Little Big Horn Battlefield

Anybody been there and is it worth 1/2 day to visit it? After attending John Graham’s Coyote Days in August, my nephew and I are planning on going there for an afternoon.

Absolutely. My wife and I stopped and glad we did. There is something about that place that got to both us upon arrival. Walking among the graves and rolling grass meadows…

Nice interpretative station and video depicts the “intended game plan” that day.

Definitely do it. Take the drive out to where Reno/Benteen fought their battle and take a walk around the national graveyard. Look at the dates on some of the headstones. Facinating place, you can feel something important happened there. Tour the museum.

After Little Big Horn, We stopped in Broadus MT at the cross road; old diner with a 2 lane bowling alley, and arcade. Craig O was not hanging there so we bolted. Tell ya what, not much going on there! The store staff of 2 were delighted to have someone stop, they were dang lonely.
Cruised to Rapid City to fly home the next day

Yes. We enjoyed it and learned a lot. If you like that kind of history stop at the Fort Sill museum if you get a chance.

It's definitely worth the stop, but it might be hard to kill more than a couple hours there.

They don't allow dogs, if that's an issue. Last time I was there, some sad-looking native was at the ticket booth taking money. What a sad fall from grace it was to see.....way back when, that guy would have scalped me for being there. Now he relies on the feds for a paycheck.

Yes, you can really get an appreciation for the difficulty of knowing where the enemy was once you see the landscape. I think 2-3 hours is about right.

Pompeys Pillar, a stop on the Lewis & Clark expedition and named for Sacagawea's son, is worth seeing also and is less than an hour away from the Little Bighorn site.

You bet ya it's worth seeing. Been there twice on 2 different vacations.
I recommend you read up on the battle and look at the maps before you go. It will help you out.
There is a good old historical fiction book out there. Bugles In The Afternoon by Ernest Haycox that is worth reading. Many many other books about The Little Big Horn also.

Right after the battle, to get the wounded soldiers care, a steamboat captain (Grant Marsh) of the Far West steamboat ran over 700 miles from the mouth of the Little Big Horn near Harding Montana to Bismarck North Dakota in 54 hours. He ran the Big Horn, Yellowstone and stump filled Missouri river night and day. Just amazing stuff. Lot's of valor like that and lots of stupidity on Custers part. Well worth the effort to go and see the battlefield. Rosebud battlefield is close also.

It is worth the stop for sure. One thing though, I realize that the freeway system has been there for a long time but it surprises me that it literally runs along /through the camp site of the tribes during the battle.

Absolutely. Been there twice. Would go again.

I've been there Twice and will go more times as the Grandkids age.

The books written from the Natives standpoint are Amazing ...walking among the markers where soldiers actually fell is a sombering thing to do. Custer was a pompus bung

I just heard the song Comanche the Brave Horse, a survivor of the battle, by Johnny Hornton. One thing was incorrect in the song and it says Comanche was General Custer’s horse which is incorrect. It was Capt. Myles Keogh’s horse who also got killed in the battle. After Comanche was nursed back to health from about four wounds, it was ordered that he would never have another saddle strapped on him or be rode again. I believe he lived for another 16 years. Also, he is preserved and fully mounted and on display at the University of Kansas.

It’s definitely worth the stop. One of things that really stuck with me is that the battle lasted only about 15 minutes.

Well sort of. Yes, at the north end of the battlefield it didn't take long for the allied Indian forces to dispatch Custer and his band.

BUT, at the south end of the battlefield (about 1 1/2 miles to the south), another group of soldiers under Major Reno and Captain Benteen forted up on top of a hill and held the Indians off till the main group of soldiers under General Terry relieved them the next day.
Lots of wounded. These wounded troops are the ones that they carted down The Little Big Horn about 20 miles north to the where the steamboat was anchored.

Definitely worth the visit. The first time I went there was in 1974. The last time I went there was a couple of years ago. The first time I went there I found this. Don't pick up anything that you might find now though, big no-no.

Get ahold of Montana tourism for literature on the area and check out Fort Smith Mt and Yellowtail Dam , that's also where the Haystack battle was along the Bozeman Trail .
Yellowtail Dam is well worth a stop to see a canyon filled with water and go to boat launch unless you don't do switch backs well or don't have good brakes , there's a Indian monument up there and you can see the buffalo in the pasture from there with field glasses or a spotting scope .

The museum in Hardin is the busiest in the entire state and highlites some of the farming equipment from days gone by , as well as Campbell farming corporation who was once the largest farming corporation in the world .
Mr Campbell was sent to Russia to teach them how to grow wheat even , oh and there small field is 25,000 acres !

So do yourself a favor and spent a bit more than a day in Big Horn Co. to see the sights , then near Custer Mt is fort Manual Lisa a fishing access where the first Fur trade fort was after the Lewis and Clark expedition .
There's world class trout fishing in the Big Horn River also and remember the early mountain men trapped beaver in all the streams and rivers you'll drive by but then so did I when I lived down there .

Mark, is that old shell a 45-70
?

That cartridge case might be a 45/70 government, I didn't think they were a belted case?
Yes, it's rimmed and belted?

Doug
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Yes it worth the stop I have been there twice if I was in the area I would stop again.

Absolutely worth the effort. It gives you the visual far better than any book of course. And while there think about all that happened up until the “battle” later in the afternoon.

Custer had his troop up and moving by 0330 that day which was noted by all to be the hottest day any could remember. They pushed a LOT of miles in uneven country. That day and the previous days hard pushes down the Rosebud to get there had both man and beast worn, to say the least.

It was not Custers finest day of course but General Crook should have been there and in full support instead of playing around fishing and hunting down on goose creek near Sheridan. He’d been lounging there since loosing a handful of men north of his location nearer the Bighorn site a week earlier at the battle of the Rosebud. He had an entirety of over 1400 personnel. How he never faced the fire for not being at the Bighorn battle per orders is beyond understanding.

To Gooses remark, leaving the battlefield going east on 212 you go thru the Crow, then the Northern Cheyenne reservations. Go thru the roundabout on the highway in Lame Dear towards evening and you can see how government handouts have devastated a once proud people in vivid detail.

Osky

Stopped on my way out for a pronghorn hunt. It is a solemn eerie place knowing what happened there.

Yes

Put me in your will for it...if you will

It's not actually belted, but it does have a slight crimp near the base. Here's a couple more pictures.
Scott, I should have said, I assume it's 45/70.

Waggler have you seen the recent special of how they are tracking the guns by the location of bullets found? Crazy how they can tell you the totally different areas specific rifles were used.

In this entire topic discussion, which is always interesting, I find it sad no one appears to chase the information untold. There are elders on both the Crow and Cheyenne reservations who are still alive who could have heard the native version in their youth from people who were actually there and more likely said more to their own people.

Granted time shades memory but if even 10% of what they recall being told them is correct, there would be some very interesting things learned. I believe many interviews taken from first hand participants who soon after the battle were defeated and subjugated were sadly slanted.

Osky

Crazy horse is a good read, also Showdown battle of the Little Bighorn. After taking my kids there I had to know more. The place just gives you a feeling something important happened there. Last time I went by was during Covid so my wife has not seen it. I guess it would be too dangerous to walk outside. Really like for her to see it.

wws

I’ve been there probably 10-12 times always something new to learn was fortunate enough to spend time with some Crow tribal members working on power line row renewals around Lodge Grass,Ft Smith and on over the Pryor Mts. Their oral history is fascinating and they don’t share with very many people different buffalo jump sites,vison quest locations etc some really good people there Sad what alcohol and drugs are doing to too many of them though

I've done some reading. I could go on and on but the long and short of it is...

Sitting Bull was fighting the white man. He went off to have a vision. After steaming in a sauna and torturing himself with 50 pieces of flesh taken from each arm for vision he started dancing and didn't stop for 36 hours. At which point he had a vision. There would be a great fight and all the white soldiers would fall from their horses. When he spoke of his vision the next day he told everyone there was going to be a great fight and that if soldiers died that the Indians were not allowed to take the soldiers possessions. Then he broke camp and they headed to a pow wow. The pow wow was the largest group of Indians anyone alive could remember assembling. Somewhere in the range of 8,000 Indians. Camp went for like four miles along a river. Teepees everywhere.
There were like seven different distinct bands (sitting bulls being one) at this pow wow. He was the older respected chief and had the command and respect of everyone. Anyway they were meeting to discuss the white man and their future. It just so happened that Custer aka long hair aka yellow hair had been tracking Sitting Bull and was following his crew. When Custer got there his Indian scouts said that smoke is where Sitting Bull was. They called him like the great father or something I forget the name. Anyway the US Army had ordered all the Indians to be killed and Custer was seeking and destroying the enemy. His scouts told him there were more Indians there than he had bullets. He ignored them due to him believing he had superior fighting tactics. He sent three groups of men in three directions. They wanted to fight the battle on three fronts b/c he had success doing that before b/c it caused so much confusion. A group went left, a group stayed head on, and I believe it was Custer that was going to go around to the far right. When the soldiers were riding up the Indians rode out to meet them showing them it was a peaceful gathering and they started shooting Indians. Sitting bull would have been in charge but he was exhausted from his self mutilation and the sun dance he endured. Of the seven groups of Indians they all had warriors and chiefs of there own. Once the white soldiers started shooting the 8,000 strong Indian force lost their temper. An Indian in the Teepee said the battle began when the sun was at one side of the vent hole of his teepee and when the battle was over the sun had just made it across the hole to the other side. That's how long it took. The army had ordered to kill the Indians due to finding gold in the Black Hills and they had just signed the treaty of Laromie. That treaty clearly said no white man was allowed there. When they discovered gold there it was just in the roots of the grass and you just picked it up off the ground. Anyway, that's why the showed up there and how it shook out. I didn't know a lot of that and thought it was interesting.

Oh so the Indians then took all the possessions of the soldiers and didn't listen to sitting bulls vision from before he got there. Once Custer was defeated the Army went into all out war. The Indians scattered and ultimately lost all of their land and etc. There are some that believe that happened b/c the Indians deserve it due to taking the soldiers items and not respecting the vision. There are people now that believe that they will not get their lands back until all of those things are returned. I thought that was interesting too.

Its not hard to figure out which side gave that version.You can shoot as many holes in this story as people do in the troopers version.

Hello waggler,

Thanks for the additional photo's of the cartridge case.
That clears things up.
Interesting case head.

Doug
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