Morning in Little Bighorn country

Little Bighorn country

As I headed south and left the mountain ranges of Montana behind, the soothing hill country of the Crow Reservation took over.  The air still retained a coolness across these wide open spaces. 

Someday I hope visit Crow Fair, the large tribal gathering held on a bend in the Little Bighorn River. I passed through Crow Country a few weeks too early for those festivities, but I blocked out one stop of consequence. I could not skip a return visit to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

On a 2012 visit to Little Bighorn, a driving October snow coated the battlefield and its  many monuments. A few minutes outside coated my travel companion and me, although the site was still majestic covered in fresh snow.   

Blue skies and gently swaying grassed greeted me this August morning, the first visitors just trickling into the monument.  The actual battle happened June 25-26, 1876, so an August visit offered a better approximation of what the battlefield might looked like at that time (minus the largest Indian encampment that Lt. Col. George  Custer's Crow scouts had ever seen). 

The Natives call it Greasy Grass, and since the Natives landed a resounding victory over the hated Custer at this battle. Not only had he had used Indian women and children as human shields in previous battles, but he had broken the treaty with the tribes of the Black Hills region by escorting prospectors and white settlers into the region.

There were survivors in the commands of Major Marcus Reno and Capt. Frederick Benteen, as Reno panicked upon seeing the size of the Indian camp and probably saved his troops from getting similarly wiped out. 

Warrior deathsite markers

 Aside from the park buildings, monuments and the rest stops at the highway exit, the land hasn't changed. A road connected the Reno-Benteen Battlefield to the southeast with the main Custer Battlefield. Until reinforcements arrived on June 27, neither Reno or Benteen knew the degree to which the Native forces crushed Custer's comman, from which just a single horse named Comanche survived. 

As much as wiping out Custer's command market a major victory for these tribes, reaction on word of Custer's defeat pushed the U.S. government drive the tribes onto reservations and force their surrender. 

Within three years of the battle, the site was protected by the Department of War and monument building to Custer had begun in earnest (his wife Elizabeth spent the rest of her life memorializing him and attack any who denigrated him). The story of Last Stand Hill spread, although some modern historians contend that might be myth, as Custer's command could by a single mass charge of Indian warriors. 

The modern monument has grown more even-handed - it was originally known as Custer Battlefield National Monument, and memorials only mentioned the defeated U.S. cavalry. A year after the battle, Custer's body was removed and reinterred at West Point. The dead U.S. soldiers were buried in a mass grave  at the main memorial In the 1890s, markers for the 249 dead from Custer's command were added.  In the 1990s, the Park Service began adding tones mark the known deathsites of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors. 

Indian Memorial

Across the road from the Seventh Cavalry Memorial stands the inspiring Indian Memorial, which was not completely finished until 2013. Each tribe and descendants of battle participants were involved in designs.

Memorial engravings

Having traversed the road before, I spent most of my time here. The memorial is a solemn place and sits close to the prominent Seventh Cavalry Memorial. 

Despite enmity toward the Seventh Cavalry and the brutal aftermath of the battle that extinguished a way of life for these tribes, an opening in the memorial faces onto the Cavalry Memorial. Known as a Spirit Gate, it represents a symbolic path to the afterlife for those adversaries who died in battle.

The site continues to yield elements of history. The day after my visit, someone would stumble upon a 150-year-old button while walking a trail. Not a bad turn for a trip.

But I had no qualms about my quiet morning among the rolling, grassy hills above the twisting Little Bighorn.

Last look across the rolling land