The Battle of the Little Bighorn 150th Anniversary

Overshadowed by the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year is the 150th anniversary of another turning point in American history, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry Regiment was defeated by rebellious Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The battle took place on June 25th, 1876 in the valley of the Little Bighorn river in what is now the state of Montana. Custer had divided his regiment in the face of a superior enemy, and when he attacked, all the men under his direct command were killed. In comparison with the Civil War battles of just a few years before, Little Bighorn was not particularly large in terms of the numbers engaged and lives lost. But it has loomed large in the American popular imagination ever since, particularly in regards to the larger-than-life personalities of Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse.

When I was growing up, I saw Hollywood films about the battle like They Died with Their Boots On and Little Big Man. With the 150^th anniversary approaching, I wanted to find out how much historical truth was in these films. As it turns out, not much. In They Died with Their Boots On, Custer is portrayed by Errol Flynn as a valiant hero who stood against the dispossession of the Black Hills from the Native Americans. In truth, as detailed in the book Thieves’ Road: the Black Hills Betrayal and Custer’s Path to Little Bighorn, it was Custer’s expedition in 1874 that brought gold prospectors to the Black Hills.

In the film Little Big Man, Custer is caricatured as a bigoted fool who rushed into battle recklessly. Of course, Custer was often reckless in battle and did have bigoted views against Native Americans, but he was also a brilliant political self-promoter and had a reputation as a successful commander. He had divided his forces many times before and won. In his book My Life on the Plains, he describes his experiences fighting the Native American tribes. Custer’s Trials is a comprehensive biography of Custer that provides a balanced view of his life.

Just as fascinating is The Earth is All That Lasts, which explains how Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse rose from humble beginnings to become tribal leaders, and how they were both fiercely determined to preserve the nomadic way of life of the Sioux tribes. It also provides an interesting account of Little Bighorn from the perspective of the Native American fighters.

For a thorough account of the battle of the Little Bighorn from all sides, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick is a good choice. And the book Little Bighorn 1876 meticulously charts the progress of the summer campaign of 1876 and of the battle itself, with the help of copious maps. The newly published book Vengeance: the Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull by Tom Clavin is also a very readable description of the battle.

The most interesting for me, however, was in Larry McMurtry’s Custer, because it interprets Little Bighorn as the last great battle of the American frontier and the beginning of the end of Native American resistance to white encroachment. After this point, he claims, the encroachments of the white man on Native American territory were never again seriously contested. Within a year after the battle, Crazy Horse surrendered to Federal authorities, and Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881. The battle was in fact the beginning of the end for the nomadic way of life of the Plains Indians, and accelerated the closing of the American frontier. 

-Michael, West Windsor Branch