The Battle of Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn)

A visit to the battlefield by the Little Big Horn river, called by the Native Americans (Northern Cheyenne and Sioux) the Greasy Grass River, was depressing.  It left both of us in a melancholic mood.  Nevertheless, we would recommend that everyone visit once … once is enough.

The battle was only one encounter in the larger Sioux Wars.  The better organized combatants were actually the centrally governed Cheyenne nation, but the Sioux’s leaders (Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse) were better known to the Indian agents so the campaign was called the Sioux Wars.

The lands around, and including, the Black Hills in South Dakota had been settled by the Cheyenne in the early 1700s and the Lakota Sioux soon joined them.  These tribes used horses (introduced by the Spanish to the Americas a couple of centuries earlier) and hunted the bison of the Great Plains.  They used the trees from  the Black Hills area for lodge poles and hunted deer, elk, and small game there as well.

The western expansion of the early and middle 1800s soon had white settlers intruding on the traditional hunting grounds of these tribes.  After several conflicts the Laramie Treaty was signed in 1868 that gave the Cheyenne and Sioux the Black Hills and some of the surrounding plains.

However, the rich mineral resources of the area and finally a gold strike saw numerous settlers invade the area and the army, who at first kept settlers out of the region, stepped aside and, with the permission of President Grant, allowed the invasion.  The government made an attempt to resettle the tribes to Oklahoma, but having seen one treaty too many, they respectfully refused.

This refusal gave the government an incentive to start rounding the Indians up and those that refused to come into the Indian agency were considered "hostiles".  The 7th Cavalry caught up with a large encampment of "hostiles" at their bison hunting camp along the Little Big Horn River in Montana.

The actual Battle of Little Big Horn was a strategic and tactical disaster.  Custer divided his troops.  This move turned out to be a mistake for his group, which was wiped out.  As we know, while the Native Americans won the battle, the final outcome of the war did not go well for them.  They were eventually rounded-up and settlers took over their lands. (There are many sources that will take the reader through a blow by blow description of the battle ... so this summary is intentionally, and mercifully, short!)

It is easy, but also ill advised, to try to judge history through the lens of the present day …The war and the battle were products of the day's politics and policies ...  but perhaps there are lessons to be learned...

Here are a few pictures.

The  National Cemetery at Little Big Horn (includes those from various Indian campaigns through WWII)

The memorial here has the names of those 7th Cav. members who died.  Buried under the memorial are all of the enlisted men.  The officers were removed and buried in various cemeteries around the country. 

Site of the Sioux Village along the Greasy Grass River.

Hopefully our next post will have a happier tone …. Until then, do what you love.