4th of July, Little Bighorn, Montana
I didn't plan to be at the Little Bighorn Battlefield on the 4th
of July, it's just the way our wandering route fell. The battlefield was
sobering. The simple headstones marking where each soldier fell, widely
scattered a few hundred yards out, gradually condensing to a tight cluster at
the spot of the last stand. The rolling grassy hills offer no close-range
cover or concealment, but you could hide an army just over the ridge.
Kappy asked me where Custer's forces had camped the night before the
battle? I didn't know and found out they had ridden all night long in an effort
to surprise the Sioux. By the time of the battle (noon) they hadn't
slept for 36 hours.
It feels sort of like a civil war battlefield in that I identify
with both sides. There is no right side.
The individual soldiers that fell here had no part in the politics that
led to this confrontation. The
desperation of this fight is best illustrated by the final tactics of the
cavalrymen. They shot their horses to
form a bulwark to fight behind. No time for a kind farewell to Old Blackie, you
must put him place and shoot him in the head so he drops straight down. You can’t move him after he’s dead. A desperate
thing indeed.
Three miles away, and unaware of the slaughter of Custer’s forces,
a detached battalion of the 7th Cavalry had its own battle. Initially overwhelmed by the Sioux warriors,
they managed a panicked retreat to a hilltop and dug some hasty trenches. It cannot be said they won their fight, but
half or more survived. The bravest men in this fight were the volunteers that
twice went for water, creeping down a gully with canteens around their neck and
a 2-gallon kettle in their hands. Reaching the end of cover, they would run for
the river and flop down and fill their containers under fire from the Indians;
then another dash for the gully laden with water; a desperate scramble to the
relative safety of their lines.
More than 60 wounded men
from this engagement were cared for by a single surgeon during the battle and
for the 10 days it took to carry them by litter and boat to Fort Abraham
Lincoln near present day Bismark, North Dakota.
There are stacks of books written about the battle and all its
participants if you are interested. I
just wanted to mention a few things that struck me as pertinent, if little
known.
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