Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Little Bighorn Battlefield

Stopped by to see this today while on our drive. It is a really neat area. All the 220 soldiers who died in Custer's battalion (except Custer) are now buried in a common grave surrounding a monument they put on "Last Stand Hill". There are grave markers lining the battlefield where the men had actually fallen. This really brought the battle to reality for us. Standing on Last Stand Hill, we could see several area of conflict including where the original charge of Custer towards the Little Bighorn happened.

They even have a memorial at the site to mark the horses killed in the battle. The group that made it to Last Stand Hill used their dead horses (and killed their own horses) to try and use them as defensive barriers (think like sandbags). At this point, they were completely surrounded and had no hope.

The regiments to the west (Major Reno) tried to locate Custer but kept getting repulsed by Indian attacks. While Reno suffered some causalties to his group (40 dead and 13 wounded), they were ultimately saved as the indians retreated as additional soldier groups were spotted moving in to reinforce Reno.

Custer, by the way, was moved to Westpoint and is buried on its grounds.

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