Indians and soldiers.  But this battle, fought along the Little Bighorn River in what is now southeastern Montana, would stand out in history.  It would capture the imagination of people for generations to come.
     Why was this battle so special?  Much of the reason is the mystery that surrounds it.  The 210 soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer were completely wiped out by their Sioux and Northern Cheyenne foes.  Not one lived to tell what happened.
     This battle also marked a turning point in American history.  It was the most horrible defeat ever suffered by the U.S. Army at the hands of the Plains Indians.  And it signaled the end of the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne's free life on the plains.  Never again would they score such a victory.  From that time on, the U.S. government wouldn't rest until it forced the two tribes onto reservations.
     The Battle of the Little Bighorn marked the end of an era and the start of a new one in the West.
The Soldiers of the Seventh
    The story begins on May 17, 1876.  That day, General Alfred Terry led a force of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and mule-drawn wagons out of Fort Abraham Lincoln, which was built near where Bismark, North Dakota, is today.  There were about 925 men in all, including 600 cavalrymen.  They planned to march halfway across Montana Territory to find the Sioux Indians.  Then they intended to make the Sioux go to their reservation in Dakota Territory in what is now the western half of South Dakota.
     Custer, who was 36 years old at the time, commanded the Seventh Cavalry as part of Terry's army.  Some of his men were recent immigrants, especially Irish and Germans who had just come to the United States.
     The average cavalryman was in his mid-twenties and unmarried.  He had a horse and saddle, a bedroll, a few clothes, and some personal things such as a razor, comb, toothbrush, and mirror.  A few might have had some paper or something to write with in their saddlebags, too.  But many soldiers at the time couldn't read or write.
     Unlike soldiers of today, who wear uniforms that
are all pretty much alike, Custer's men dressed in a
variety of clothes.  They wore old uniform shirts and
caps, straw hats, and buckskin clothes.  Most wore
the standard sky-blue pants of the cavalry.  They may
have had nice uniforms back at the fort, but there was
no point in wearing them on a march like this one. 
After several months in the sweat and dust and mud,
the men's clothes would get so dirty and smelly that it
would be difficult to clean them.  After long marches,
many men just burned their clothes.
     If it sounds like the soldiers didn't have much, they
didn't.  But for most of them, life was better than before they enlisted in the Army.  They had clothes. They had warm blankets.  They got three meals everyday.  And they even earned a salary of thirteen dollars a month--more money than many of them had ever earned.


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   The man who led the Seventh Cavalry was George Armstrong Custer.  He was considered a hero by many people in those days.  He had temporarily been a general in charge of volunteers during the Civil War, but when the war was over he went back to a lower rank.  In the years since the Civil War, he had explored and hunted in the West.  Some people thought he was a great Indian fighter.  They even thought he might make a good politician.
     Custer's men still called him general, and a lot of people think he still thought of himself as one, too.  He like to give orders but not necessarily to take them.  And if there was any action to be found, he wanted to be a part of it.  People who like him said he was fearless and daring.  Those who didn't like him thought he was impetuous and foolhardy.
     The march with General Terry wasn't the first time Custer had traveled west from Fort Lincoln.  In 1873, he had led a group of cavalrymen to protect survey crews that were looking for
routes for the Northern Pacific Railway.  A year later, he had led an Army force into the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The expedition was supposed to explore the area, which was part of the Sioux reservation, and look for a site for a fort.  But the men also were looking for the gold that was rumored to be in the Black Hills.
     They found it, and their discovery helped to fuel the bad feelings the Sioux had for the white man.  In the two years between the Black Hills Expedition and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, settlers and miners moved onto land in the Black Hills that had been given to the Sioux as part of their reservation.
     The Sioux reservation was created in 1868 by the Fort Laramie Treaty.  The treaty also gave the Sioux everything from the western boundary of their reservation to the Big Horn Mountains in Montana Territory as their hunting grounds.  According to the treaty, they could go there to look for buffalo whenever they wanted.
     Some government agents back on the reservation were crooked.  They would take some of the beef and blankets that were supposed to be for the Sioux and sell them to other whites.  The Indians on the reservation got what was left, and often it was rotten.  The Indians sometimes starved.  They began to wonder why they should stay on the reservation and eat beef that was crawling with worms when they could get frest meat in Montana.
A Way of Life Disappearing
    By the summer of 1876, many Sioux were in Montana Territory.  They were angry about the white men moving into the Black Hills and about the poor treatment the Indians received on the reservation.  Some had never approved of the Fort Laramie Treaty, and they refused to live on the reservation.
     Life for the Sioux in the mid-1870s was not as good as it had been before the white men came to the Great Plains--even for the Indians who didn't live on the reservation.  As railroads and white settlers pushed west, the big herds of buffalo began to disappear.  And the Sioux depended upon the buffalo for almost everything they needed.  They made tipis from the animals' hides.  They made spoons of their horns.  They ate fresh buffalo meat in the summer and dried meat in the winter.  Althought they hunted for other animals, such as deer, antelope, and elk, they considered the buffalo a vital part of their way of life.
     So it's not surprising that the Sioux and their allies, the Northern Cheyenne, were out on their hunting ground in the summer of 1876.  When a deadline set by the government passed, most of the Indians who had never lived on the reservation had not shown up as ordered.  Others who were on the reservation left to go hunting in the spring.  So the government ordered the Army to get them back.
     Custer knew how bad life was on the Sioux reservation.  He had told officials in Washington, D.C., that the Indians were suffereing, that the government agents were crooked, and that if he were a Sioux, he wouldn't stay on the reservation, either.  But he has a soldier, and when he was ordered to do so, he still took part in the government's three-pronged attack on the Sioux.
The Man in Command
The Lay of the Land
    The plan was for General Terry's army to head west from Fort Lincoln.  Colonel John Gibbon would lead his troops eastward from Fort Ellis, at Bozeman, Montana Territory.  And General George Crook would come north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming Territory.  The generals thought that at least one of the armies would find the Sioux.
     But the country the three armies crossed was huge.  The going was slow.  Imagine what it must have been like for a foot soldier to walk halfway across North Dakota and almost halfway across Montana--a journey of hundreds of miles.  And the armies had no short-wave radios or other ways to communicate with each other.


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   It took General Terry until June 8 to reach the junction of Rosebud Creek and the Yellowstone River.  For two weeks, companies of soldiers explored the area, looking for the Indians and each other.  Crook was nowhere to be seen.  He had been defeated by the Sioux June 17 at the other end of Rosebud Creek and had turned back to Fort Fetterman.  But Terry and Gibbon had no way of knowing.
     As Crook found out, a lot more Sioux were off the
reservation than the army had thought.  The government agents had lied about how many Sioux had left the reservation because they were afraid they would be sent less food and other rations.  And all the Sioux seemed to be headed for their western hunting grounds.
     By June, many of them had traveled through the Powder and Tongue river valleys of Montana Territory.  This was one of their favorite places to hunt in the summer.  There was plenty of game on the pine-covered ridges, in the big grassy valleys, and on the sage-brush dotted slopes.
     Even without hunting, this was a busy time of year for the Indians. Each June they held their Sun Dance ceremony, the single most important event in their spiritual lives.  The Sun Dance was a time when they honored their mother earth with prayers, singing, dancing, and fasting.  It also was a time of great visions.  And in June the Sioux and Northern Cheyennes usually got together with other members of their tribes after spending the winter apart in smaller villages or on the reservation at the various Indian agencies.
     Many Indians gathered on the hills above Rosebud Creek for the Sun Dance that year, including the famous leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.  No one knows exactly how many Indians were in the area in the weeks before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  But the size of the Sun Dance lodge and the remains of villages showed that it must have been a huge gathering.
     As Terry marched up the Yellowstone River, scouts reported signs of big Indian movements in the area.  On June 22, Custer was ordered to march south along Rosebud Creek, cut west to the Little Bighorn, and then march back north to rejoin Terry and Gibbon, who would come south up the Bighorn River.  If the plan went well, the Indians would be caught in the middle.
    In the past, when the Army tried to catch up with the Indians of the plains, the Indians often saw the soldiers coming and seemed to vanish on the prairie.  For that reason, Custer decided to travel light and quickly.  He didn't take any cannons or fast-shooting Gatling guns with him.  He took only his cavalry and pack mules as he looked for the Indian village.  His force included thirty-one officers, 566 enlisted men, thirty-five Indian scouts, and about a dozen packers, guides, and civilians.
     As Custer moved up the
A Village of Thousands
Rosebud on June 22, 23, and 24, he could see that the Indians had been in the area.  He saw the trails left by the poles of the travois that the Indians used to carry their tipis and other belongings.  He saw the hoofprints of their ponies.  As he followed their trail past the Sun Dance site, he could tell that many Indians were on the move.
     According to the false reports of the government agents back on the reservation, only about 800 warriors were out in the hunting territory.  So Custer was confused when he came across so many camp sites along the Rosebud.  He thought the Indians must not be moving very far between stops.  But what he really was seeing was different camp rings for the same large group of Indians.
    By this time, the Indians had moved over to the Little Bighorn River and set up their village.  And
what a village it was!  Historians estimate that it held 7,500 to 8,000 Indians, including Sioux, Northern Cheyennes, and a few Arapahos.  Among them were probably about 2,000 warriors.
     There were six circles of tipis.  Five of the circles held the lodges of the various bands of Sioux: the Hunkpapas, Oglalas, Miniconjous, Sans Arcs, Blackfoots, Two Kettles, Brules, and a few Yanktonais and Santees.  The sixth circle held the Northern Cheyennes.  The tipis stretched along the western bank of the Little Bighorn for almost three miles.
     In the 1800's, most whites thought of Indians as unorganized savages.  But each of the bands was well-organized for life on the prairie.  Different warrior societies within the bands regulated the daily life of each circle.  One society might be in charge of scouting.  Another might be in charge of policing the members.  Another might be in charge of defense.  Still another might be out hunting to keep the band supplied with fresh meat.
     Each tipi held one or two families, and each family member also had well-organized tasks.  The father protected the family and provided it with meat.  The mother took care of the lodge and kept the family clothed and fed.  The youngest boys tended the family's horses.  Older boys learned from the warriors and did chores for them.  Girls helped their mothers cook, dry meat, dig roots, and pick berries.  When everyone performed his chosen tasks successfully, the family prospered.
     A warrior was considered wealthy if he had a lot of horses.  Some had as many as 100.  Some horses were used for hunting.  Others were for packing.  Still others were for racing.  And some were for war.  A village the size of the one on the Little Bighorn had a giant horse herd--maybe as many as 20,000 to 30,000 animals.  They grazed near the village on the hills west of the river.
     The village on the banks of the Little Bighorn may have been the biggest Indian gathering ever on the prairies.  But there were reasons it was so big.  For one thing, all the bands of Sioux had gathered as usual for the Sun Dance.  For another, the Indians knew that the Army was looking for them.  So they got together for proteciton.  They may also have been celebrating their victory over General Crook.  And a large herd of antelope spotted in the area kept them nearby to hunt for meat.
     Finally, they stayed because of a vision that Sitting Bull had had during the Sun Dance.  In the vision, Sitting Bull had seen soldiers falling upside-down into an Indian camp.  The Sioux thought this meant that Sitting Bull and his people would win a great victory in the future and that many soldiers would die.  With the strength of the vision to protect them, the Indians decided to stay for awhile on the banks of the Little Bighorn.
     This was the scene that waited for Custer as he followed the Indian trail up the Rosebud Creek.  By the night of June 24, the trail had led him away from the creek and up toward the dividing ridge between the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn.  The trail was fresh, and Custer thought he was getting close to the Sioux camp.  He and his men continued up Davis Creek after dark.  They stopped in the eatly hours of the morning to make their last camp.
     Earlier in the night, Custer's Crow Indian scouts had climbed to a high hill called the Crow's Nest.  At dawn on June 25, they could look down into the valley of the Little Bighorn.  They couldn't see the Indian village, which was about fifteen miles away.  But they could see signs that it was there.  There was smoke in the distance.  And they could see movement on the hills across the river that they knew must be the big horse herd.
     Lieutenant Charles Varnum, who went with the Crows to scout the situation, couldn't see what the Indians did.  The Crows told him to look for worms in the grass, the movement of something on the far slopes.  He still couldn't see it.  At mid-morning, Custer came to look.  He couldn't see anything either, even though he used binoculars.
     But the Crow scouts had seen enough.  They told Custer that the village was a big one--too big for the force of his cavalry.  Civilian scouts Charley Reynolds and Mitch Bouyer knew it was too big, too.  They believed that the cavalry would be doomed if it attacked.  Some Arikara Indian scouts were so sure of the outcome of the battle ahead that they began singing their death songs.  When Custer still made the decision to go on, one of his Indian scouts told him, "Today, you and I are going home on a path we do not know."
     Despite the advice of the scouts, Custer thought he had a chance to attack the Indians before they could run and hide.  In the past, Custer's attacks had often been reckless.  But somehow, he had pulled them off without getting hurt.  People called it Custer's luck.  Maybe he thought he would be lucky again that June day.  Maybe he thought of the glory he would have if he won a big victory over the Sioux.  Maybe he thought his Seventh Cavalry was so good that it could beat any number of Indians.  Maybe he just made a bad decision.
     Custer told his officers he wanted to stay there between the Rosebud and Little Bighorn all day June 25.  He wanted to begin his attack at dawn the next morning, when his men and their horses were well rested.  That way, Custer could have surprised the Indians while they were still asleep in their lodges.  But some things happened June 25 that made Custer think the Indians knew he was there.
     For one thing, a box of hardtack bread had fallen off one of the pack mules back along the trail.  When the soldiers noticed it was missing, they went back for it.  They saw several Indians around the box trying to get it open.  When the cavalrymen approached, the Indians rode away.  The soldiers also saw another groups of Indians, maybe a hunting party, and they worried that the Indians had seen them.  And Custer knew that scouts from the Indian village might have seen his troops coming.
A Fatal Decision