THE LAST STAND: LITTLE BIG HORN

In the winter of 1868, George Armstrong Custer led his 7th Cavalry in an attack against a large Cheyenne camp on the Washita River in Oklahoma Territory. Long Hair, as the Cheyenne called him, ordered many men, women and children killed, their tepees and belongings destroyed. It was a massacre the Cheyenne would never forget. On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory, Lieutenant Colonel Custer again led his cavalry in what he thought would be another successful attack against the Cheyenne and Sioux. However, 2500 Indian warriors, under Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall, were ready and waiting. The cavalry plunged into disaster. This is Custer's "Last Stand" from the Indian's point of view. Custer is in the background, just one of 266 men about to meet their demise in a rain of arrows and gunfire. The Indians who recalled the battle afterward had slightly conflicting accounts. Some said the cavalry were shot off their horses; others say they dismounted and fought on foot. Still other eyewitnesses said that when many of the soldiers were faced with the great numbers of enemy, they committed suicide with a bullet to the temple. Sitting Bull said afterward, "I tell no lies about dead men. These men who came with 'Long Hair' were as good men as ever fought."