Battle of the Little Big Horn
Trip Start
Apr 18, 2007
1
38
173
Trip End
Oct 16, 2007
Billings,
Montana,
United States
Friday, May 25, 2007
Set off for Battle of the Little Big Horn site 50 miles back down the (now infamous) 212, not expecting much...but as it turned out it is a National Park and the whole thing is very well done. The weather was a sunny day with blue skies and those little fluffy white clouds - perfect.
Background to the story is that the US Govt wanted all the pesky Indians to go back to their reservations and be fed by the US. The Indians wanted to continue their nomadic way of life hunting their own food. The problem had arisen because gold had been found in the Black Hills and the US Govt could no longer keep prospectors out of what was an Indian Reservation. So laws had been passed to limit where the Indians could go.
Three divisions had been sent out to trap the large Indian group that had formed to fight back
Custer's Last Stand
. One group had been pushed back and another was no yet engaged being some many miles away. Custer made contact and despite being warned that the Indian group was too large to attack pressed on to destroy the village of 6,000 by the Big Horn River before they moved on having spotted the oncoming Cavalry.Bottom line is that Custer was so keen to beat up on the Indians that he attacked 2,000 warriors with a divided troop of circa 400 7th Cavalry. It wasn't an ambush massacre at all - more he went looking for a fight and over-looked the fact he needed to pick on someone his own size.
Not so much an honorable sacrifice - more the needless loss of US troops in the search for glory by an egotistical megalomaniac.
The Site has a road trail running through is whereby you can follow in the tracks of Custer and force of 220 as they get chased along a ridge for two miles and eventually surrounded on "Last Stand Hill"
Here's the link to more info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn
We drove back to Billings and fell asleep for 90 mins - we were both very tired after the adventure I guess.
