Sightseeing:
- Little Bighorn Battlefield
We donned our coolest clothes (as in "weather" and not in "style") this morning in anticipation of walking around on the high desert area of Custer’s Last Stand, which is about an hour's drive from Billings. About halfway there, we stopped in Hardin, MT, for breakfast at the Purple Cow.
The food was OK, but the restaurant sure was in need of a good cleaning and a bucket of paint. It’s really hard to go to these out-of-the-way places and feel comfortable. But, when you are hungry and there is nowhere else, you just squint and hope you don’t notice too much of the disrepair.
Here's a picture of the terrain on the way to the battlefield.
We arrived at the battlefield about 12:30 PM. We walked around the museum for a bit until it was time to get on our Native American-led tour bus. The tour took us out about 5 miles into the beginning area of the battlefield to explain the battle's "big picture."
Here's what I gleaned about the battle (and I hope I have it mostly correct). There were three military flanks converging on the Indians. The guide showed us how the flanks were planning to capture the Indians with those three flanks and move them onward to other reservations. This movement of the Indians was ordered to take place because miners in cities like Deadwood and Lead had moved in to the Black Hills area to search for gold. The miners were not allowed in the Black Hills area as it was Indian reservation land. But, the miners and other settlers came anyway. It all happened fast and in mass numbers. And, now there was no way to get the miners and settlers out of the area. So, our government went back on their word about giving the Indians the Black Hills and surrounding areas as a reservation. And, I know the government didn't want to disrupt the search for gold, either. The government was now forcing the Indians to move westward. This move would take the Indians away from their hunting grounds and make them dependent upon the government for subsistence.
Humm...the government is still trying to make us dependent upon them for our subsistence. Nothing much has changed there. Excuse the political diversion.
Back to the movement--when the three military flanks arrived, they didn’t realize that several tribes had converged in the area for their annual celebrations. The rolling hills masked much of the Indian encampment and when one general was nearly wiped out after converging on the encampment, he forced the second flank to stay and help him fight.
This left Custer without the anticipated support from the second flank--he was also unaware of the mass number of Indians in the encampment. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, because the three military flanks amounted to about 800 men and there were about 1500 warriors armed with repeating rifles, while the soldiers were armed with single-shot rifles.
By the way, there were survivors of the three-day battle, which I didn't know; but, there were no survivors from Custer's regiment.
This picture shows the lush green trees in the valley. This is the area where the tribes were camped. As you can see, the hill obscures the area, and the soldiers were unaware that thousands of Indians were camped in this valley.
The unique part of this battlefield is that there are headstone scattered throughout the vast battle area (see pictures).
When the burial detail began their nasty task of burying the dead, they took empty bullets and filled them with as much information about that person as they could. Then, the bullets were driven into the wooden crosses at each burial site. This information enabled archaeologists to find where most of the soldiers fell.
However, many of the soldiers were buried in one mass grave. The large monument you see in the picture at the top of the hill represents those buried. But, markers were placed as accurately as possible for many of the fallen soldiers.
Notice the one black-background marker near the center of the field; this is the place where Custer supposedly fell. I have also provided a close-up of his marker.
Only a few of the Indian headstones were put into place in the battlefield, because the Indian villagers came to the battlefield and gathered the dead warriors and took them back to the encampment for burial. The “red” stone markers in the pictures are for Indians.
The white markers are military markers.
A gruesome part of the slaughter was that the Indians mutilated the white man. I knew this but didn't know why: this was done because the Indians believed that you entered the afterlife in the same condition in which you died.
So, if your trigger finger was removed, you could no longer shoot; if your inner thigh muscle was cut, you couldn’t ride a horse. I’ll stop there as I'm sure you "get it."
After our tour, we attended a 30-minute lecture by one of the forest rangers out on the patio. Although there was a breeze now and then, it was blistering hot. The 30-minute lecture was still going at 45-minutes when we had to skedaddle to attend a 17-minute video on “The Last Stand.” (The video was in an air-conditioned area--yipee.)
All in all, this was very worthwhile. When so much detail is given as to the position of the battle participants and their plans--and you can see the vast area for yourself (pictures do not do the vastness justice), it really brings the history to life. It is much more memorable (or should I say, “rememorable” in our elder state).
The visitor’s center did not have any silver charms, so we stopped outside the National Park to get one. We had planned to get an ice cream cone, but it was so hot, I didn’t even have the energy to order one! Yea, did you about faint on that one? OK. OK. We did stop at the Dairy Queen in Hardin on the way back.
We did not have supper tonight--just our ice cream. We crawled into bed pretty worn out from the heat and the battlefield adventure. And, just as I was falling asleep, Dave wants to talk about the mutilation of the soldiers and why and so forth. Needless to say, I had a restless night’s sleep! Thanks, Dave!!
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