Battle of the Little Bighorn
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| date | June 25. bis 26. June 1876 |
|---|---|
| place | Little Bighorn River , Montana , USA |
| output | Indian victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Sitting Bull |
George A. Custer † |
| Troop strength | |
| approx. 950–1200 warriors, approx. 6000 civilians |
31 officers 566 soldiers 35–40 scouts 5 civilians |
| losses | |
|
approx. 40 warriors killed |
268 killed |
In the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, the 7th US Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer was made up of Indians from the Lakota - and Dakota - Sioux , Arapaho and Cheyenne under their leaders Sitting Bull , Crazy Horse and Gall on Little Bighorn River in what is now Montana .
It was one of the few major Indian victories against the US Army . According to today's analyzes, their defeat is largely due to Custer's incorrect assessment of the situation, who did not expect to encounter a huge Indian war camp. Custer's division of his regiment into smaller groups also weakened his concerted combat power.
prehistory
The American forces were ultimately dispatched on the basis of a November 9, 1875 report by the Indian inspector EC Watkins that several hundred Lakota and Cheyennes, led by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Big Foot, were hostile to the United States.
This was preceded by attempts to persuade the Sioux to sell the Black Hills . The Black Hills were sacred to the Sioux as well as the Cheyenne and were considered to be the center of the world. An illegal military expedition in 1874 under General George Armstrong Custer had reported gold discoveries at French Creek in the Black Hills, which led to an onslaught of thousands of prospectors . Although the Black Hills were just across the western border of the Great Sioux Reservation of 1868, they were part of a huge area in which the Sioux had been granted exclusive hunting rights "as long as the buffalo populations justify the hunt". After the US Army made a few half-hearted attempts to drive the prospectors out of the Black Hills and individual Sioux troops hunted down the invaders, the US government began purchase negotiations with the Oglala-Lakota of the reservation. However, the reservation Indians under Red Cloud declined to sell. Certain groups under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Gall had never recognized the contract of 1868 anyway and stayed outside the Sioux reservation in the non-ceded hunting areas. In December 1875 the government decided to wrest the Black Hills from the Indians by force. She gave the Indians an ultimatum to “return” to the reservation in the middle of winter and thus to clear the Black Hills for the whites. Aside from the fact that many Sioux and Northern Cheyenne did not come from reservations to return to, they would have been unable to meet the ultimatum in the dead of winter.
When winter was over, thousands of Indians secretly left the reservation to join their freelance tribesmen in the Black Hills and Powder River areas .
At the same time, the US Army was preparing to use a tripartite forceps operation to beat the Indians on the Powder River and force them into the reservation.
Approach
The marching column under Brigadier General Alfred Terry , who was also subordinate to Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment, headed west on May 17 from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory . She marched to the Yellowstone River , where she met the supply ship Far West . On June 10, Terry sent the most senior officer in the 7th Cavalry Regiment after Custer, Major Marcus A. Reno , with six companies to the area south of Yellowstone to scout. He was supposed to follow the Powder River up, then advance to the Tongue River to the west and follow this north again to Yellowstone. Reno came across a broad Indian trail, followed it to Rosebud Creek and returned after ten days with a completely overtired troop.
Colonel John Gibbon's marching column with infantry and a battery of Gatling Guns came from Fort Ellis in western Montana to the west and met Terry's troops at the confluence of the Rosebud River with Yellowstone.
Brigadier General George Crook , who with his troops from the south in Wyoming lying Fort Fetterman pushed forward into the area of the Powder River, was in on June 17, 1876 Battle of the Rosebud surprised by an approximately equal-sized force of Sioux and Cheyenne and hours and hours cavalry skirmish involved. Although the mutual losses were rather small and Crook probably lost fewer men than the Indians, he was surprised by the power of the Indians and withdrew to the area of the southeast lying Tongue River to care for the wounded and to get supplies. With this the southern wedge against the Indians was eliminated from the campaign.
Terry, Gibbon and Custer knew nothing about this. On the evening of June 22nd they met at Far West and discussed how to proceed. It was decided that Custer should proceed with the 7th Cavalry Regiment along the Rosebud Valley towards the Bighorn River to search for the Indians. Terry's orders to Custer, however, were unclear. On the one hand, Custer was expected not to strike against the Indians without the main force of Terry and Gibbon, but on the other hand he was given great freedom of action.
Custer's force consisted of about 650 men. It will never be possible to determine exactly how large the Indian force was. Estimates in the past have often been vastly exaggerated, going up to 7,000 warriors. Today it is widely assumed that the Indian village in its assumed extent did not include more than 1000 to a maximum of 2500 warriors. Custer had strict orders not to attack the Indians directly. The reinforcement offered by Terry, the 20th Infantry Platoon with three Gatling repeater guns, he declined. It has often been assumed that he did not want to share the fame. Today it is believed that Custer renounced, assuming that these four-horse-drawn weapons with their escort of more than thirty unmounted infantrymen would hinder the advance of his cavalry in the rough terrain.
Course of the battle
On the morning of June 25, 1876, Custer's scouts discovered the village in the Little Bighorn River valley and reported that Custer was overwhelming. However, Custer ignored their warnings and decided to attack. His fear that his advance had already been discovered and that the element of surprise was about to be lost played an important role. The reason was that some soldiers, looking for food rations that had been lost on the way, came across two Indian boys who were collecting the biscuits that had been scattered on the ground. One of the two managed to escape towards the Indian village.
In the afternoon, Custer split his troops in order to advance from different directions: Captain Frederick W. Benteen was assigned three companies (H, D and K) and assigned to roam the badlands on the left; Major Marcus A. Reno was also given three companies (A, G, and M) and orders to march down the valley and attack the Indians from across the river at the south end of the camp. Custer himself would attack with five companies at the north end of the camp if Reno's attack began. Captain McDougall stayed behind with B Company to protect the supply train.
Reno's attack on the Indian village
At 3:05 p.m., Reno's three companies attacked the southern end of the Indian camp. Although the surprise initially succeeded, around ten women and children were shot and many villagers fled in panic, the Hunkpapa Sioux, led by Gall , were able to quickly repel Reno's attack. First they opened fire on Reno's men head-on, then they began to bypass his left flank , M Company under Captain Thomas H. French. Reno retired to a wood by the river. When his men were attacked there too, the retreat turned into a panic escape, only M Company fought in retreat. Some of the soldiers perished in the river during the escape, but most of them reached the safe right bank of the river and withdrew to the hills beyond where they gathered. Benteen had not encountered any opponents in the area assigned to him and then moved east toward the river. There he met Reno's troops and together with them moved to what was later to be known as the Reno-Benteen Battlefield . Shortly before, Benteen had received an order from Custer through a courier to come to him as soon as possible to assist him and bring him ammunition. He did not carry out the order, however, as he received the order from the senior Reno to support him with his three companies against the attacks of the Indians. Reno was entitled according to the usual rules of command to override Custer's order to Benteen due to the precarious situation on site by his own order to support his troops. Immediately after Benteen's arrival at Reno's position, volleys of heavy rifle fire were heard from the north, where Custer was suspected. The opposing Sioux also heard this gunfire. Except for a few who continued to monitor Reno's defenses, hundreds of them rode off northwards.
Custer's final battle
Custer's five companies - C, E, F, I, and L - attacked down the hill from their location east of the river, but the difficult terrain and river made a typical cavalry attack impossible. Custer's plan to bypass the village in order to grapple with it also failed because of the unknown size of the village. Instead of at the end of the village, he reached it in the middle. The village was protected from him by the river. Custer's companies found no passage through the swampy terrain, and the plan to seize the women and children failed. It is unclear whether some cavalrymen were able to penetrate the village to the west of the river. More and more Indians stormed out of the village and repulsed the attack. In contrast to Custer, the Indians knew the crossings and were able to cross the river quickly. When the superiority seemed too great, an orderly evasion followed. Custer ordered Companies F under Captain George W. Yates and I under Miles W. Keogh to monitor the evasion. This defensive formation fought dismounted, but was overrun by Indians coming from the south after short and hard fighting. It is unclear whether these were Sioux under Gall returning from the battle against Reno. Warriors of the Sioux under Crazy Horse and the Cheyenne under Two Moons bypassed Custer's position in the north, so the soldiers of Custer were surrounded, and any breakout from the battlefield later called Custer Battlefield was impossible. The Indians were now vastly outnumbered and technically superior in terms of weapons. They overran company after company. In addition, women with large kerchiefs intervened in the battle. They waved these wildly and thus scared away the horses with the cavalry's reserve ammunition.
At first, Custer's soldiers fought in formation, soon this disintegrated and the companies fought in smaller, disordered groups. The higher rate of fire of the rifles and bows of the Indians decimated the dismounted cavalrymen very quickly. Custer and about 60 of his men were the last to be killed; on a small hill, now called Custers Last Stand Hill . Custer's five companies were completely destroyed. Except for himself, all corpses were mutilated and scalped , Custer's brother Tom had his heart cut out, Custer's adjutant, Captain WW Cook, had his imposing whiskers cut from his face. Custer had a gunshot wound in the left side and left temple. His eardrums were pierced and a member of his left little finger was cut off, but it was not scalped. At 5:30 p.m. the actual battle was over.
According to legend, the only survivor was Comanche , Captain Miles W. Keogh's horse; this was saddled as a mascot at Defilees for years after the battle .
The battle for the Reno-Benteen position
After McDougall with his B Company and the supply column had also joined Reno and Benteen, Thomas B. Weir and Edward S. Godfreye tried, when they heard gunfire, with their companies to reach the scene. Although only tolerated by Reno and Benteen, these also branched off units to support the advance. At Weir Point arrived, they were pushed back to their original position by attacking from the north Indians. During the state of siege, which was now continuing, more and more Indians attacked the open and difficult to defend position. They killed or wounded some defenders with aimed shots from a distance. Reno and Benteen organized a wounded nest in the center of their position , which was protected with various materials and with horse carcasses. Individual volunteers from Companies H and M, which are located near the river (about 300 meters), supplied the wounded and others with water from the river on the night of June 25th to 26th. They were able to do this because they were to some extent protected from enemy fire by a cut in the terrain, the Water Carrier Ravine . In the late afternoon of June 26th, more and more Indians were withdrawing south and dispersing into smaller groups. On the night of June 27, Reno and Benteen extended their position closer to the river. The next morning, the units of Terry and Gibbons arrived from the north, for whom Custer should have been waiting.
The weapons
The cavalrymen carried single-shot carbines of the Springfield model 1873 trapdoor , which had to be released after each shot so that a new cartridge could be manually inserted into the chamber, and which often jammed when used intensively . However, an advantage of these carbines that should not be underestimated was their range and the penetration power of the projectiles. The soldiers wielded Colt revolvers as secondary weapons . There were no sabers because Custer had feared the clatter of metal while riding might warn the Indians. Custer and other officers had custom weapons in addition to the Colt. However, modern repeating rifles were not available.
One advantage for the attacking Indians was that some of them, it is believed around 200 warriors, were armed with multi-shot repeater rifles made by Spencer , Henry and Winchester . These weapons were designed for a much faster rate of fire than the cavalry carbines, but were only suitable for shorter distances. There were also various single-shot breech-loaders, muzzle-loading rifles and some percussion revolvers . About half of the Indians were armed with bows and arrows . These allowed the mounted Indians a high degree of accuracy up to a medium distance. In addition, there were the traditional melee weapons such as knives, clubs and axes, to which a large number of soldiers under Custer's command fell victim.
losses
The 7th US Cavalry Regiment lost during the fighting on 25/26. June 1876 at Little Bighorn 14 officers, an assistant doctor, 247 soldiers, five civilians and three Indian scouts. 52 were wounded.
- Custer's battalion lost 204 officers, soldiers, scouts.
- Reno lost 44 officers, soldiers and scouts and had 19 wounded, including three officers, 29 soldiers and two scouts attacking the village and retreating.
- Benteen lost eleven soldiers and had 22 wounded.
- McDougall lost five soldiers and had seven wounded.
The fallen were buried by Terry's troops, Gibbon's and survivors. The seriously wounded were taken on mule-carried improvised stretchers to the nearby supply ship Far West . All wounded were brought to the hospital at Fort Abraham Lincoln on the ship in record time.
It is certain that considerably fewer Indians were killed on the battlefield than US soldiers; how many Indians later succumbed to their wounds is unknown. Overall, there is no consensus on the Indian losses. Information about killed warriors goes from only 36 warriors to 136 warriors. In many cases the lowest Indian loss figures are taken up and around 40 dead and around 80 wounded warriors are assumed. There are also about ten women and children who were shot in Reno's attack. Although the Indian losses would be remarkably low compared to the losses of the army, these also represent serious losses for the conditions of the Plains Indians, whose peoples numbered only a few thousand people, which they, unlike the armed forces of the USA, do not compensate could. On the evening of the battle among the Indians, there was hardly any mood of victory.
Reflection as a historical event
The news of the defeat and destruction of Custer's troops did not reach the east coast of the United States until immediately after the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1876. With the support of Custer's widow, the defeat became a part of US history and numerous films transfigured as the battle of a heroic general against the savages. Since the treatment of the Indians during the conquest of America has become an injustice, the image of the Battle of Little Bighorn and that of the "General Custer" has changed at the end of the 20th century.
Significant for this are reports by contemporary witnesses who portray Custer as a military careerist who - in keeping with the zeitgeist of the time - lacked any awareness of wrongdoing in the fight against the North American natives.
In the summer of 1926, on the 50th anniversary of the battle, a media event called a "Reconciliation Festival" took place on the former battlefield, to which historians and chiefs living in the reservations were invited as guests. Spectators from all parts of the country were lured with reduced “General Custer Bahn Tickets”. A special guest was the grandson of Sitting Bull , who (unlike most of the Lakota) lives freely in Canada . In 1926 almost nothing was known about the battle itself, as the Lakota kept silent. On the occasion of the anniversary, it was hoped that Sitting Bull's grandson would provide some details on the course. In reality, however, his public relations appearance was a disaster for the organizers that did not find any echo in the press.
Sitting Bull's grandson put a number of dollar bills on the lectern and said the following: “The white men who invited me here asked me to say some conciliatory words. I cannot say such words to white men who wish to hear forgiving words from me for dollars. That would defile my grandfather's memory. I will give the money back. It lays here. Whoever wants it can take it. These are the words of a free Lakota who lives in Canada and makes a living with his hands. "
The site of the battle has been designated a National Cemetery since 1879 , has been under the National Park Service since 1940 , and has been a National Monument- type memorial since 1946 . Between 1999 and 2003, memorials to fallen Indian warriors were unveiled in the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument .
The battle at Little Bighorn is of particular importance because it is a beacon in the otherwise rather insidious annihilation of the North American indigenous population. For the self-confidence of the North American prairie Indians, the victory has a lasting impact on generations.
Even today, attempts are still being made to reconstruct the course of the battle through archaeological investigations. The traditions of the descendants of the tribes involved are increasingly proving to be correct. The battle was actually not a heroic “last stand”, as shown in countless films, but a desperate struggle for survival of the soldiers accompanied by panic attacks. What is controversial, however, is the claim by the Crow scouts that the soldiers drank alcohol before they went into battle.
Depiction of the battle in films
The battle has been staged in numerous films, and Custer's role was rated very differently. Often the motif of Custer, who falls in the heroic fight, is taken up. The unauthorized advance that made the defeat possible is sometimes seen as courageous, sometimes as fatal overestimation of one's self. In the movie Little Big Man , Custer is portrayed most negatively, as brutal and ignorant. The advance was a conscious step by Custer, as he hoped with a victory over the Indians to become popular enough to be able to run for president.
In every film the Last Stand Hill is shown, in which Custer is the last to die, sometimes heroic, sometimes contrite, and in the film Little Big Man portrayed crazy. In 1991 the television feature film General Custer's Last Battle ( Son of the Morning Star ) was made. He tries to provide an authentic representation of the events at Little Bighorn from the point of view of the Indians.
See also
literature
- Debra Buchholtz: Battle of the Greasy Grass / Little Bighorn: Custer's Last Stand in Memory, History, and Popular Culture. Taylor and Francis, Hoboken 2013, ISBN 978-1-136-30049-3 .
- Holger Bütow: George Armstrong Custer: The death of a media star. in: Military History - Journal for Historical Education, 4/2007, pp. 18–21. Available online at http://www.mgfa.de/pdf/ZMG%204%202007.pdf
- Evan S. Connell : Son of the Morning Star. Custer and the Little Bighorn . New York 1985.
- Patty Frank : The Indian Battle of the Little Big Horn. German Military Publishing House (GDR), 1968.
- Ulrich van der Heyden: Fight for the prairie. The North American Prairie Indians' struggle for freedom. Berlin 1990.
- Ulrich van der Heyden: The Indian battle on the Little Big Horn in June 1876 , in: Military history, No. 5, Berlin 1985, p. 433f.
- Douglas D. Scott & Melissa Connor: Context Delicti: Archaeological Context in Forensic Work. In: Haglund, WD & Sorg, MH (eds.): Forensic Taphonomy: The Postmortem Fate of Human Remains , CRC Press, pp. 27-38; Boca Raton 1997.
- John Okute Sica : The Miracle of Little Bighorn - Tales from the World of the Old Lakota . Palisander Verlag, 1st edition 2009, ISBN 978-3-938305-10-2 . Contains u. a. a cycle of stories describing the Battle of Little Bighorn from the Lakota perspective.
Sources on the course of the battle
- Saul David : The greatest failures in military history. Heyne, 2001, ISBN 3-453-86127-2 .
- Richard A. Fox: Archeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman (OK) 1993, ISBN 0-8061-2496-2 .
- William A. Graham, Brian C. Pohanka (Introduction): The Reno Court of Inquiry: Abstract of the Official Record of Proceedings. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg (PA) 1995.
- Wolfgang Hebold: 50 classics: victories and defeats. Gerstenberg 2002, ISBN 3-8067-2527-6 .
- Frederik Hetmann : The Red Day. Loewes, 1975, ISBN 3-7855-1708-4 .
- Ronald H. Nichols: Reno Court of Inquiry: Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry in the Case of Major Marcus A. Reno. Hardin (MT): Custer Battlefield Museum 1996, 678 pp.
- Douglas D. Scott & Melissa Connor: Context Delicti: Archaeological Context in Forensic Work. In: Haglund, WD & Sorg, MH (eds.): Forensic Taphonomy: The Postmortem Fate of Human Remains , CRC Press, pp. 27-38; Boca Raton 1997.
- Charles Windolph , Frazier Hunt, Robert Hunt: I fought with Custer: the story of Sergeant Windolph, last survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, as told to Frazier and Robert Hunt. With explanatory material and contemporary sidelights on the Custer fight. Reprint of the edition New York, Lincoln (Nebr.) 1954, University of Nebraska Press 1987 (engl.)
- Ulrich van der Heyden: Fight for the prairie. The North American Prairie Indians' struggle for freedom. German Science Publishers, Berlin 1988.
Web links
- Official site of the National Park Service (English)
- Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield website (English)
- Battle of the Little Bighorn
- Preliminary report by Major Marcus A. Reno from 5 July 1876 to battle the course (English)
- Excerpts of the minutes of Marcus A. Reno Commission of Inquiry (Reno Court of Inquiry) of 1879 (English)
- Special exhibition on the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Karl May Museum Radebeul near Dresden
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gregory Michno, Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, 2003, p 296; Michno, Mystery of E-Troop, pp. 16-18; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 265-68.
- ↑ Custer's Last Standard Bearer. The University of Kansas, accessed May 12, 2019 (The Horse That Survived).
Coordinates: 45 ° 33 '54 " N , 107 ° 25' 44" W.