Monty & Dinah's Adventures: Day 17 -- Battle of the Little Big Horn!

Today, we had a leisurely morning and took care of the puppies. They have been great travelers! No messes in the camper and no bad behaviors with the neighbors. After getting all of our morning chores done, we headed out to Garryowen, Montana first to the Custer Museum. It was almost more tourist trap than museum. They did have a tomb of an unknown soldier there along with many artifacts. The artifacts included a set of gauntlets that they said had been verified to be the ones taken from Custer's body after the battle. They had many letters and documents and period pictures, etc. It was very interesting, but not what we drove all this way to see.

Our next stop was the Little Big Horn Battlefield Memorial and graveyard. We were quite impressed with the facilities and the personnel who manned the Battlefield Memorial. There was a short orientation video and a talk by the park Ranger every hour. We decided to take a bus tour provided by the Apsalooke (Crow) Indians. They provided a very good native american guide and an air conditioned bus which drove us along the road which traced the path of the main battles and the grave stone markers in the battle field. This battle field is unique in one aspect. Almost all of the deaths are identified with grave stones marking the location of all the 7th Cavalry soldiers and Indian warriors who were killed during the battles. The Cavalry are marked with white grave stones and the Indians were marked with Red grave stones. There weren't many Indian markers because the families of the dead Indians had come and removed the bodies for burial and spiritual ceremonies. The only way we know where some of the prominent Indians died is their families would erect stone cairns to mark where their brave family members had died to protect their family.

It was really interesting listening to the native american Indian versions of battles and then hearing the white man's version of events. I can't detail all of the differences, but suffice it to say, that their were hints of differences that the white men didn't believe, until 1983 when there was a major fire in the battle field. After the fire, investigators petitioned the government to use metal detectors in the battle field to get better forensic information about where parts of the battle occurred and who actually participated in those battles. Well, long story short, they collected thousands of artifacts and info and after correlating all the data with the stories of the native Indians and the white men, it turns out the native Indians had been telling the truth all along. All of a sudden, their version of the battles started taking front seat in the telling.

Great park, great story. The native Indians wanted nothing more that "Peace thru Unity". The white man wanted the gold and all the other resources. So, the white man broke all of the treaties that they signed with the native Indians and the native Indians revolted. But, they could only fight for so long and they didn't have enough people or resources to continue the fight. So, once again, the white man prevailed.

Custer wasn't as bad a commander as many have made him out to be and the native Indians were fighting to protect their families and lands and way of life. And they won the battle, but lost the war.

I have purchased a book that was recommended by the native guide from our bus tour called "The Terrible Glory" by James Donovan. Mr. Donovan has taken all of the latest research, forensics and eye witness stories and compiled this book. Our guide says and the reviews say that it is probably the best accounting of what happened at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. If you are interested, you can check it out yourself.

Below are some pictures we took while visiting the Memorial. You can see more, here.