Custer’s Last Stand
The Tragedy of Little Bighorn is such a tale for over a hundred years. This is one of the most startling defeats in the Military history. More than two hundred cavalrymen were killed in battle on June 25, 1876. Is General Custer to blame for all this mishap with the loss of his troopers including himself? Who was the real person to blame? The details aren’t fully covered in the mystery of what happened at Little Bighorn.
The Europeans came to battle with the Indians to conquer the North American land that hundreds of Indian nations had lived on for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. The Indians chief, Sitting Bull was a great military, political, and spiritual leader. He had a vision that the whites were going to battle with them. So the Indians were ready for battle. Who knows what would have happened if Sitting Bull didn’t get his visions. Would they be prepared? Would they have lost more men then they already did? It was a big concern to go to battle because of the loss of his people, but he knew that they were going to be successful with the challenge.
The Europeans didn’t care about the Indians. “Everywhere that Indians live the whites speak of them as lazy, living off the Federal Government, drinking up their dole. It is essentially the same view of the Indian that prevailed in the seventeenth century.” This means that the whites felt strongly about the Indians not caring or being willing to pay for the natural resources that they were using up. All the whites cared about was the value of the land and the natural precious gold’s that came with it.
General Custer and his men had been traveling for on going days without food and water. Lack of energy might have been the case for most of Custer’s’ men’s deaths including himself. Fresh trails were reported and on June 25th an Indian village twenty miles above the mouth of the little horn was reported about three miles long and half a mile wide and fifteen miles away. Custer pushed his command rapidly though they had made a march of seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours preceding the battle when near the village it was discovered that the Indians were moving in hot haste as if retreating. Reno with seven companies of the seventh cavalry was ordered to the left to attack the village at its head while Custer with five companies went to the right and commenced a vigorous attack.
To many of the English colonists, any land that was granted to them in a charter by the English Crown was theirs’, with no consideration for the natives that had already owned the land. This belittlement of Indians caused great problems for the English later on, for the natives did not care about what the Crown granted the colonists for it was not theirs’ to grant in the first place. The theory of European superiority over the Native Americans caused for any differences in the way the cultures interacted, as well as amazing social unrest between the two cultures.
The 7th Cavalry Regiment's destruction at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876 is the subject of over a century of debate. LTC George A. Custer failed to exercise four key responsibilities that were expected of him as the regiment’s commander. He failed to understand the problem and environment, visualize a feasible solution, clearly describe it to his subordinates, and effectively direct his forces. These four aspects of mission command are integral to the operations process and help Soldiers understand and execute their commander's intent. Custer's failure to properly fulfill his role in the operations process resulted in his death and a strategic defeat for the nation.
Panzeri, Peter. 1995. Little Big Horn 1876: Custer's Last Stand. 8th Ed. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing.
Epple J. C. (1970). Custer’s battle of the Washita and A history of the Plains Indian Tribes
...so that the debt would force Indians to sell their land to the whites (Foner 310). Under the rule of the two parties, Indians had two choices: to give up their land to the whites and move further west or to assimilate themselves into the white society.
Today Custer’s last stand is one of the most famous events in American History. Two Thousand Sioux Native Americans slaughtered General George Custer’s army of 600 men armed with guns. Crazy Horse was a very important leader in the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Kinevan, Marcos E. "Frontier cavlryman, Lieutenant John bigelow with the Buffalo Soldiers in Texas." Texas Western Press, 1998.
There are many factors that did affect the outcome of this battle. George Custer could be to blame for such a tragedy. He did make the critical decisions that brought his soldiers down. Custer’s personal ambition got the best of him. Windolph explains, “Custer was partially disgraced because General Terry had superseded him in command of the expedition” (Windolph 174). He felt that he should have received control over the entire expedition. Custer made no secret of his intention to cut loose from Terry. General Terry, General Gibbon, and General Custer were all to meet on June 26, at the Rosebud, and plan their attack. But as soon as Custer struck the trail of the Indians he followed it till he came upon the Indian village on June 25. He disobeyed Terry’s orders.
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on was still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly began. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives.
The Indians thought of land very differently to the white man. The land was sacred, there was no ownership, and it was created by the great spirit. They could not sell their land to others, whereas the white people could fence off the land which belonged to them, and sell it freely to whoever they wanted. The Europeans didn't think that the Indians were using the land properly, so in their eyes, they were doing a good favour to the earth. To the Indians, the land was more valuable than the money that the white man had brought with him, even though it didn't belong to them.
In 1871 the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a route through Hunkpapa lands, which the same railway returned following federal troops. Sitting Bull and the tribe Hunkpapa attacked the survey party, which turned back on them with force. Later In 1873, Sitting Bull's resisted the survey strongly which lead to bankruptcy. The construction of the railroad through Lakota, Dakota Territory came to a stop. After mining in the territories, which provided them in finding gold and caused uprising gains of wealth from it. That caused attention to men like, Col. George Custer who led an expedition to explore the Black Hills for gold. Also announcing that black hills was a gold rush caused tension between Lakota people and the
The battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s last stand, was also a prime example of the cruelty towards the Native Americans. The battle of Little Bighorn took place in 1876 in Montana. The government was falling back on a treaty they signed with the Sioux and Cheyenne Tribes. They were already placed onto a reservation, but when gold was discovered on the reservation, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was sent to trap them and then wait for backup to force the Native American’s from the land. Custer disobeyed orders and attacked instead.
The Europeans invaded America with every intention of occupying the land, the bountiful natural resources as well as the complete domination of the native people. The Europeans desire for the land created an explosive situation for the native peoples as they witnessed their land and right to freedom being stripped from them. They often found themselves having to choose sides of which to pledge their allegiance to. The Europeans depended upon Indian allies to secure the land and their dominance as well as trade relations with the Indians. The Indians were in competition with one another for European trade causing conflict among the different tribes altering the relationships where friends became enemies and vice versa (Calloway, 2012, p. 163). These relationships often became embittered and broke into bloody brawls where it involved, "Indian warriors fighting on both sides, alongside the European forces as well as against European forces invad...
In addition to the road to battle, it is important to know that historical accounts of what led to the battle and what transpired are in dispute. These are not disputes over minor items, such as the exact order of battle or a clear sequence of events in what was a confusing night and dawn battle. Accounts of what transpired are often fundamentally different, and it is clear that various actors suppressed or championed differing accounts for political or personal reasons. By some accounts, the battle began by accident as an Indian patrol sent to keep watch on the Americans drew fire from nervous American sentries, leading the Indians only a mile away at Prophetstown to attack. By other accounts, the Indians planned a deliberate attack in order to strike the American force before the Americans could strike the Indians. Harrison touted the battle as a decisive victory that broke up the Indian confederacy and many historians agreed. However, modern accounts argue that the battle actuall...
The Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied all of the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who speaked hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large built terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper. seashells and soapstone.To this day, movies and television continue the stereotype of Indians wearing feathered headdresses killing innocent white settlers. As they encountered the Europeans, automatically their material world was changed. The American Indians were amazed by the physical looks of the white settlers, their way of dressing and also by their language. The first Indian-White encounter was very peaceful and trade was their principal interaction. Tension and disputes were sometimes resolved by force but more often by negotiation or treaties. On the other hand, the Natives were described as strong and very innocent creatures awaiting for the first opportunity to be christianized. The Indians were called the “Noble Savages” by the settlers because they were cooperative people but sometimes, after having a few conflicts with them, they seem to behaved like animals. We should apprehend that the encounter with the settlers really amazed the natives, they were only used to interact with people from their own race and surroundings and all of this was like a new discovery for them as well as for the white immigrants. The relations between the English and the Virginian Indians was somewhat strong in a few ways. They were having marriages among them. For example, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, many said it has a political implication to unite more settlers with the Indians to have a better relation between both groups. As for the Indians, their attitude was always friendly and full of curiosity when they saw the strange and light-skinned creatures from beyond the ocean. The colonists only survived with the help of the Indians when they first settler in Jamestown and Plymouth. In this areas, the Indians showed the colonists how to cultivate crops and gather seafood.The Indians changed their attitude from welcome to hostility when the strangers increased and encroached more and more on hunting and planting in the Natives’ grounds.