Crow Agency, Montana: Little Bighorn Battlefield

Sometime last spring, before we left Alaska, Gunnar was reading a book that caused him to ask me about the Battle at Little Bighorn. He reads books about wars all the time. All.the.time. So, this wasn't an unusual question coming from him. However, I knew embarrassingly little about it, so I asked him where the battle took place. When he told me Montana I told him to go put it on "The List" and we would find out more about it on the road trip. 

Because he was the reason that this stop was on our list and because he was so curious to find out what had happened there I knew that Little Bighorn Battlefield was going to be a highlight for him and he asked often, after we left Oregon and started heading east, how long it would be until we got there. This also made John and I anxious to get to this stop on our trip, but I couldn't have anticipated how truly educational the stop would be. 

A (very) quick history lesson, in case you're not familiar with what transpired at Little Bighorn -- in the 1870's the American government was making a big push to confine Indian tribes to reservation lands. This was especially true in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Montana, and parts of Wyoming, because of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. Americans wanted to be able to travel to the area safely to stake claims and mine for gold, but were unable to because of the threat from the Indians, since it was, after all, their land. Some tribes went willingly to reservation land, but others resisted. Among these resisters were many Sioux, a tribe which consisted of three tribal divisions -- the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. Within the three divisions were several bands. Two of the seven bands within the Lakota were the Ogalala, Crazy Horse's tribe, and the Hunkpapa, Sitting Bull's tribe, who were known for their fighting skills. 

In the summer of 1876 the Sioux Nation still had not conceded to moving to a reservation. They had not signed a treaty and, logically, felt that they were not subject to the treaties that other tribes had agreed to or any treaty that the government had tried to persuade them to sign. They desired to preserve their way of life on the lands that their ancestors had lived on for more generations than they could count. So, President Ulysses Grant sent in the 7th Cavalry. 

After establishing those facts, the details get sketchy. 

What you learn about the events at the Little Bighorn Battlefield depends on who you talk to and to which side they are personally skewed. 

The basic facts are that a battle broke out between the Sioux and the 7th and the Sioux were unarguably the victors. Colonel Custer (he was promoted posthumously) was killed, along with the element that he personally led. It was a devastating defeat for the US, and while the Sioux were successful, the death of such a popular military leader at their hands only made their plight more difficult. Many timelines have been established and personal motives have been presumed, and I don't feel qualified to really discuss any of them in detail, but here are a few interesting facts about the battle:

* Sitting Bull and several elders gave a very specific order for their people not to be the first to engage to the Americans in battle. However, a few days before the battle that ended Custer's life, a few young Sioux men disobeyed this order, seeking out a small element of men in their area and fired on them. It was a quick engagement and no one was even wounded, but dealing with this act of insubordination is what led to the major battle. 

* Custer left behind his big guns. There are several theories on why, but no one really knows.

*  It's widely believed that Sitting Bull did not engage in the battle. Having fought in several battles already, his mother encouraged him to stay behind and tend to the elders and children. Crazy Horse is believed to have been a key leader. 

* Not every soldier from the 7th Cavalry was killed. Frederick Benteen and Marcus Reno, both 7th Cav officers, were able to hold a safe position with about 23 other men for a few days before being rescued by a larger element. 

* Not every American who died was a soldier. Several of the men who died worked for the Army (today we would refer to them as contractors). One of them was Custer's younger brother, Boston.

* The National Monument is adjacent to the Crow reservation. The Crow and the Sioux were ancient enemies and the Crow sent several scouts to help the 7th Cavalry (including Curly, the scout whose cabin we saw at Old Trail Town in Cody, WY). The reservation land, which lies on rich oil deposits, was part of the compensation for their services. 

Teaching on this battle was one of the most difficult things I have encountered in educating our kids. I desired strongly to quench G's thirst for knowledge of the events surrounding the battle, all the while keeping in the forefront of my mind his very black and white ideas about right and wrong, as well as factoring in our faith, our patriotism, and their very direct Native American heritage. It was a tall order to say the least. 

While we were there one of the tour guides was telling me about one of the books he had read on the battle and the author of the book said something to this effect -- there are two overarching theories on why things happened they way they did at Little Bighorn. One is that Custer's men were being led by a maniacal narcissist who knowingly led them into an insurmountable battle motivated by a desire to further his political career as he had seen Ulysses Grant do during the Civil War. The other is that there was a lack of communication between the commanders of the 7th and Custer genuinely was not aware that he and his men were so greatly outnumbered. The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle. 

The middle is what we aimed to find during our visit.

This is how S started her day.

There is nothing super special about the terrain at Little Bighorn. It's rolling hills with lots of wide open green space and a small creek nearby. We encouraged the kids to imagine what the area would have looked like in 1876, before the buildings and roads were there. The thing that they were very quick to notice was that there weren't many places to hide.

There is a small museum at the National Monument. There are not a lot of artifacts from the battle, though there are a lot of Custer's personal belongings. There are also period firearms as well as some displays that give some background information about the major players in the battle and some follow up on the survivors, including some of the Natives who survived and were later at the Wounded Knee Massacre. This is where we found out that Marcus Reno's life was essentially ruined by the events at the battlefield because of rumors that he had abandoned Custer and was the reason that there was such a great loss of life, which led to his being discharged from the Army under much scrutiny. Reno eventually drank himself to death, only to have those accusations cleared up a few years later. 

We also learned in the museum that Custer's widow, Elizabeth, spent most of the rest of her life speaking and writing books on her husband's life and career, including his role at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Whether her efforts gave weight to his good character or added to his infamy is up for debate. 

The coolest thing about our visit was the tour. The Crow Nation runs Apsaalooke Tours from the bookstore in the NPS building. I thought this was interesting, since the Crow were aids to the 7th Cavalry, but we were fortunate to get a very knowledgeable tour guide who was very intentional about clarifying what was a concrete fact and what was an assumed conclusion and how that conclusion was reached. He was also great about listening to and answering questions from G and P, and humoring people who had questions about different theories or myths they had heard. One gentleman asked if the Sioux could have taken Reno, Benteen, and the other survivors if they had not been busy "partying". The tour guide thought that was pretty likely, though he seemed unsure that the gentleman had used an accurate verb. 

R on the bus. She was super excited that she didn't have to ride in her car seat.

The marker near the site where the survivors held up.

The opposite view.

The tour was a very informative hour and a half, but there was not much in the way of scenery. It's literally just a field. The guide did point out specific areas, but there was not much point in taking pictures. But, if you visit Little Bighorn I don't think you'll get the full experience without the tour, so definitely plan on doing it. 

Luckily for Gunnar after our tour the tour guide went on bookstore duty, and he thought it was so cool that G was so interested in the battle and able to discuss it articulately that the two of them, along with John, stood around discussing it for nearly an hour while I took care of diaper changes, potty runs, and snacks for the girls. 

We all learned a lot from him, so we were grateful for his willingness to share his expertise. 

The climactic engagement took place on or near this hill...

At least, this is where a majority of the bodies were found. You can see clearly the markers that were placed where the men of the 7th Cav were found. There are single markers for a few miles on the battlefield. 

The marker where Boston Custer's body was found.

The marker where Custer was found.

The view from the top of hill looking toward the area of the Sioux encampment.

We learned some interesting things about this aspect of the battlefield on the tour. When the relief element arrived at Little Bighorn and the area was secure the survivors were in charge of walking the area, looking at each of the dead and marking their bodies for identification. A few interesting things about this process:

* Custer was likely killed very early in the battle, closer to the bottom of the hill, and his dead body was dragged back up the hill. This makes all of the paintings we see with him in the midst of battle incredibly questionable (please know that this is where we move into the sketchy skewed information. Some of this is projected, some gathered from the best evidence, etc. but all presented during our visit).

* The Sioux were infamous for 'counting the coup'. That is, mutilating the body of the enemy in a fashion that they believed would handicap them in the afterlife. Before the battle Sitting Bull gave an order that they were not to count the coup after this battle, citing a vision that he had received while doing the Sun Dance during which he claimed it was revealed to him that his people would be victorious, but must not count the coup. His people did not heed his order and, instead, mutilated many of the bodies. Consequently, Custer was not actually identified positively and when his remains were exhumed to be buried at West Point they fit inside a shoebox. 

* The officer's family's were given the option to have their soldier returned home for burial. The enlisted soldiers and contractors were buried in a mass grave at the top of the hill. This is the marker on at that site...

A battlefield overlook

The horses that were killed during the battle have their own marker.

Just as the white stones mark the places where Americans lay there are red markers all over the battlefield where the Sioux found their own dead lying. Each stone had coins, rocks, and other trickets on top, a sign of respect from visitors.

Here's what S looked like at the end of the day.

We spent a total of about four hours at Little Bighorn Battlefield, but our kids are talking about it still today. In the days immediately following we talked A LOT about the rights and wrongs about the situation. We talked about the fight over land that had belong to Native Americans. We talked about a soldiers duty to follow the orders given him. We talked about government control and civil disobedience. Mostly, though, we talked about the depravity of man and how history repeatedly points to our fallen state. 

In case you can't tell by my lengthy post, this stop was awesome. Definitely top 5 of the trip so far. We're learning quickly that some of the best stops come from the kids.