Tues Sep 20 - The battle of the Little Big Horn - Custers Last Stand

Tues Sep 20 Day 22 Sunny & warm, (70’s) all day
After we both had our showers, we pulled out of Sheridan WY @ 10:50 @144945. We arrived at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument @ 12:10 @ 145057. The visitors centre was small but they had a short (17 min) video on the battle, troop positions & movements by both the Cavalry & the Indians. Then they had a Ranger Talk that was most informative & went into details on who did what, when & where. What was really good, was the even-handed way both sides were treated in the talk. They said that both the Cavalry and the Indians were heroes in that they were each defending their way of life. The Indians won the battle, but lost the war as, within a couple of years, the army had hunted them down & returned them to their reservations. And now to the battle….On June 25, 1876 there were 3 columns of troops converging on the Little Bighorn area comprising several thousand men. However, one column of 1300 men under General Crook came under attack from a large force of Lakota & Cheyenne along the banks of the Rosebud River & they were forced to retreat, but none of the other leaders knew about it. There was also a large force under General Terry and another under Colonel Gibbon. On General Terry’s orders, Custer split from General Terry & went south towards the Little Bighorn, while Terry & Gibbons approached slowly from the north. We got lots of interesting info on the movements & actions of Custer, his second in command, Major Reno & Captain Benteen. Reno & Benteen both survived because Custer had split his 600 man troop & sent Reno & Benteen with 3 companies each off on scouting and rear defence missions where the casualties weren’t as great as at the Battle of the Bighorn; plus, Custer had to delegate a company to guard his supply wagons. So when it came down to the “Last Stand” battle Custer had only around 210 men with him. The rest of the command was in their own battle 5 miles away. They lost a lot of men, (53) but were able to hold out until help arrived two days later, (Terry & Gibbon). Before the battle, Custer was afraid he had been spotted & that the Indians would scatter to other parts of the country where it could take them months, even years to round them up & take them to the reservation, so he felt he should attack immediately rather than waiting for Benteen or Terry or Gibbon’s troops. He also didn’t know he was facing about 7,000 Indians. A big problem was lack of communication, Custer didn’t know of General Crooks retreat, he didn’t know where 2 other columns of troops under Terry & Gibbon were and they didn’t know where he was or what force of Indians were there. The talk also said that the Indians were the worlds best light infantry fighters as they knew how to use gorilla tactics & cover and the men from boyhood had been raised to do two things – hunt & fight to protect their families, which is exactly what they were doing. We walked up to the monument at the top of “Last Stand Hill.” They had markers in the field to show where troopers had fallen & where Custer was found. Custer & all of his men, (210), + 30 of their horses were killed that day. There is also a memorial nearby honouring the Sioux, (Lakota), Cheyenne & Arapaho Indian warriors killed that day which Sheila was really impressed by because it stressed that the battle is in the past & that now the Indians & white man need work together to make this great country even greater.

We left at 2:50 and drove to Hardin for gas @ 145083, 3:10 to 3:25. Then, onto Old West RV Park, a Passport America RV park in Reedpoint, Montana. We arrived at 5:10 @ 145249. They don’t have cable TV but do have WiFi, which lasted enough to post just 2 pictures & then died. In a little convenience store across the street, Sheila found some inexpensive toys & books for Mikaela & Erica, and Huckleberry slurpies. They were really good. Then, she went for a walk around the one street historic town. There are several boarded-up bldgs that seem to be very old—late 1800-early 1900’s era, but no signage to give their age or what they were used for. At the end of the street near the rlwy tracks there were two typical western saloons, The Montana Hotel’s Wildhorse Saloon which was boarded up & the Waterhole Saloon, which was open for business, and according to the sign, was established in 1975, though it looked much older than that. Sheila went in to ask about the town, but the lady bartender wasn’t too helpful. She hopes to find out more tomorrow morning before we leave.

We drove 304 km, 189 miles