Biking the Little Bighorn Battlefield

We visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield today.  It was much like we expected it to look.  But the story it told was much more complex than we had understood before the visit.

Because the monument stretches along 4.5 miles of park road, we decided to bicycle it.  The 99F heat and the hills made this a bigger challenge than we anticipated, but we completed it and, because we moved slower across the landscape than a car would have, we had time to look and ponder the events told in the brochures we carried and the historical markers along the way.

A monument was erected on "Last Stand Hill" soon after the battle, and the U.S. Army dead were disinterred from the places they were hastily buried near where they originally fell, and moved to a mass grave at the monument.  The Indian dead were removed by their survivors and their remains disposed of according to Native American custom, so the monument does not display the graves of the dead warriors.

The stone monument to the soldiers sits atop "Last Stand Hill" near where Custer died:

Not 100 yards away sits a more recent Native American memorial to the bravery of the Indian fighters:

The Native American memorial incorporates a gap or door in its circular wall, which looks to the soldiers' monument, and is said explicitly to symbolize an invitation to the souls of the soldier dead to join the Indian dead in the sacred circle represented by the memorial - a touching gesture of reconciliation from those who were victors in the battle but the vanquished in the overall war:

The hill overlooks the valley of the Little Bighorn River, where the Lakota and other Native Americans made their encampment on the flats near the trees:

As we cycled along the road which followed the ridge line where the major battles occurred, we could look down on the site of the village and contemplate the dramas that unfolded there:

The monument contains two parcels of land:  the site of Custer's Last Stand, and the site of the Reno-Benteen battle with the Sioux warriors, some 4 miles southeast of Custer's hill.  More on the Reno-Benteen battle below.  The land between the two parcels is privately owned and the NPS only has easement rights for the road and markers.  As we pedalled along the road, we saw numerous horses grazing next to the road:

The road runs through typical southeastern Montana terrain, where plants struggle to find any drop of water they can to survive:

At the far end of the road, the monument memorializes a battle that occurred both before and after Custer's Last Stand.  Custer's subordinate, Major Reno, was detailed by Custer to attack the Indian encampment from below while Custer maneuvered around to surprise the Indians from the north. The information provided by the NPS suggest strongly that Custer intended to attack the village and take the women and children captive to force a surrender - or, failing that, take more extreme action toward the non-combatants.

The first step in the battle was for Major Reno to attack the tent camp.  He did, but Custer had vastly underestimated the strength of the Indian warriors, who beat Reno and Benteen back from the village. Major Reno and his troops retreated from the village across the Little Bighorn at the spot shown in the photo below.  The warriors chased the soldiers up the draws to the top of the ridge about where we stood, where Reno's soldiers made a defensive stand.

In the meantime, the warriors discovered that Custer was moving in from the northeast and turned their attention to Custer.  They effectively swarmed Custer's troops from multiple directions, causing Custer to first make a defensive stand on one hilltop where Reno and Benteen might have been able to join him, and then, due to pressure from the Indians, to retreat to the hill where he made his final stand.  This photo looks out to the east over the hills, ridges and ravines through which this moving battle took place:

Once the Indians completed their massacre of Custer and his men, they turned back toward Major Reno's soldiers, dug into defensive positions 4 miles to the southeast.  The U.S. soldiers fought off repeated assaults for two days, after which the Indians simply moved off slowly toward the Bighorn Mountains because they saw the approach of much larger forces of soldiers.

Ultimately, Custer met his demise for at least four reasons:  he seriously underestimated the Indians' strength; he did not share his strategy with his subordinates, which prevented them from anticipating his trouble and coming to his aid; he split up his forces, allowing the warriors to defeat or neutralize them sequentially; and he did not take into account that Crazy Horse and other leaders of the warriors had become familiar with his tactics and anticipated his attack on the Indian encampment, thus laying a strategic trap for him.

The sad result, of course, was the deaths of hundreds of warriors and soldiers.  White marble markers show the places where soldiers fell or their remains recovered:

Red marble markers show the places where Indians fell in the battle, as related by warrior survivors who recalled the battle.  Since there were no survivors in Custer's corps, and because Major Reno's troops were too far away to assist, we have only the Native American recollections, and the physical evidence on the battlefield, to help us understand exactly what happened.

Native Americans call this event the saddest day for the their peoples, and yet the greatest day, too.  It was one of the few major defeats the Indians dealt the encroaching white people, and yet it was also their last significant victory before they were forced to surrender and move to reservations, never to see their traditional lifestyle again.