Custer's Last Stand
Custer's Last Stand, a pivotal event in American history, refers to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25 and 26, 1876. This confrontation involved General George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry against a coalition of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by notable figures such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The battle occurred amidst rising tensions over the encroachment of settlers and prospectors into lands designated for Native American tribes by a treaty in 1868. Custer, underestimating the strength of the Native forces, divided his battalion and engaged them without waiting for reinforcements. This miscalculation resulted in the complete annihilation of Custer's troops, with all approximately 225 cavalrymen killed. The aftermath of the battle marked a significant moment in the ongoing conflict between the United States government and Native American tribes, highlighting the latter's resistance to encroachment on their sacred lands. The battle also set the stage for further military campaigns against Native Americans, culminating in additional conflicts, including the tragic events at Wounded Knee in 1890. Custer's Last Stand remains a symbol of the complexities and conflicts of American expansion and the experiences of Indigenous peoples.
Custer's Last Stand
Custer's Last Stand
George Armstrong Custer was born on December 5, 1839, the son of Emanuel and Maria Ward Fitzpatrick Custer of New Rumley in Harrison County, Ohio. He spent most of his youth in Monroe, Michigan, where he lived with Lydia Reed, his half sister. In 1857 he left the midwest for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
At West Point Custer displayed few talents. He was constantly in trouble, earned numerous demerits, and graduated near the bottom of the class of 1861. The new second lieutenant then rushed off to join his unit, the Second U.S. Cavalry, and arrived in time to participate in the first battle of Bull Run, an early defeat for the Union forces in the Civil War.
Custer rose through the ranks with amazing speed. At the age of 23 he became the youngest brigadier general in the annals of the United States Army, and two years later he won a temporary promotion to the rank of major general. The recipient of many awards, Custer had the honor of accepting the flag of truce of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse at the end of the Civil War.
Peace brought a reduction in the size of the army, and most officers surrendered their wartime commissions. Custer reverted to a lieutenant colonel, and took command of the Seventh Cavalry. He spent his remaining years with his wife, the former Elizabeth Bacon, in remote posts on the western frontier. In 1874 Custer's Seventh Cavalry left Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory to explore the Black Hills. The region was part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside by an 1868 treaty signed at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, for the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes. However, prospectors with Custer's 1874 expedition confirmed the existence of gold deposits in the Black Hills, and miners soon invaded the reservation lands.
The army sought to keep the fortune hunters away, but lacked the necessary manpower. The tribes therefore assumed the task of defending their lands, which they considered to be religiously sacred. Bands of Sioux and Cheyenne roamed the Black Hills and killed a number of American intruders. Some of the bands joined forces with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, determined leaders who had taken no part in the 1868 treaty. They rejected a government ultimatum to return to their reservation settlements by January 31, 1876.
In 1876 the army designed a campaign to encircle and capture the militant Sioux and Cheyenne who were in southeastern Montana. General George Crook marched north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming, Colonel John Gibbon came east from Fort Ellis in Montana, and General Alfred Terry moved west from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakotas. The three were to join forces near the Yellowstone River and conduct their operation.
Terry and Gibbon met in June and camped at the mouth of the Rosebud Creek in Montana. On June 22 Custer's Seventh Cavalry, the largest element in Terry's command, proceeded south down the creek to reconnoiter. By the morning of June 25 the Seventh had reached the crest of the divide separating the Rosebud from the Little Bighorn River, and the scouts spotted smoke in the valley, indicating that the enemy might be there. Suspecting that the Sioux had discovered his whereabouts, Custer decided to attack immediately rather than wait until June 26 as Terry had planned. Custer divided the Seventh into three battalions, the largest of which he led himself. He proceeded west with five companies along the north bank of a stream leading toward the Little Bighorn Valley. Major Marcus A. Reno led three companies in a course parallel to Custer's, but on the other side of the water. Captain Frederick A. Benteen proceeded in the same direction with three companies, but farther to the south.
Major Reno crossed the Little Bighorn River at about 2:30 P.M. and encountered a surprisingly large band of natives. The troopers dismounted and managed to hold off their opponents for half an hour, but finally had to retreat back across the Little Bighorn. They took up defensive positions and were not a factor in the rest of the battle.
Custer had evidently planned to attack the Sioux and Cheyenne on the right flank and the rear. Unfortunately for Custer's battalion of Seventh cavalrymen, Reno had to fall back before his commander was able to cross the Little Bighorn. The Sioux and Cheyenne were therefore able to turn their full attention to Custer's men. Perhaps as many as 5,000 set out after the approximately 225 troopers. The overwhelmingly outnumbered cavalrymen shot their own horses and used their bodies as shelter from the enemy's bullets and arrows. This gruesome tactic was of no avail: the enemy killed every one of the cavalrymen.
Major Reno, joined by Captain Benteen, maintained his position through the night. The Sioux and Cheyenne attacked again at dawn on June 26 and continued their harassment until late afternoon, when they withdrew. The cavalrymen feared that the enemy might return, however, and continued to act cautiously. General Terry and Colonel Gibbon left the mouth of Rosebud Creek on June 21 and traveled west along the Yellowstone River. They then turned south and proceeded up the Bighorn River. On June 27 an advance party led by Lieutenant Bradley came upon the Custer battlefield and met the troopers of Reno and Benteen. The following day those remnants of the Seventh Cavalry began burying their dead.
The war continued for years, and the army eventually began to gain the upper hand. In 1877, Chief Crazy Horse, who had led the enemy at the battle of Little Bighorn, attempted to negotiate with the soldiers at Fort Robinson. He was betrayed and killed with a bayonet. Other diehard warriors fled across the border into Canada. From this vantage they attempted to continue their fight, but the cause was hopeless. Finally, in July 1881, Sitting Bull and his followers returned to the United States and surrendered. Nine years later, on December 29, 1890, the Sioux met their final defeat when the army ambushed a group of Sioux (many of them unarmed) at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Wounded Knee was once again the site of violence in 1973, when militant Native Americans occupying the historic site clashed with federal officers.