BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN

Battle of the Little Bighorn

On the northern Plains, the date June 25th, 1876 is inseparable from the shock that followed the destruction of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s battalion along the Little Bighorn River. Part of a larger campaign to push Lakota and Northern Cheyenne bands onto reservations, Custer’s Seventh Cavalry column advanced aggressively toward a large village whose size and fighting strength he underestimated. While other parts of the regiment fought ferocious actions on nearby ridges and bluffs, Custer’s immediate command was surrounded and overwhelmed, leaving no surviving soldiers from his portion of the field to tell the full story. The victory by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors under leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull demonstrated the power that a determined intertribal alliance could muster when fighting on familiar ground. In the months that followed, however, the United States Army intensified operations, bringing more troops and resources to bear until the balance of power shifted decisively. The battle thus stands as both a rare, stunning Native victory and a turning point that spurred an even more relentless phase of the Plains Wars.