From Yellowstone, we went to Little Bighorn.
The genesis of the Battle of Little Bighorn was the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This was Sioux territory that white prospectors nonetheless were exploring in violation of the second Fort Laramie treaty. (Color me shocked.) The Grant administration tried to buy the land from the Sioux to give the prospectors free access; when the Sioux refused to sell it, the government ordered all Plains Indians onto reservations, or be declared “hostiles” who would be subject to removal. For multiple reasons, the various tribes were not going to comply with this.
The U.S. 7th Cavalry went in with 718 men, against a combined Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne force of perhaps 1,800 warriors. (Accounts vary; some historians say 1,000, some say as many as 5,000). Custer himself was led to believe the number was between 800 and 1,100. Worse, according to Wikipedia,
About 20% of the troopers had been enlisted in the prior seven months (139 of an enlisted roll of 718), were only marginally trained and had no combat or frontier experience. ,,, Archaeological evidence suggests that many of these troopers were malnourished and in poor physical condition, despite being the best-equipped and supplied regiment in the Army.
Apparently, the battle didn’t go very well for the U.S.
While the battle had been planned for June 26, when Custer would have moved his troops into position for according to the battle plan, the U.S. forces’ position was discovered a day early, which led Custer to attack immediately, to prevent the enemy from retreating. He split his regiment into three battalions. The first was beaten so badly that the second had to ride to its rescue, which left Custer and 210 men isolated on high ground, where they were annihilated. The other two battalions were defeated as well.
Naturally, while the Sioux and Cheyenne won the battle, they lost the war. As Britannica.com notes, “The outcome of the battle, though it proved to be the height of Indian power, so stunned and enraged white Americans that government troops flooded the area, forcing the Indians to surrender.”
Next: Faces.