Battle of the Little Bighorn and Colonel George Custer Essay

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BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN

In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting
Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US
Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.i think that we did a good job on defeating custer cause if it wasn’t for us we would be wiped out, even if we just gathered to pick berries adn hunt,cause the white men gave us spoiled food rations. To force the large Indian army back to the reservations, the Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Spotting the Sioux village about fifteen miles away along the Rosebud River on June 25, Custer also found a nearby group of about forty warriors. Ignoring orders to wait, he decided to attack before they could alert the main party. He did not realize that the number of warriors in the village numbered three times his strength.
Dividing his forces in three, Custer sent troops under Captain Frederick
Benteen to prevent their escape through the upper valley of the Little
Bighorn River. Major Marcus Reno was to pursue the group, cross the river, and charge the Indian village in a coordinated effort with the remaining troops under his command. He hoped to strike the Indian encampment at the northern and southern ends simultaneously, but made this decision without knowing what kind of terrain he would have to cross before making his assault. He belatedly discovered that he would have to negotiate a maze of bluffs and ravines to attack.

Reno's squadron of 175 soldiers attacked the southern end. Quickly finding themselves in a desperate battle with little hope of any relief,
Reno halted his charging men before they could be trapped, fought for ten minutes in dismounted formation, and then withdrew into the timber and brush along the river. When that position proved indefensible, they retreated uphill to the bluffs east of the river, pursued hotly by a mix of
Cheyenne and Sioux.

Just as they finished driving the soldiers out, the Indians found roughly
210 of Custer's men coming towards the other end of the village, taking the pressure off of Reno's men. Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux together crossed the river and slammed into the advancing soldiers, forcing them back to a long high ridge to the north. Meanwhile, another force, largely
Oglala Sioux under Crazy Horse's command, swiftly moved downstream and then doubled back in a sweeping arc, enveloping Custer and his men in a pincer move. They began pouring in gunfire and arrows.

wounded knee massacre

Arrival of the "Ghost Dance".
Called the "Ghost Dance" by the white soldiers who observed the new practice, it spread rapidly across the continent. Instead of bringing the answer to their prayers, however, the "Ghost Dance" movement resulted in yet another human travesty. It all began in 1888 with a Paiute holy man called Wovoka. During a total eclipse of the sun,
Wovoka received a message from the Creator. Soon an Indian messiah would come and the world would be free of the white man. The Indians could return to their lands and the buffalo would once again roam the
Great Plains.Wovoka
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