Little Bighorn - Custer's Last Stand - Montana

Saturday starts off with a long drive from the ND Badlands to our next stop at Little Bighorn in Montana. The scenery in route shows little change from North Dakota to Montana – rolling hills covered with prairie grass, rolled up bales of hay stacked up in farm yards for winter feeding, and a few cows or horses out grazing in the fields. Cresting the top of even a small hill often provides broad vistas stretching to the far horizons – BEAUTIFUL!!
After dropping the RV at a KOA campsite in Hardin, Montana, we hurry to get over to the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument 16 miles away so that we are able to visit the site of Custer’s Last Stand before it rains. The initial impression of the battlefield site is somewhat underwhelming. The visitors center had nice displays of life as a U.S. Calvary man and Indian warrior. We were somewhat surprised to learn the extent to which the Calvary was made up of recent immigrants who has little training and poor command of the English language. By contrast, most Indian warriors had been exposed to warfare for many years as a result of the fighting between different Indian tribes. Indeed, the Calvary was able to recruit many Native American scouts to aide in their battles against the Sioux and Cheyenne, using Indians from tribes with historical animosities to the Sioux and Cheyenne. David, however, found it very difficult to gain a good understanding of just how the battle at Little Bighorn evolved on that fateful day of June 25, 1876 even after watching the video and reviewing the displays in the visitors center. Fortunately, the Park Service provided a number of explanatory plagues along the five mile drive through the battlefield. The U.S. Army had also provided headstones showing the locations along the battlefield where the bodies of the officers and men in Custer’s command were found after the battle. It was particularly touching to stand on “Last Stand Hill” and look at the headstones showing where Custer and the 41 officers and men who died with him in the midst of the battle.

Although the Park Service presentation seeks to avoid passing judgments, David certainly came away with the feeling that Custer and the generals who planned this whole campaign against the Indians had certainly screwed up multiple times and greatly underestimated the fighting ability of the American Indian tribes they were facing. Unfortunately for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and their followers, their success against Custer was a classic case of winning the battle and losing the war. The American public and the U.S. Army were so shocked and aroused by the death of Custer and his men that they expended great efforts to go after the Indian tribes involved. So one-sided was the resulting conflict that Crazy Horse gave up the fight within the following year and Sitting Bull had to flee to Canada to escape the U.S. Army.

By the end of our drive through the length of the Battlefield, even David’s insatiable desire for details was satisfied (LOL!!!!!!).