Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Battle of Little Bighorn

One of the places we stopped once in Montana was where the Battle of Little Bighorn took place. People are generally know it better as the place of "Custer's Last Stand". I had no idea until we toured the area that there was such a large area where the battle took place.

These teepees were outside the battlefield at a trading post. First time I've seen colored ones. Established in 1886,Custer National Cemetery is within Little Bighorn Battlefield. . It has approximately 4,900 interments, with at least 100 reserved spaces for veterans or spouses still that have burial plots. It was offically closed in 1978. Since with many of the archeological surveys, they keep finding remains and an area has been reserved for their reburial. Also, there were at least 25 abandon military post or forts, so those remains are recovered and interned here.Plus those that served in the U.S. Military during the Indian Wars, Spanish American War, World War One, World War Two, Korean War, and Vietnam.

There are many traditions that involve placing objects, specifically money, on graves. These traditions are usually regional or customary practices and do not necessarily have religious connotations.

In American tradition, pennies are left on Benjamin Franklin's grave. There is a photo of his funeral in Philadelphia; his grave is adorned with pennies, no doubt placed there as a token by some of the 20,000 people that came that day to pay their respects. This custom was eventually associated with good luck and may have spread to graves in general in America.

Some use pennies as a prayer token for the line "In God we trust" which appears on the American penny.

Some people hold to the tradition of leaving something of yourself when visiting a grave. If nothing else, a coin from your pocket serves as a marker of your passage and esteem for the departed. It also signifies to any that pass by that the grave was visited, and that the deceased is well loved and esteemed and has not been abandoned or forgotten. Coins are also an older form of leaving flowers, a practice prompted by the heavy Romanticism of the Victorian era.

Some believe that to leave a coin on a grave brings good luck. Students in some areas are known to leave pennies on the graves of their school's founder in the hopes of good luck with exams.

Some are, perhaps unwittingly, mimicking the ancient tradition where gold coins were buried with the corpse in order to pay the toll charged by Charon, the boatman of the Underworld, for passage to the other side of the river Styx. It was considered impious not to leave this toll with the dead as it would condemn them to forever wander the shores without cease.

It started as an old tradition to leave a penny at the grave site of a loved one as a gesture of deep love and missing. However, when tourists pay their respect to Benjamin Franklin, pennies dot his tombstone, as a local tradition claims that such a practice will bring the penny-tosser luck.
Markers of indian scouts helping Custer.

The exact number of Indian warriors participating in the battle has never been determined and remains controversial. It has been estimated that in the overall battle the warriors outnumbered the 7th Cavalry by approximately three to one, or roughly 1800 against 600. In Custer's fight, this ratio could have increased to as high as nine to one (1800 against 200) after his isolated command became the main focus of the fighting. Some historians, however, claim the ratio of the Custer fight to be as low as three to one. At any rate, Custer's detachment was certainly outnumbered and was caught in the open on unfamiliar terrain. It is interesting to note that within weeks of the battle, the estimate of the number of Indian warriors steadily increased.
Recent archaeological work at the battlefield site indicates that organized resistance in the form of skirmish lines probably took place. The remainder of the battle possibly took on the nature of a running fight. Modern archeology and historical Indian accounts indicate that Custer's force may have been divided into three groups, with the Indians attempting to prevent them from effectively reuniting. Indian accounts describe warriors (including women) running up from the village to wave blankets in order to scare off the soldiers' horses. Fighting dismounted, the soldiers' skirmish lines were most likely overwhelmed. Studies show that it would have taken an hour to cover the long stretch over which the troopers died and by most accounts, the battle was over within this time.

Army doctrine would have called for one man in four to be a horseholder on the skirmish lines and, in extreme cases, one man in eight. As the Custer field is unique, in that markers were placed where men were believed to have fallen a couple of years after the battle, the placements of troops have been roughly construed. The troops evidently died in several groups, including on Custer Hill, around Captain Myles Keogh and strung out towards the Little Big Horn River. As individual troopers were wounded or killed, initial defensive positions would have become untenable.
While driving around the battlefield, I kept noticing patches of white beside the road and on the ridges. These are spider webs for something called "funnel spiders". Strange.
Last Stand Hill...
In the end, the hilltop itself was probably too small to accommodate the survivors and wounded. Fire from the south east made it impossible for Custer's men to put in a defensive position all around Last Stand Hill. On Last Stand Hill, however, the soldiers put up their most dogged defense. According to native accounts, far more Indian causalities occurred in the attack on Last Stand Hill than anywhere else. The extent of their resistance would seem to indicate that the soldiers had little doubts about their prospects for survival. Nevertheless, according to Indian testimony, the command structure rapidly broke down, although smaller "last stands" were apparently made by several groups. Soon Custer's remaining companies C, E, and K were wiped out with the last approximately 28 survivors making a running dash right through Indian lines south for the river. They were trapped in the box canyon that is called "Deep Ravine" and their deaths signaled the end of the Battle and the complete annihilation of Custer's 5 companies.

By almost all accounts, within less than an hour Custer's force was completely annihilated. David Humphreys Miller, who between 1935 and 1955 interviewed the last Indian survivors of the battle, wrote that the Custer fight lasted less than one-half hour. The Lakota asserted that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of warriors that eventually overwhelmed the cavalrymen in a surprise charge from the northeast, causing a breakdown in the command structure and panic among the troops. Many of these men threw down their weapons while Cheyenne and Sioux warriors rode them down, "counting coup" with lances, coup sticks and quirts. Some Indian accounts recalled this segment of the fight as a "buffalo run.

Modern documentaries suggest that there may not have been a "Last Stand," as traditionally portrayed in popular culture. Instead, archaeologists suggest that, in the end, Custer's troops were not surrounded but rather overwhelmed by a single charge. This scenario corresponds to several Indian accounts stating Crazy Horse's charge swarmed the resistance, with the surviving soldiers fleeing in panic. At this point, the fight became a rout with warriors riding down the fleeing troopers and hitting them with lances and coup sticks. Many of these troopers may have ended up in a deep ravine 300–400 yards away from what is known today as Custer Hill. At least 28 (most common number associated with burial witness testimony is 28) bodies, including that of scout Mitch Bouyer, were discovered in or near that gulch, their deaths possibly the battle's final actions. Although the marker for Mitch Bouyer has been accounted for as being accurate through archaeological and forensic testing, it is some 65 yards away from Deep Ravine. Other archaeological explorations done in Deep Ravine have found no human remains associated with the battle.

According to other Indian accounts, about 40 men made a desperate stand around Custer on Custer Hill, delivering volley fire.
The great majority of the Indian casualties were probably suffered during this closing segment of the battle as the soldiers and Indians on Calhoun Hill were more widely separated and traded fire at greater distances for most of their portion of the Battle than were the soldiers and Indians on Custer Hill. It is important to note that some 47 marble markers, originally intended for Reno-Benteen Hill, were mistakenly taken to the Custer side of the battlefield. Soldiers told of placing two markers over a body, one at the head and one at the foot of the soldier's remains. This may explain the pairing of double markers at several places especially on Calhoun Hill and at other places at that end of the battlefield.
At least 100 American Indian men, women, and children died, too. They fought in defense of their families, land, and traditional way of life. The Indians’ courageous effort, however, was never formally recognized-until now.

In 1991, the U.S. Congress changed the name of the battlefield and ordered construction of a privately funded memorial for the American Indians.

"The public interest," according to Public Law 102-210, 'will best be served by establishing a memorial...to honor and recognize the Indians who fought to preserve their land and culture."
On December 10, 1991, President George Bush signed legislation to change the battefield’s name from “Custer” to “Little Bighorn” BattlefieldNational Monument and to create the Indian Memorial. The law authorized a national design competition, construction of the memorial, and acceptance of donations.

An advisory committee made up of members of the Indian tribes involved in the battle, historians, artists, and landscape architects has overseen the process. The committee adopted the theme “Peace Through Unity” in accordance with the advice of Elders Austin Two Moons (Northern Cheyenne) and Enos Poor bear, Sr. (Oglala Lakota).

The theme would help “encourage peace among people of all races,” as required by the law.
The Indian Memorial stands 75 yards northeast of the 7th Cavalry monument, a circular earthwork carved gently into the prairie.

Visitors inside the memorial see a view of the Cavalry obelisk through a “spirit gate” window. The spirit gate welcomes the Cavalry dead symbolically into the memorial’s circle. For many tribes, a circle is sacred, and it remains open for ceremonial events. The surrounding walls carry the names of those who fell here as well as the words of some who fought in the battle.

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