Custer's Last Stand

          It  was an absolutely gorgeous day, and after the other campers departed it was down to us and one other RV--and he was gone all day working.  That gave Rosie and Dudley the run of the place, and they thoroughly enjoyed being off leash exploring.  We had a very relaxing morning after the 3 heavy travel days, and got some cleaning and laundry done.  The afternoon, though, was what made the day truly memorable.

          We drove the 15 miles to "Crow Country", which is a reservation larger than some of our eastern states.  Located here, however, is the Little Big Horn River and the site of Custer's Last Stand.  It is a National Park site, and as we've found elsewhere's it is well run and informative.  They have a 17" video giving the background of what preceded the battle, and a step by step of what actually happened on June 25, 1876.  

       It would be difficult to explain fully what happened that day in this short blog, so we won't.  The short version is that Lt Col George Custer, leading the 7th Cavalry Regiment of @600 men, unexpectedly came across the combined indian tribes of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians camped along the Little Big Horn.  There were about 7,000 indians total, including 2,000 warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.  For reasons that defy logic to a lot of folks, he decided to split his Regiment into three forces, and attack in different places over a 5 mile area.  The first force, under Major Reno with 150+ troops, attacked down the slopes into one area of the village, were immediately counterattacked by hundreds of warriors, and retreated pell mell back up to the point where this picture is taken from.  The river in the center of the photo is where he attacked.  The second force, when it realized it couldn't link up with Custer, also ended up here and they ended up losing about 60 of their 350 men.  Kathadin is shown here with a plaque describing the Reno position.

     Custer, with 250 men, split his small force of three troops into separate areas, and this helped the Indians eventually pick them apart.  The two pictures here show what some of Reno's men saw from three miles away, and a closeup that shows "last stand hill" where Custer fell.  The Indians had them completely surrounded, and the white gravestones mark the exact positions where the cavalrymen fell.  The final picture is taken from the top of Last stand Hill looking down on the those final positions, and you can see the terrain that would have been covered by hundreds of Indians.

       We were quite surprised to learn that Custer and his force of 255, wiped out to the last man, only caused about 50 Indian deaths.  The final picture is of Becky at the monument on Last Stand Hill with the names of the 7th Cavalry who died there.

          This was the biggest victory that native Americans achieved over "Europeans" in 400 years, and it was to be the last.  The sad history of
what the "Americans" did to the native tribes is well documented elsewheres.  Becky and Jim have certainly gotten a different perspective on the lives of native Americans on this RV trip, and it is sobering to see how poorly they live. 

     We drove into the small town of Hardin afterward, did some shopping, and retired to the campground for a pleasant evening.