On Friday July 15th 2022 we toured The Little Bighorn Battlefield. I have toured many battlefields in this country and this battlefield was the last on my bucket list. It is in Montana and the scenery is gorgeous. If you want an in depth interpretation of the battle you will need to go somewhere else but I think that I understand where Custer went wrong and ended up dying with over 200 of his men, along with two brothers, a brother-in-law and a nephew. The Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 promised the Black Hill's of South Dakota to the Sioux Indians for perpetuity. This area was considered a very sacred area for them. In the early 1870's the US government offered to buy this land from the Sioux but they staunchly refused to sell. This prompted the government to pursue a policy that would provoke the Indians into a war that would force them out of the Black Hills. This is why they sent Custer on an expedition into the Black Hill's in 1874. He took along reporters, miners and scientists. They found gold and Custer made sure it was highly publicized. This created a gold rush which is how the towns of Deadwood and Custer got their start. The government was also motivated to find gold because the nation experienced a serious depression in the early 1870's.
George Armstrong Custer was born in Ohio in 1839. He graduated last in his class at West Point in 1861, the year the American Civil War started. He fought in every battle from 1st Bull Run until the last battle of the eastern campaign at Appomattox where he cut off Lee's retreat, forcing his surrender. Custer displayed great physical courage and was loved by his men. In four years of vicious combat he was never wounded and had many horses shot out from under him. He called this the Custer luck. Custer rose to the rank of Major General in the Civil War army which totaled around 1 million men by the end of the war. After the war the army was reduced from a 1 million man army to a 30,000 man army. As a result he was reduced to the rank of Captain. By the time of his death he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
After the war Custer would be sent west to fight Indians. He would also see duty enforcing reconstruction in the South. In November 1868 he attacked Cheyenne chief Black Kettle's camp on the Washita River in Oklahoma. Sadly, Black Kettle was peaceful but Custer attacked his camp anyway. His camp consisted primarily of women, children, old men and a few warriors. Black Kettle was also the chief when his camp was destroyed on Sand Creek in Colorado by Colorado militia. He was flying an American flag as a goodwill gesture but it didn't matter, the militia attacked anyway, killing 150 Indian's of which two thirds were women and children. Custer's men did the same thing on the Washita River but this time Black Kettle did not survive the attack. A few of Custer's men became separated from the main body. They were found later tortured and killed by the Indians. Custer was accused of abandoning them. This would cause friction later during the Little Bighorn campaign because two of Custer's subordinates, Major Reno and Captain Benteen believed that Custer had abandoned his men at the Washita massacre.
As the Little Bighorn campaign was being planned Custer had an important roll in the three pronged invasion that was intended to defeat the Indians once and for all forcing them to return to the reservation. Custer, however; got himself into hot water when he criticized a relative of president Grant in a magazine article while he was on leave back east. Grant had him pulled from active command in the coming campaign. General Alfred Terry was able to have him restored to the campaign provided he was under Terry's command. On May 30, 1876 Colonel John Gibbon led a force from Fort Ellis in western Montana headed east. Brigadier General George Crook was headed north from Fort Fetterman in the Wyoming territory on May 29th. Brigadier General Alfred Terry's column headed west from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota territory on May 17th. Twelve companies were placed under Custer's command. This campaign started out badly, Crook was defeated by 1,200 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors on June 17, 1876 at the Battle of the Rosebud in Montana.
On June 25th Custer divided his 500 man command into three groups. Major Reno was ordered to attack the Cheyenne and Sioux village on the left and Custer would swing around and come in from the right. Benteen would protect the pack trains. Reno with about 100 men attacked across the river into the huge Indian camp. It was at this point that he found out that Custer was not up against old men, women and children like on the Washita River. They were also not facing a peaceful chief like Black Kettle but Chiefs Gall, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Reno's retreat back across the river was panicked and disorderly. By the time Reno reached the high ground he had lost a good many of his men. Reno's leadership was very chaotic and confused. Captain Benteen came up with the wagons and more men joining Reno on the hill. It was through Benteen's leadership that he began to organize an effective defense on the high ground. This and the fact that the Indian's attention became diverted from the threat of Reno attacking the village to Custer's attack coming from the right. Eventually Custer's entire command of 210 men would be wiped out. By the time the Indian's returned to finish off Reno and Benteen they had been able to organize a pretty formidable defensive position on the high ground. They would be rescued the next day by General Terry's command although the Indian's had left by this time.
Only about half of Reno and Benteen's men survived the battle.
Why was Custer defeated? In most cases where Indian tribes have concentrated their forces, as the American armies usually did, in the European tradition, have beaten the white man. Usually the Indians fought differently from the white man, or armies trained in European tactics. They usually fought in small bands. Additionally they might be fighting a battle, and have the upper hand, but then they would lose interest and disperse. Or they would be content with counting coup. This was the practice of running up to their enemy and touching them with a long pole. If they were able to do this it was considered a victory. Among the plains Indians it was a way to gain prestige without having to kill their enemy. The American army was trained to fight wars of annihilation. This didn't mean wiping out your enemy to the last man but rendering your enemy ineffective. The Civil War drove home this concept and was deployed by modern thinking commanders like Grant, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest. This is why Sherman targeted the Buffalo herds. In the end this strategy was effective in pacifying the Indian. The Buffalo was essential to sustaining the nomadic lifestyle of the western plains tribes. They used them for food, clothing, blankets, shelter, and so on.
Custer was defeated because he ignored warnings from his Crow scouts that there were a massive number of Indian's facing him. He thought he could redeem himself by claiming the glory of destroying another Indian village like he had on the Washita. Custer had Gatling guns available to him but they were heavy and cumbersome. He thought that they would slow him down. If Custer believed that he was going to face the number of Indians that he did. I doubt that he would have left home without the Gatling guns if he did. Also, the Indians were going for broke. They knew that their backs were up against the wall and they felt that their time was running out. The entire army believed that this would be an easy battle. Benteen was angry at Custer for leaving him behind. He had wanted to share in the glory of helping to destroy the camp. The Indians won the battle but lost the war, however. Custer's defeat stunned the nation and by 1878 the Sioux and Cheyenne would be subdued and forced to give up their nomadic lifestyle. They would all be forced to stay on to the reservations until the great Ghost Dance led to their final defeat at Wounded Knee.
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