Prescription for Disaster

It was a prescription for disaster...General George Armstrong Custer wanted a fight, he wanted to trap a large force of hostile Indians.  Those Indians were enraged over white encroachment on their hunting grounds.  Sioux and Cheyenne joined forces, numbering 3,000 warriors, the greatest concentration ever assembled in the West.  There was going to be bloodshed.

Custer had been suspended from command by angering President Grant earlier in the year.  His superior, Major General Terry, had gotten him restored and Custer wanted to salvage his reputation with a big Indian victory.

June 25, 1875, Custer marched his 600 men 40 miles to the banks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana.  The men were exhausted.  Custer's scouts told him there were overwhelming numbers of Indians and that he should wait for General Terry's troops to arrive.  Custer ignored them.  He split his troops and sent them out to round up what he thought was a fleeing enemy.  Those Indians were not fleeing.  In fact, they were posed for battle. 

Custer was clad in his Civil War uniform, long hair flying, brandishing his saber, defiant against the Indians - right?  Wrong! That's a legend.  Custer wore buckskins and a flannel shirt.  His long hair had been cut off before this campaign.  All sabers were left behind for this battle.  The single-shot carbines jammed with defective cartridges and the Indians used bows and arrows, and hatchets.  The end was the same...it the last stand for Custer, and the last stand the Indians would really make. 

There was one lone survivor of the 7th Cavalry, Captain Myles Keogh's horse, Comanche.  He became the mascot of the future regiment.

Deceased leaders of the 7th Cavalry:  General George Custer, Captain Frederick Benteen, Major Marcus Reno.  Surviving Leaders:  Hunkpapa Chiefs, Gall and Rain-in-the-Face, Crazy Horse,Oglala chief Low Dog. 





Next time:  The Perils of Resistance
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 22,  1879, pursuing American soldiers badly beat Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his people as they make a desperate bid for freedom. In doing so, the soldiers effectively crushed the so-called Dull Knife Outbreak.