Larry Murty

On June 25, 1876, The Battle of Little Bighorn took place near the Black Hills in Montana. This was one of the most controversial battles of the 20th century and the line between good guys and bad guys was grey at best. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (reduced to LTC after the civil war) had 366 men of the 7thU.S. Cavalry under his command that day. Sitting Bull (A Medicine Man) led 2000 braves of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes (Klos, 2013). At the conclusion of the battle, the stories of the Indians savagery were used to demonize their culture and there were no survivors from the 7thcavalry to tell what really happened.

Following the civil war the Army was downsizing. Custer was a captain in the regular army. In July 1866 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel made second in command of the 7th Calvary at Fort Riley Kansas. As the settlers, along with the railroad, were pushing west, there were conflicts with Indians. Custer’s mission was to tract down these roving Indian, war parties. This was a new type of war for Custer. It was guerrilla warfare. Custer tried to track down the Indians as if they were the confederates. He would camp on hill tops so he could see all around him. At night, his men would build big fires. The Indians would see this and flee. This lack of success drastically brought the morale down in Custer and his men. Before long, a group of 15 men deserted, Custer ordered them to be tracked down and shot. He then went on a forced march with his men just so he could spend a day with his wife regardless of the repercussions to his career. Major General Hancock gave a court martial to Custer for the execution of his men without trial. Custer was suspended in pay for one year.v

In the Last Stand, written by Nathaniel Philbrick he discusses a big leader in the Civil War, George Armstrong Custer and how he led his troops with reckless courage. Philbrick wrote this book which can be viewed in many ways: a bloody massacre that is a big part of American history, or a tale of crazy arrogance and even unmatched bravery. One way that this book can be viewed as is the Last Stand being viewed as an account of a well-known battle that encapsulates the treatment of Native Americans during the “Indian Wars.” The next option is that the Last Stand is a retelling story of a history that does not glorify the United States Army in the Indian Wars, but shows the hubris and reckless of the leaders and army. Finally, the Last Stand can be viewed as a double meaning, both the last stand for Custer and the Last Stand for the Sitting Bull and the Lakota Sioux. In this essay, I’m going to discuss the ways in which Custer leads his troops and how he was a powerful leader during this time.

The Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians along with a few other defiant tribes, joined forces under the Lakota holy man, Sitting Bull, in an active resistance to U.S. expansion (Gregory, 2016). In 1876, federal troops were dispatched to force the noncompliant Indians onto their reservations and to pacify the Great Plains (Powers, 2010).

The Battle of Little Bighorn was a direct result of the Sioux Indians, accompanied by the Cheyenne Indians, leaving the reservations that they were forced to live on. Colonel George Custer was at the head of the American troops who drove his men into battle against the two Indian clans and ultimately died in this battle alongside

When Reno and his company crossed the river the lakota and cheyenne was surprised and rushed to defend their village from the oncoming attackers. Reno then held his troops and formed them into a skirmish line, in which they began to fire upon the oncoming attackers. Reno had to retreat two times, the first time was when his left flank was endangered, and the second time he had to retreat to the east side of river. During the retreat Lakota and Cheyenne warriors rode down the troops inducing heavy casualties to Reno’s men. Reno’s company regrouped with the main the group after Benteen confirmed that there was no Indians following. A written message from Custer was sent by a messenger to Benteen stating “ Come on, Big Village. Be Quick. Bring Packs. P.S Bring Packs.” para. 11 (Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument). Captain Weir’s company made an effort to locate and communicate with Custer’s men after heavy gunfire was heard. (Little Bighorn Battlefield National

Once the Sioux figured out that they now had a chance to push the Ponca’s out of Indian Territory, that’s just what they did. They took their crops, horses, and gave many threats towards them. The third most famous war called the Great Sioux war began in 1876. Although the U.S. government had won the war, it still didn’t mean they would stop pleasing the Sioux. The U.S. government gave what was left of the Ponca land to the Sioux. The treaty they made with the Ponca’s was completely broken. They cheated the Ponca Indians, and they were furious. In January 1877, Edward C. Kemble asked the Ponca’s to let him speak during church service. He told them that the government had given their fields and farm to the Sioux for a greater purpose. He also told them that they be getting new virgin lands in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). By this time the there only 738 Ponca Indians in the tribe, which meant they were not much of a force to the federal government.

In 1874 the US Army sent a force under Colonel Custer into South Dakota. When gold was discovered in the area, the federal government declared that all Sioux Indians not in reservations would have to be subjugated by Custer’s troops. Many Sioux refused to cooperate, and Custer began to attack. At the battle of Little Bighorn, in June 1876, Custer split his troops, and a larger force of Indians wiped out all of his men. After this defeat, the army took a different course by harassing the Sioux in attrition. Indians eventually lost the will to resist as these strategies were commonly successful against the Sioux. In the December of 1890, approximately 300 Indians were killed by US troops at Wounded Knee. This massacre was the indication to the end of Indian opposition. The Plains Indians were eventually conquered and forced into reservations.

Custer lost the battle because he underestimated the number of people on the Indians side. He went in there thinking it would be easy. Clearly, it wasn’t.

With the settlement of the American West, I discern that it was not nice to force Native Americans off their land onto reservations. There was a treaty given to the Sioux for the rights to the Black Hills until gold was discovered in the area. The white miners flocked to the territory to get the gold. I don’t think it was right that with the treaty the U.S. government still ordered the Native Americans back to their reservations. With the conflict that occurred between the U.S. Government and the Native American Indian in Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer’s Last Stand, marked a significant victory for the Native Americans and unfavorable for U.S. Army’s defeat. The Native Americans would have to remain in government-controlled reservations.

​The Great Sioux War or The Black Hills War (1876- 1877) was a series of battles trying to force the Sioux and Cheyenne people back into the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1868, the Treaty of Laramie was signed by Sioux leaders to give up their lands and move west onto the reservations. In 1874 LTC George Custer was tasked to reconnoiter the Black Hills (part of the Sioux reservation). His primary task was to survey the land and look for natural resources during a time of great economic depression. After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, rumors spread and miners flooded into the hills. Lakota Warrior, Crazy Horse, led many attacks on LTC Custer’s surveying parties in the hills. Crazy Horse and his warriors were trying to keep the white

In 1874, Custer led an army expedition to the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, a sacred property of the Lakota-Sioux Nation, which was recognized under the Sioux Treaty of 1868. There, Custer and his men found a great amount of gold, and when President Grant and the US administration offered to buy the area, the Lakota-Sioux nation refused to sell due to its holiness in their culture. Two years later, the

Custer divided the 7th Cavalry into three battalions under himself, Major Marcus Reno, and Captain Frederick Benteen. Unsure of the surrounding terrain, Custer sent Benteen south to “scour the country and pitch into anything he might find.” Two hours later and four miles from the valley, Custer’s own scouts spied “a good-sized party of Indians in flight between the troops and the river.” Custer ordered Reno’s battalion to charge the enemy, telling Reno he “will be supported by the entire outfit.” Instead of following, however, Custer advanced onto high ground east of the village.

By 1876, gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gold was found on Sioux land, and this region was considered sacred to the Lakota Sioux Indians. The he land was to be protected and respected by the United States Army, because of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 18681, but the Army could not keep miners off the Sioux ground, which led to the increase of Sioux grievances towards the Americans; some grievances that are still taken offense to today. These battles and negotiations soon were known at the Great Sioux War of 1876.

The movie, filmed in 2007, depicts the lives of the Sioux Indians as if they were not a people that mattered. In the movie, they say, “the Indians lived like the poorest of whites.” They were pushed around and told repeatedly they could not stay on their own land. This was due to the Westward Expansion in the United States at the time. By 1876, most of the American Indians had already been forcibly relocated to reservation land. Red Cloud, a Sioux leader, settled with some of his tribe on the Sioux Reservation of the Dakota Territory and took the aid of the US government. When this happened, other Sioux leaders, such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, saw it as a surrender. These leaders refused to assimilate and went on to live life in their traditional way. Unfortunately, this all changed when the US found gold on Sioux land in the Black Hills. The movie tells the story of the Sioux Indians fight to try to remain in control of their own lives and stay on their own land. Then when they no longer can, the movie shows their path to surrendering to the whites and assimilating into the American culture.