1876
Battle of Little Bighorn
On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy
Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George
Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn
River.
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, leaders of the Sioux tribe on the
Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S.
government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was
discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty
agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne
tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in
Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had
gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River–which they called the Greasy
Grass–in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their
reservations or risk being attacked.
In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the
camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the
first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered Custer’s
7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer
drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for
reinforcements.
At mid-day, Custer’s 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley.
Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The
older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and
children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers
head on. Despite Custer’s desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were
quickly overwhelmed. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by
as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and every last one of
his soldier were dead.
The Battle of Little Bighorn–also called Custer’s Last
Stand–marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army
defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men
outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild
and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to
subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne
would be confined to reservations.