Bible Verse
“See, I am against you, O
arrogant one,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty, “for your day has come,
the time for you to be punished.”
Jeremiah 50:31 (New International Version)
Introduction
I chose The Battle of the Little
Bighorn because I like to study the culture of Indians and their battles. This
is one of the more famous battles, and many books have been written praising
the courage of Custer and his soldiers. I wanted to learn about the Indians’
side of the story. The context of this information will be from the Indians’ perspective
but not against the soldiers of the U.S. Army.
Outline
I.
State
of the times
A.
Indians and their land
1.
Lakota (Sioux)
2.
Cheyenne
B.
The arrival of the white man
II.
Timeline
of early conflict
A.
Treaties
1.
1st Treaty of Fort Laramie
2.
2nd Treaty of Fort Laramie
B.
Bozeman Trail
C.
General Sherman’s force
D.
Powder River
E.
Battle of Rosebud
III.
The
Battle of the Little Bighorn
A.
Purpose of attack
B.
Battle leaders
C.
Battle plan
1.
U.S. troops
2.
Crow scouts
3.
Surprise attack
4.
Reno’s retreat
5.
Custer’s forces divide again
6.
Weaponry
7.
Custer surrounded
8.
The last stand
IV.
After
the Battle
A.
Casualties
B.
Theories about U.S. defeat
C.
Indians eventual defeat and surrender
D.
Death of Indian leaders
E.
Current battle memorials
The Lakota Indians (also known as
Sioux) and the Cheyenne Indians had been sharing the vast central lands of
America, along with hundreds of other large tribes, for thousands of
years. Together these Indian people
fought European advancements from the very beginning of their attempts to move
in and stake claim on their piece of the New World. This was not an easy task since the Europeans
were very organized and had advanced weaponry; the Indians had determination to
beat back these invaders from their lands, but not much else. It also did not help that with the incoming
Europeans came new diseases, including small pox, for which the Indians had no
immunity.
The
Europeans (now calling themselves Americans) tried to show their respect to the
Indians by agreeing to sign what became known as the First Treaty of Fort
Laramie. This document, signed in 1851, set aside the specific territories
belonging to the Lakota and Cheyenne nations.
Sitting Bull, Lakota’s Hunkpapa Chief, refused to sign this treaty. He and other Indian leaders did not want
their land restricted.
In
1868, a Second Treaty of Fort Laramie was established to end the government
attempts to defend the Bozeman Trail, which was a direct route to the gold
fields of the Black Hills and the West.
This treaty also created the Great Lakota Reservation west of the
Missouri River in present-day South Dakota.
Once
this Second Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed, General William Tecumseh Sherman
of the U.S. Army worked long and hard to try to force the Lakota and Cheyenne
onto the new reservation. His troops,
however, were beaten back time and time again by the great war hero, Crazy
Horse of the Lakota, and his band of warriors, through a succession of battles
at Powder River.
As
tensions mounted U.S. Army General George Crook took his soldiers up to Rosebud
Creek where they were attacked by Crazy Horse’s Indian braves before Crook
could get to his assigned rendezvous point. Eventually the Indians retreated,
and Crook declared victory. Crook then led his men back to the south end of
Rosebud Creek and set up camp, but the Indians had already completed their
goal, which was to diminish the enemy forces any way they could.
July
25, 1876, was to become a day to remember in American history. The Civil War had ended eleven years previously,
but the Indians were fully prepared to defend their families, their friends,
and their way of life.
The
Indians were led by Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Gall – all from the
Lakota tribe – and Chief Two Moons, Lame White Man, and Dull Knife of the
Cheyenne tribe. U.S. forces were led by
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Colonel John Gibbon, Captain
Frederick Benteen, Major Marcus Reno, General Alfred Terry, Captain George
Yates, and Captain Myles Keogh, among others.
Custer,
known as an arrogant and aggressive battle hero, was certain that it was time
for the U.S. to take the action necessary to finally put the Indians in their
place. He enlisted the help of some Crow
Indian scouts – longtime enemies of the Lakota and Cheyenne – to locate the
Indians’ main camp. Custer arranged for several of the U.S. brigades to
converge on the area: Colonel Gibbon’s
soldiers came from Western Montana, General Crook’s men came from Fort
Fetterman, and General Terry’s troops came from Fort Abraham Lincoln along with
Custer’s regiment of the Seventh Cavalry.
Custer
split up the forces so that the Indians could not escape. Major Reno’s men rode
down the Little Bighorn River and across to where the Indians could not see
them. Early in the morning Reno’s soldiers attacked the southern end of the
Lakota/Cheyenne camp. There was an initial response of bewilderment and
disorientation in the Indian camp as the U.S. shots came at them from every
direction. Sitting Bull remembered the occurrence this way:
I was sitting in my lodge. Some young men ran in to me
and said, “They are firing into the camp.” I jumped up and stepped out of my
lodge. The old men, the women, and the children were hurried away. There was
great confusion. The women were like flying birds; the bullets were like
humming bees. I said to the men, “Warriors, we have everything to fight for,
and if we are defeated we shall have nothing to live for; therefore, let us
fight like brave men.” (Viola 34)
Quickly
enough the Indians gained their bearings and began fighting back. Reno kept
fighting but eventually led his men into retreat.
The
soldiers mounted their horses and fled, but the Indians’ horses were faster and
eventually caught up to the soldiers. The Indians pulled the soldiers off their
horses and fired at them at point-blank range. Reno’s soldiers retreated across
the river to some nearby bluffs where reinforcements were waiting.
During
this initial attack Custer headed up the Little Bighorn with his army and again
divided them into two separate groups, one under Yates’ command and one under
Keogh’s. He wanted to ensure that they
were in the best possible position to fight against the Indian onslaught. Not only did the Indians have better weapons
than the soldiers – the soldiers had one-shot rifles and pistols that were
quite accurate; the Indians had repeating rifles that could shoot many times
without reloading – but the Indians had more than twice as many warriors,
approximately 1,500 to the U.S.’s 600.
Custer
attempted a second attack at the northern end of the Lakota/Cheyenne camp, but
he, too, was beaten back to what is known today as Battle Ridge on Custer and
Calhoun Hills. His men’s horses became spooked and ran off with the guns and
munitions, so the soldiers were left with only their pistols. Custer’s army was
quickly surrounded. Custer, in his
arrogance, shouted for his men to stand tall and fight back, but the Indians
remained strong and killed the U.S. soldiers right down to the very last one.
There
are varying accounts as to the total number of casualties that day, but it is
estimated that about 300 U.S. soldiers died in the Battle of the Little
Bighorn. The number of Indians that died
is unknown because the female relatives carried the dead warriors off the
battlefield to bury them with dignity.
Some
historians believe that the U.S. defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn was
due to Custer’s arrogance and erratic leadership; others believe it was Sitting
Bull’s cunning. Still others believe in
any number of alternate theories, but no one can deny that the Indians were the
clear and honorable victors that day.
Through
a series of battles that took place in the year after the Battle of the Little
Bighorn, the U.S. did ultimately defeat the Indians. In 1877, the Cheyenne leader Chief Dull Knife
surrendered. Sitting Bull departed the
Little Bighorn River Valley and sought refuge in Canada. He returned to the U.S. four years later but
was killed while trying to leave Standing Rock Reservation. Crazy Horse was shot and killed while
resisting arrest.
The
Battle of the Little Bighorn is a significant piece of this nation’s history.
Several memorials, monuments, and historic sites exist today that honor the
battle’s heroes and tell the story of Custer’s Last Stand.
Bibliography
“Battle of the Little Bighorn.” Wikipedia.
January 11, 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Little_Bighorn>
Krehbial, Randy. Little Bighorn. New York: Twenty-First Century Books, 1997.
“Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.” National
Park Service. January 11, 2005. <http://nps.gov/libi/index.htm>.
Reece, Bob. “Custer’s Last Stand.” Friends of the
Little Bighorn Battlefield. January 8, 2005. January 11, 2005. <http://friendslittlebighorn.com>
Viola, Herman J. It’s a Good Day to Die: Indian
Eyewitnesses Tell the Story of the Battle of Little Bighorn. New York:
Crown Publishers, Inc., 1998.
Viola, Herman J. Little Bighorn Remembered: The
Untold Indian Story of Custer’s Last Stand. New York: Times Books, 1999.
Illustrations
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