On the afternoon of June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry looked down from the bluffs across the Little Bighorn River at one of the largest Native American encampments ever assembled. Custer had driven his men nearly one hundred miles in pursuit of Sitting Bull, the camp’s leader, with orders to compel him and his allied Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho followers back to the Great Sioux Reservation. But Sitting Bull had never signed any treaty and refused to surrender his people’s nomadic way of life. He was prepared to fight to keep it.

Custer divided his regiment into four battalions. Three companies were placed under Captain Frederick Benteen, three more under Major Marcus Reno, five companies remained under Custer’s personal command, and the remaining forces guarded the supply train. The confrontation that followed would shape the destiny of the American West. The roots of the conflict reached back to April 29, 1868, when the United States and certain factions of the Sioux Nation ratified the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie.

That treaty established the boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation. In return, the Native Americans were expected to stop attacking American railroads and settlers and to depend on government assistance. Washington wanted the Plains Indians to adopt an agricultural, settled way of life. But several Sioux bands refused to accept the treaty and considered themselves bound by nothing it contained.

Their leader, Sitting Bull, rejected the agreement outright and was adamantly opposed to life on a reservation. In 1874, the U. S. Army sent Custer into the Black Hills to identify a site for a new fort and to investigate reports of gold.

The expedition found the metal in modest quantities, and American prospectors flooded into the region. The incursion violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and inflamed tensions further. In 1875, the government ordered all non-reservation Indians to return to their designated agencies by January 31, 1876, or face military action. The deadline passed without compliance, and preparations for war began.

Through the spring of 1876, the army devised a three-pronged campaign. General George Crook would advance north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming with about 1,000 troops. Colonel John Gibbon would move east from Fort Ellis along the Yellowstone River with 450 soldiers. General Alfred Terry would march west from Fort Lincoln in Dakota Territory with 879 men, mostly from the Seventh Cavalry under Custer.

The planners assumed that any one of these columns could handle Sitting Bull’s estimated force of 800 to 1,500 warriors. They also believed that whichever column found the camp first would engage immediately, because the Indians were highly mobile and could vanish quickly. On June 4, Sitting Bull performed a Sun Dance at Deer Medicine Rocks. In his vision, he saw American soldiers falling into his camp, and he predicted a great victory over the Blue Coats.

Six days later, Major Reno took six companies of the Seventh Cavalry on a reconnaissance mission between the Powder and Tongue Rivers to locate the village. On June 17, Crook’s column was ambushed near the Rosebud River by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors under Crazy Horse. The Battle of the Rosebud ended as a minor victory for the Lakota, forcing Crook to withdraw and wait for reinforcements. That same day, Reno returned from his scout and reported finding abandoned Lakota villages in the valley.

On June 22, Custer received orders to take twelve companies of the Seventh Cavalry up the Rosebud in pursuit. The plan called for Custer to strike the camp and drive the Indians toward Terry and Gibbon’s combined force, trapping them in a pincer movement. On the morning of June 25, Custer’s scouts finally located the village. They estimated its population at roughly 8,000 people, with between 1,500 and 2,000 warriors ready to fight.

Custer had hoped to launch a surprise attack at dawn on June 26, but his scouts warned him the Lakota had already detected the American presence. Fearing the Indians would slip away and remain beyond the reservation’s boundaries, Custer decided to attack immediately. The village occupied a flat plain in the valley of the Little Bighorn, with steep, broken bluffs rising on the eastern bank. The Americans planned a two-pronged assault.

Reno was to strike the southern end of the camp while Custer moved along the bluffs to hit the northern flank. Benteen held a reserve force to support either attack. Reno crossed the river shortly after 3:00 p. m.

and charged toward the village. Because of a bend in the river lined with trees, he could not see the camp’s true size until he rounded it. He then realized the immense scale of the village and suspected he was riding into a trap. Reno ordered his men to dismount and form a skirmish line, opening fire on the village.

The volleys struck both warriors and civilians indiscriminately. For twenty minutes, Reno’s line held, and he suffered only a single casualty. But a large Indian force gathered in concealed ground and struck his left flank, forcing the soldiers to fall back to a wooded bend along the river. The assault did not ease.

Reno’s scout, Bloody Knife, was shot in the head, and his blood splattered across Reno’s face. The major was deeply shaken. He ordered his men to mount, then dismount, then mount again, before telling those who wished to escape to follow him. What followed was a chaotic retreat across the river.

Soldiers were cut down as they struggled through the water under heavy fire, and the wounded were left behind. Reno and the survivors scrambled up the steep bluffs on the far bank to establish a defensive position. Benteen soon arrived, having been on a reconnaissance when he received a message from Custer urging him to hurry forward with the ammunition packs. Benteen suspected Custer was already engaged, but Reno, as the senior officer on the hill, refused to move until Benteen’s baggage train caught up.

The delay cost precious time. Meanwhile, the warriors who had driven off Reno shifted downstream toward Custer’s column. From Reno Hill, the soldiers heard gunfire in that direction. Uncertain what was happening, Reno descended the bluff to search for the body of one of his fallen subordinates while Benteen organized the defense.

Captain Thomas Weir, frustrated by the lack of urgency, disobeyed orders and led his company north along the bluffs to support Custer. Other soldiers, including Benteen, followed. From the northern end of the bluff, Weir spotted a smoky battle about four miles away, with warriors firing at targets on the ground. The Americans realized Custer was being overwhelmed.

Once the fighting in the north ended, the Indians turned their attention to Weir and Benteen along the ridge. Benteen withdrew his strung-out forces and returned to Reno Hill with only one casualty. The defenders held their position against Indian fire until sunset. The next morning, the Indians attempted to press their advantage from the southern end of the hill, but Reno and Benteen, holding the high ground with roughly 300 men, repelled the attack with minimal losses.

Afterward, the Indian camp moved farther down the valley. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was over. What happened to Custer’s battalion remains partly speculative, pieced together from secondhand accounts and still disputed. During Reno’s fight, Custer had moved north along the bluffs.

He watched Reno’s initial success, then pushed forward, hoping to capture non-combatants and use them as leverage. He sent three companies under Captain Myles Keogh to occupy a high ridge as a rallying point for Benteen’s approaching troops. Custer himself, accompanied by Captain George Yates, advanced down Medicine Tail Coulee toward the river. There he found the village apparently abandoned except for a few warriors.

Company L, led by James Calhoun, exchanged fire with them. Custer decided against crossing the river and regrouped with Keogh, continuing north in search of a crossing point to seize the fleeing non-combatants. He instructed Keogh to hold his position on what became known as Calhoun Hill while Custer and Yates searched for a ford. As Custer moved toward the river, the warriors who had fought Reno crossed the stream and headed for Keogh’s troops.

Custer saw thousands of non-combatants fleeing the village and understood that his force was far too small to capture them. He shifted his men to Cemetery Ridge, intending to wait for Benteen before attempting a full-scale seizure. The Indians, however, advanced through Calhoun Coulee, and Keogh sent Company C from the reserve to protect his right flank. The company’s new position weakened Keogh’s firing line.

The warriors launched a counterattack against Company C’s skirmish line, and without support from Keogh’s main force, the company retreated on foot to Calhoun Ridge, losing more than half its men. Calhoun tried to reposition his line westward to cover the survivors, but the southern flank lay exposed. Indian fire broke the line, and the American position collapsed. Company E on Cemetery Ridge was struck by a contingent of Cheyenne warriors and cut apart.

Keogh and his remaining troops were soon surrounded on three sides. Warriors, including Crazy Horse, swept down on the disorganized soldiers. The few who tried to escape across Battle Ridge were hunted down one by one. Custer, watching the destruction from across the ridge, pulled his remaining men to Last Stand Hill.

He formed them into two lines. Keogh’s survivors were annihilated before they could reach him. The warriors encircled Custer’s position, which offered almost no cover. Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and use the bodies as breastworks.

He sent riders down from the hill in attempts to scatter the gathering warriors, but they were intercepted and killed. By 5:30 p. m. , Custer and his men were completely isolated.

Hit by gunfire and arrows, they were finished off by warriors armed with axes and clubs. Not one of Custer’s 210 men survived. The total American loss at the Little Bighorn reached 268 killed. The Native Americans lost roughly fifty warriors.

Reno’s survivors remained unaware of Custer’s fate until June 27, when Terry and Gibbon’s combined force reached the battlefield. The news stunned them. They had never believed an indigenous force could destroy an entire American battalion. Sitting Bull’s victory was devastating, but it came at a terrible price.

Custer’s death transformed him into a martyr and galvanized American resolve against the Plains Indians. Within a year, most of the warriors who fought at the Little Bighorn had surrendered and been placed on reservations. Sitting Bull fled to Canada and lived in exile for years. Crazy Horse surrendered on May 6, 1877, and was confined at the Pine Ridge Reservation.

After rumors spread that he planned to escape, soldiers attempted to arrest him, and in the ensuing struggle he was fatally stabbed. Native American resistance to American authority would continue until the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.