Battle of the Greasy Grass - Or - Custer's Last Stand

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer is best known for leading more than 200 of his men to their deaths in the notorious Battle of the Little Bighorn on 25 June 1876.  The battle, also known as "Custer's Last Stand," was part of the Black Hills War against a confederation of Plains Indians, including the Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and both halves of the Sioux nation - the Dakota and Lakota.  It remains one of the most controversial battles in United States history.
   To force the large groups of Native Americans back to the reservations, the US Army dispatched three columns, under the command of General Alfred Terry, to attack the gathering in a coordinated fashion.  One of those three columns was led by Lt Col Custer, and it consisted of his prized possession, the 7th US Cavalry.  On the morning of 25 June, Custer's scouts reported smoke from campfires and signs of many Indians about 15 miles from their position.  Custer decided to ignore his standing orders from General Terry, and attack the encampment before sending information back to the other two columns, which meant facing the enemy alone and without infantry, artillery, or any of the other cavalry troops on the move. His scouts told him that there were a great many enemy scattered along the banks of the Little Bighorn, and warned him he might be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.  Custer, however, had decided and he was set upon his course.
   Custer divided his forces into three sections, but his supply train was to hold back, other than with ammunition.  He ordered Captain Frederick Benteen's battalion to scout along a ridge to the left, to prevent the Indians from escaping through the upper valley of the river.  Major Marcus Reno was to travel up the valley, cross the river and attack the encampment in a surprise charge at the southern end.  Custer was going to lead his battalion quietly to the north, and attack, supposedly, at the same time as Reno from the north end of the encampment. Custer made this decision without checking the terrain.  He had to wander through a maze of bluffs and ravines to reach the other end of the camp.  He arrived where he thought he wanted to be too late for a simultaneous attack.
   Reno attacked when he had been told to - his squadron of 175 soldiers advanced to the river and found a band of young braves bathing.  They were taken completely by surprise, and some began running towards the soldiers while unarmed and naked.  Chief Gall, was bathing also.  His wives and children were in the camp immediately on the other side of the river.  The soldiers crossed into the camp and began shooting anything that moved, including women and children.  Gall jumped onto his black horse, completely naked and without arms, and rallied his frightened young contingent.  Hearing the cries and gunfire, other mounted and armed warriors were appearing.  Quickly finding themselves in a desperate battle with little to no hope of relief or reinforcements, Reno halted his men and recrossed the river.  The US troops fought in a dismounted formation for ten minutes, and then withdrew into the timber and brush along the river.  They still heard no sounds of combat from the north end of the camp, where Custer should have been attacking.  When the position along the river bank proved indefensible, Reno withdrew his men uphill to the bluffs east of the river, while being hotly pursued by the Cheyenne and Sioux.  Especially so when it was found that two of Gall's wives and four of his children had been killed in the attack upon the camp.
   Just as the braves finished driving the soldiers away from the river bank to the south, roughly 210 men led by Custer, himself, were spotted approaching the camp from the north.  Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux crossed the river together and slammed into the advancing cavalry.  The force of the assault drove Custer's men back to a long high ridge to the north.  In the meantime, another group of braves, largely Oglala Sioux following Crazy Horse, swiftly moved downstream and then doubled back in a sweeping arc.  This enveloped Custer and his men in a classic pincer move.  The warriors began pouring gunfire and arrows into the constricted area.
   As the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a protective wall - but it was too little and much too late.  In less than an hour, Custer and all his men were killed in the worst American military disaster ever.  After another 24 hours of skirmishing, Reno and Benteen's now combined forces escaped the area when the Native Americans vanished.  Their scouts had reported the approaches of two more large columns of soldiers - the ones that Custer had orders to wait for.  Both Reno and Benteen's troops had suffered heavy casualties, but few deaths.
(Because the fighting at the encampment began on the afternoon of 25 June, and the skirmishes involving Reno and Benteen did not end until the afternoon of 26 June, this battle is usually said to have lasted approximately 24 hours.)
    After the battle with Custer's men, the Indians came through and stripped the bodies.  They mutilated all of the men who had been wearing a uniform, as they believed that the soul of a mutilated body was forced to walk the earth for all eternity, seeking wholeness, and could not ascend to heaven.  They took rifles and knives and all of the horses that were not badly wounded.  When the other US Army columns arrived at the battlefield, they did find something odd. George A Custer's body had been stripped and cleaned, but not mutilated or scalped, unlike his brother Thomas, brother Boston, brother-in-law James Calhoun, and nephew Autie Reed.  It has been reported that George A Custer was wearing his favorite buckskins, and not his cavalry uniform.  Some have opined that he was not touched due to the fact the warriors thought he was a civilian, as his hair had been cut short, also. The US Army, and Custer's wife Libbie, however, pushed the myth that the Indians had respected his fighting ability, and therefore left him unmarked.  It is highly unlikely that Custer, who, in a way, started the whole ball of wax rolling by breaking the 1868 Treaty, was "respected" by his enemies, whom he had slaughtered by the hundreds.  In all fairness, to this day, no one knows why Custer was not traditionally mutilated and scalped.
    The pinnacle of the Plains Native American peoples' power was reached on that day, 142 years ago.  They had achieved their greatest victory ever, but soon their tenuous union fell apart in the face of the onslaught of the United States government, Army, and people.  Outraged over the death of a popular Union Civil War hero on the eve of the American Centennial, the people of the nation demanded and received harsh retribution against the people who were the Natives here.  The Black Hills dispute was quickly settled by redrawing boundary lines, placing the sacred land of the Black Hills outside the reservation, and open to white settlement.  Within a year, the Sioux nation was defeated and broken.  Sitting Bull and Chief Gall fled to Canada.  Crazy Horse was forced to surrender a year later.  "Custer's Last Stand" was the last stand for the plains Indians, as well.