Little Bighorn

As I planned our route home from Billings, Montana I noticed that Little Bighorn was right along the route.  I had never visited the site before, but of course I'd read about the battle and learned about it in history classes.

My uncle confirmed that it was not too far off the highway.  We left Billings via I-90 and ended up taking it much of the way across the country.  This was one of the places that I really would have wanted to visit even if we hadn't had our pass.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument memorializes a major battle fought on June 25, 1876, between Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, against the United States Army.  These tribes were fighting to preserve their traditional way of life as nomadic buffalo hunters.  The U.S. Army was carrying out the Grant Administrations [sic] instructions to remove the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne peoples to the great Sioux Reservation in Dakota territory.
--from NPS untitled LBBNM brochure

The building certainly isn't very impressive, but the battlefield is why you visit--not the exhibits.  We arrived early in the morning (having left Billings fairly early in the day I think on June 13) and didn't plan to stay too long as we still had plenty of driving ahead of us.

I've said it many times, but I'm a sucker for a map, especially a good historical one.  It is always interesting for me to see depictions of the country before its present arrangement (i.e. all of the current state boundaries), especially when you think about what might have been or almost was.

The building did have a decent number of exhibits talking about the battle, its participants, and the aftermath.

I really enjoy small-scale diorama exhibits also.

Learning the different divisions of the Sioux was interesting.

This is a close-up of the Reno's Retreat diorama.

Then we walked outside to hear a presentation about the battle.  The presenter was a retired school teacher who was very enthusiastic about the material.  He had a table full of props that he used throughout his talk--picking up an appropriate weapon when talking about each major participant in the battle.  I wish that I had taken a video of part of his presentation or that I'd gotten his name down.  He was well worth listening to--and his audience didn't dwindle as sometimes happens, instead it grew during the time he talked.

After the end of the talk we walked around a little of the battlefield.  We didn't have time to drive to any other part of the site (like the Reno-Benteen Battlefield to the east), or even around the are itself, but we did walk around a little.  This was the path up to Custer Hill.

This huge memorial stands at the top of the hill to memorialize the spot where the cavalry troops fell.

As you can see the bodies were moved.  In fact there is a cemetery (currently full and thus closed) adjacent to the site that was used by the military for many years.

We walked across the road and saw more white makers showing where soldiers died.

After the battle, Lakota and Cheyenne families remove their dead, estimated between 60-100, and place them in tipis and on scaffolds and hillsides.  On June 28, 1876, the bodies of Custer and his command are hastily buried in shallow graves at or near where they fell...In 1890 the Army erects 249 headstone markers across the battlefield to show where Custer's men had fallen.  In 1999 the National Park Service began erecting red granite markers at known Cheyenne and Lakota warrior casualty sites throughout the battlefield.
--from NPS brochure Little Bighorn Battlefield

As indicated above the red markers indicate where an Indian warrior died.

After the battle, 39 cavalry horses that had been shot for breastworks during Custer's Last Stand, were found among the dead on Last Stand Hill.  In 1879, a temporary cordwood monument was erected by the army on the crest of the hill.  The area, strewn with cavalry horse skeletons, was policed and the remains of the horses placed inside the cordwood monument.  In July 1881, Lt. Charles F. Roe and a detail from the Second Cavalry replaced the temporary monument with the present granite monument, and interred the Seventh Cavalry casualties around the base.  The 2nd Cavalrymen in fond reverence for the horses, reinterred them here, after the monument was erected, and lined the horse cemetery with cordwood from the original monument. 

On April 9, 1941 maintenance workers discovered a horse cemetery here while digging a trench for a water reservoir drainage pipe.  Among the artifacts recovered were partial human remains, cavalry boots, bullet-pierced hardtack cracker tins, and approximately 10 Horse skeletons.  Further excavation was delayed until July 1946 when Lt. Col. Elwood L. Nye, U.S. Army Veterinarian continued the excavation work.  Unfortunately his report has not been located, nor what became of the horses uncovered.

In February 2002, the site was examined using ground penetrating radar, revealing soil anomalies in the area.  National Park Service archaeologists excavated the cemetery April 29 to May 1, 2001.  Horse skeletal remains were found in two six foot square areas just northeast of the Seventh Cavalry Monument.  The remains included a vertebrae, leg bones, shoulder bone, and rib bones.  After thorough documentation, mapping, and photography, the horse cemetery (which was left in place for future reference) was covered with protective plastic sheeting, and the site restored with backfill.--from NPS signage on site

There was also a large area dedicated to the Native Americans/Indians who fought and fell during the battle.

We walked down into the middle of it.  Signs like this were placed on the outside walls.

The backside was open to the hills with this sculpture on display.

If you visit be sure that you hear one of the ranger presentations and take some time to walk around as much of the area as you can.

You'll find quite a few more pictures here:


~Matt