"Custer's Last Command" by Richard Luce   June 25, 1876 probably around 4:30 PM at the Little Bighorn. A portrayal of Custer's last minutes right down to the individual weapons used by the soldiers along with the smoke and chaos of battle. Lt. Col. George Custer is standing dismounted next to the horse in the center.  His brother Tom is mounted just beyond him.  Even this painting evokes controversy because there are credible reports that Custer was fatally shot down at the Native American village and was already dying when his troopers were cut off .

The Little Bighorn is not exactly off the beaten path and it is certainly not a geocaching oasis. But we are history buffs and it is such a fascinating place that we had to include it. Walking the ground of great and terrible events brings to mind questions like "What would have happened if..." or "Why did they do that?". The Little Bighorn is one of those places. We thought we knew what happened here, but found out we didn't know diddly.  After three visits in five years and some lengthy research and cross-checking of our own for the web site, we ended up with more questions than answers. We're not the only ones.

With the possible exception of Gettysburg, there has been more written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn than any other single event in American history.  In fact, it may be the most studied battle of all.  Yet, despite all the books, oral histories, archaeological digs, scholarly research, written records, Indian lore and other examinations, there is very little consensus on anything - except that Custer got killed that day.

We visit battlefields and historical sites all over the country.  They have their little mysteries and controversies at times, but nothing on the scale of the Little Bighorn.  It's as volatile today as it was 124 years ago.

The issues are endless - the time and length of the Last Stand, how Custer was killed, how big the Indian encampment was, how many warriors there were, how many men got killed in the Deep Ravine, why did Reno dismount at the river, could Benteen have reinforced in time, did the Indians have rifles, what kind and how many - and the opinions are just as endless.

The two main rival camps appear to have historians on one side and archaeologists on the other. Historians rely heavily on battle records and interviews. Contrary to the belief that "there were no survivors" at the Little Bighorn, historians will tell you that there were thousands of survivors.  Over half of Custer's regiment survived and walked the battlefield the next day. There were many  Native American survivors  and they told their stories in detail in the years following the battle but researchers consistently dismiss those reports as unreliable.

One of the earliest known photos of Last Stand Hill after the battle.  This was taken in the summer of 1879 - three years later - and there were bones and remains everywhere.

Archaeologists say that those reports do indeed need to be taken with a grain of salt.  Native American accounts of the battle tend to exaggerate and embellish personal accomplishments, such as all the braves who claim to have shot Custer. A better research model is to use use artifacts and forensics to detail the battle, basically treating the battlefield like a crime scene using forensic science that didn't exist before.

This conflict really escalated almost 30 years ago. In August 1983, a prairie fire swept over the entire battlefield, burning away 100 years of ungrazed grass and undergrowth.  It revealed a treasure trove of artifacts and remains laying exposed on the charred surface. The National Park Service seized the opportunity to pursue archaeological examinations of the Little Bighorn. There were four of them - 1983, 1984, 1989 and 1994.  They produced some results and theories which completely revised the traditional view of the battle. A sample of it can be found in this US News and World Report article from July 24, 2000.

To which the historians reply you can't do reliable forensics on a scene that has been contaminated for over 100 years by exposure to the elements, re-enactments, relic hunters and tourists tromping all over the place.

Well, you get the idea.  I guess the archaeologists could counter that last one with "Sounds like the pyramids."

Oral histories can be tainted by personal perspective, language barriers and the skill of the interviewer. They also tend to be embellished.  All archaeological sites are contaminated to some degree.  Therefore it stands to reason that neither side has completely reliable information. Their respective theories are built on incomplete data and subject to endless and fruitless examination.

One thing you rarely see discussed are the actual conditions of the battlefield and the part that terrain and weather played.  Prussian General  Carl Von Clausewitz is credited with the concept of the "fog of war" meaning the inherent confusion and unexpected things that influence the outcome of a battle. That was probably a major factor in the chain of events at the Little Bighorn - including real fog. The plains of Montana are dusty and hazy especially in late afternoon. The battle area overlooking the river is steep and winding with deep ravines (called coulees) that can make horses and men disappear from sight, only to seemingly pop up out of nowhere someplace else. Add to that the dust from thousands of horse hooves and the smoke from the weapons and it is very likely that there was a pall over the entire battlefield that prevented direct observation, coordinated action or effective assessment. This obscuring of the battlefield would have affected the 7th Cavalry more than their opponents, who had home field advantage.

Our little website is not going to solve the riddle of the Little Bighorn and we don't want to place ourselves in the middle of this controversy, which gets quite heated at times.  Instead, we have chosen to present some noteworthy things we saw there or found in our own research, along with some ideas for visiting the battlefield today.

A panorama of the battlefield taken from the base of Last Stand Monument. Custer's headstone is marked as the place he fell. He is buried at West Point.  The battlefield continues all around to the right and left. If you had been standing here on June 25, 1876, at about 4:00 PM, there would have been Indians everywhere.

Contrary to popular folklore, Custer was not an experienced Indian fighter.  His only real Indian fight before the Little Bighorn was Washita River in November 1868 - eight years earlier. Custer was at heart a horse soldier who proved his mettle many times during the Civil War. But the Little Bighorn was not a cavalry battle.  It was a dismounted infantry fight. Most of the fighting was on foot and low to the ground. There are two reasons for this.

Nine years earlier at the Wagon Box Fight in Wyoming, Native American warriors had been schooled on the futility of charging headlong into massed rifle fire, especially repeaters. In that furious action, 26 troopers with new breech-loading rifles and six civilian woodcutters with 16-shot lever action Henry rifles held off 1,000 braves for most of a day and lived to tell about it. One of the Indian leaders that day was Crazy Horse, the tactical leader at the Little Bighorn. By the time of the battle, his braves had repeaters of their own, which Custer's men did not.

The other factor is that Custer's men left their sabers back at their home base to save weight.  That means they had no close in weapon with which to fight from horseback.  A cavalry charge was the armored assault of its day, depending on audacity, shock, momentum and violence to carry out its mission. That meant cold steel and flashing blades at a full gallop. Instead, Custer's force had to dismount to fight with their single shot Springfield rifles. The Indians had lances, tomahawks and war clubs for close in fighting and got better use out of cavalry tactics than Custer did. If Custer had maintained the ability to fight close in on horseback, the outcome may have been very different. Why would a experienced horse soldier like Custer leave the sabers behind?   Probably the same reason anybody leaves something behind.  They don't think they'll need it

In the military, they say no plan survives the first round  downrange.  That was certainly the case with Custer's plan. He was counting on a small village where everyone would run at the sight of blue coats - not a six mile long encampment with 5,000 warriors who were better armed than his soldiers.

Custer's regiment had 647 men in 12 companies, which he split into four groups. One company was left behind to guard the pack train. Two columns of three companies each, led by Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, were to attack the Indian encampment from the southeast and cut off escape routes. Custer, with a column of five companies totaling 210 men, would move northwest, cross the river above the village and attack as the main effort from that direction.  As he moved along Battle Ridge and the size of the encampment became apparent,  he deployed two companies to mutually support each other and protect his rear - Company L commanded by Lt. James Calhoun and  Company I commanded by Captain Myles Keogh. Before Custer's reckoning, they fought fought last stands of their own. Their battles have prominent markers on the driving tour of the battlefield. This cut off Custer from supplies and reinforcement.

By that time, Custer's plan had already fallen apart. Thousands of Native American braves - Lakota, Cheyenne, Blackfeet and Arapaho - swarmed out of the  encampment and attacked.  Reno's attack turned into a panicked every-man-for-himself retreat and Benteen never fully deployed.  He moved  to the pack train where Reno's survivors were congregating and organized a defense.

The trail to the Deep Ravine taken from the Visitor's Center. Last Stand Hill is off to the left. In this picture, there are 25 headstones along the trail but the trail wasn't there the day of the battle. Does that mean they fought their way down the slope by forming a skirmish line?  Or was it an every-man-for-himself bug out? That depends on who you talk to.

At the end, a group of men on Last Stand Hill made a run for it on foot in a desperate attempt to reach the cover of the river. Could it be that Custer was already dead? It's hard to imagine Custer's troopers bugging out while he was still fighting. One of those who made the dash was the regimental surgeon.  Would the doc have bolted if Custer were still alive?

There is a trail that leads downhill from the Visitor's Center to a large coulee called the Deep Ravine.  Headstones along the trail  mark  where cavalry men were run down and killed, along with their names, if known.  Some accounts say they fought their way down, forming a skirmish line along the way.  Others say it was a headlong rush. A small group made it to the ravine, thinking it was a covered route to the river.  It wasn't.  It went to the river alright, but was the main avenue of approach for the Indians from their encampment to the battle area. They lined the top of the ravine and poured fire into it, leaving no survivors.  This was the final action of Custer's  Last Stand. All 210 men - troopers, civilians, scouts - were killed, 39 of them on Last Stand Hill itself.

As for Custer himself, we don't know the exact circumstances of his death. National Park Service guides say he was killed by a bullet to the left temple on Last Stand Hill. That pretty much rules out suicide ("save the last bullet for yourself") since Custer was right-handed. Other reports say he bled to death from a chest wound received down by the river and may not have even been functional during the Last Stand. So even though Custer's un-mutilated body was recovered two days later and presumably examined, there isn't even a consensus on this topic.  So it goes at the Little Bighorn. 

The Deep Ravine, where the last of Custer's men were finished off after making a run for it. The picture was taken from the NPS overlook.  How many were killed here and how many remain buried here is a major point of contention at the Little Bighorn. It's estimated that the ravine was 8-10 feet deeper the day of the battle. The Little Bighorn River is in the distant trees.

The battle didn't end with the Last Stand.  In fact, the Indians most likely didn't know who they had just killed. After finishing off Custer and his men, the warriors turned their attention to Major Reno, Custer's second-in-command, and the logistics wagon train about four miles away.  Reno had time to prepare a hasty defense and the battle raged until dark, when the Indians withdrew. The troopers spent the night preparing defensive positions. A party of 19 men volunteered for the hair-raising task of going down the bluff to the river to get desperately needed water. They succeeded and all 19 received the Medal of Honor. The battle was joined again at first light. Reno held on until reinforcements arrived. In a logistical marvel of their own, the 7,000 person Native American camp was gone the next morning, ending the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

George Custer was not the only Custer to die at the Little Bighorn. His brothers Thomas and Boston and nephew Henry Reed died on Last Stand Hill, almost wiping out the male bloodline. Another brother, Nevin, suffered from serious health problems and never went west. He did have children though and the Custer line continues today.

Thomas Custer is an interesting person in his own right. During the Civil War, he won the Medal of Honor twice. He had a reputation as a warrior and battle leader, but lived in the shadow of his older brother for his entire career. Most people have never heard of him. Normally the commander of Company C, he had been detailed to Custer's staff for this operation and died on Last Stand Hill. His marker is right next to his brother's, leading to speculation by some that Tom may have reached over and shot his brother in the left temple to prevent his capture. Tom's body was horribly mutilated after the battle and had to be identified by his tattoos. George Custer's body was untouched.

Boston Custer	Henry Reed

Boston Custer and Henry Reed were both civilian teamsters for the Army. Boston left the pack train riding a mule to join his brothers forward, meeting John Martin on the way back with his message to Benteen. Martin had just run a gauntlet of Indian fire to get through and advised Boston to turn back.  Boston pressed on and made it. Henry was already there, having convinced his uncles earlier to take him along. When they died, George was 36, Tom was 31, Boston was 28 and Henry  Reed was 18.

Lt. James Calhoun, who died in his own last stand, was married to Custer's younger sister, Maggie. Normally Custer's Adjutant, he assumed temporary command of Company L just before the battle. Some Indian accounts of the battle mention the fight on Calhoun Hill as being the fiercest of the day.  Of the estimated 100 KIA suffered by the Indians that day, over 30 of them were found on Calhoun Hill.

The only other un-mutilated body on the field of battle was that of Captain Myles Keogh, who was as interesting as the Custer clan. Keogh was an Irish soldier of fortune who fought with the Union during the Civil War.  He fought in 80 separate engagements including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Sherman's March to the Sea.  In July 1864, he was captured by Confederate forces while leading a cavalry raid attempting to liberate Andersonville. He was released two months later in a prisoner exchange and returned to the fighting.  After the war, he stayed in the army, became a US citizen and operated on the plains for 10 years.  He never got a scratch on him until the Little Bighorn. Why his body and Custer's body weren't desecrated is unknown.

Bugler John Martin, whose real name was Giovan Martino (or Giovanni Martini according to some), became known as "the last white survivor to see Custer alive."  He stayed in the Army, was a key witness at the 1879 Board of Inquiry, saw more action in the plains Indian wars and served  during the Spanish-American War.  Retiring from the Army in 1904 as a Master Sergeant, he returned to his immigrant roots in New York City. He worked at several jobs, including ticket taker on the new subway system and a worker at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Along the way, he married and had eight children.  For almost 50 years, John Martin was the living bridge between the history books and events at the Little Bighorn.  He gave frequent interviews, was the guest of honor at functions and told war stories between acts at Broadway plays. He died of pulmonary failure secondary to an accident a week earlier on Christmas Eve, 1922 at the age of 69. He is buried in plot #8865 at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn. This blog does a great job of detailing the life of this fascinating old soldier.

Major Marcus Reno survived the battle but not his own demons. Scapegoated, blamed for the debacle and accused of cowardice and incompetence, he spent the next four years in one scrape after another - drinking, fighting and other assorted "conducts unbecoming". A board of inquiry in 1879 formally absolved him of blame in the battle but the rumors persisted. He was dismissed from the service in 1880 with a general discharge, died in 1889 and was buried with a plain marker at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC. In 1967, a military review board changed his discharge to honorable and he was re-interred at the Custer National Cemetery on the battlefield.

Captain Frederick Benteen also survived the battle but couldn't allay the rumors that dogged the rest of his army career.  His decision to not relieve Custer was questioned time and again, although he steadfastly maintained that it would have been a suicide mission and gotten every last man killed. That may be true but it's also true that John Martin and Boston Custer made the same dangerous journey alone during the fight.  Nevertheless, Benteen was no coward.  His actions in the defense of the pack train, now called the Reno-Benteen Defense Site, were commendable and probably saved that position along with the rest of the regiment.  He remained in the Army, finished his career and retired in 1888 as a Major.  Benteen served capably for 28 years, including the Civil War and the Indian campaigns. He received several brevet promotions for his actions in various engagements, but the stigma of the Little Bighorn overshadowed all of it. He died in 1898 and is buried at Arlington National cemetery.

Crazy Horse, who spent most of his adult life at war and never had his picture taken, surrendered at Camp Robinson, Nebraska in May of 1877. He lived quietly in a nearby tribal village until September 4, when his arrest was ordered. After being transported to the guardhouse, Crazy Horse struggled with the guards and tried to escape. In the fight, he was bayoneted and died later that night. His body was turned over to his parents. His final resting place is unknown.

Under his leadership, the Native American warriors had won decisively at the Little Bighorn but it was a Pyrrhic victory.  The public and government both were outraged that this could happen to an army unit led by Custer and only a week before the nation's centennial.  They demanded harsh retribution - and they got it.   Crazy Horse surrendered 11 months later and was dead three months after that. The Native American federation that won the battle fell apart and the tribes were killed, dispersed or rounded up.  In winning at the Little Bighorn, the Plains Indians probably hastened their own end.

There is one last historical footnote. The Battle of the Little Bighorn is often called the greatest loss the U.S. Army ever suffered in the campaigns against the Native Americans. Not true. That dubious distinction belongs to the Battle of the Wabash on November 4, 1791. That battle was fought near present day Fort Recovery, Ohio and resulted in the deaths of almost 1,000 U.S. soldiers. That was close to half of America's standing army at that time, effectively leaving President George Washington with no army. However, it would be a true statement to say the Little Bighorn was the Army's greatest loss in the Plains Indian Wars of the mid to late 19th century.

There are many questions about the Battle of the Little Bighorn that will never be answered. The one that haunts battlefield addicts the most is - "What really happened on Last Stand Hill?"  Your guess is as good as anybody else's.

There's only one geocache here. It's a virtual cache called Little Bighorn National Monument. The answers that you need are actually on the Last Stand monument. There's a handful of traditional caches up the road in Hardin and more along the highways.  You can pick up literally dozens of caches in Montana by just cruising the Interstates with the highest speed limit in the country. Billings on the other hand is sitting on a sea of geocaches as are most Big Sky cities. 

The GPS coordinates of the Visitors Center are N45.5221º, W107.3778º.  Click on the coordinates to open an interactive Google map.

If the decimal degree format doesn't agree with you, here's a lat/long converter.

If you can't make it to the battlefield, you can check out their live webcam.　

Garryowen!

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