Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)
On June 25–26, 1876, a combined force of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors annihilated five companies of the US 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 210 soldiers under his direct command were killed — one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on the US Army by Native American forces.
Gold, Treaties, and Broken Promises
The Battle of Little Bighorn was the culmination of a crisis set off by the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory — land guaranteed to the Lakota by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. When the US government failed to stop a flood of prospectors from entering treaty lands, the Lakota and Cheyenne refused Washington's demand to sell the land and return to their reservations. The government declared that all Lakota who had not returned to reservations by January 31, 1876 would be treated as hostile. Thousands of warriors gathered under leaders including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse for what they knew could be a decisive confrontation. The Army launched a three-pronged campaign to force the Lakota back onto the reservations. One of those columns was led by General Alfred Terry, with Lieutenant Colonel Custer and the 7th Cavalry as the strike force.
Did You Know?
The night before the battle, Sitting Bull held a Sun Dance in which he had a vision of soldiers "falling like grasshoppers" from the sky — a prophecy that proved remarkably accurate. His spiritual authority was greatly strengthened after the battle's outcome matched his vision.
Custer's Last Stand
Against orders to wait for reinforcements, Custer split his regiment into three battalions on June 25 and advanced on a massive encampment of around 10,000 Lakota and Cheyenne — roughly three times the number Army scouts had estimated. Two supporting columns under Reno and Benteen were beaten back, pinned down, and unable to reach Custer. Custer's own five companies, approximately 210 men, were surrounded on a hillside above the Little Bighorn River. Archaeologists and Native accounts suggest the battle lasted less than an hour. Every soldier in Custer's immediate command was killed. Total US Army losses across the engagement were 268 dead. Custer's body was found with two gunshot wounds; debate has continued for 150 years over the exact sequence of events on the hill.
Victory and Its Price
The Lakota and Cheyenne victory was stunning but short-lived. Public outrage in the United States — especially following the news reaching East Coast cities on July 4, the centennial of American independence — produced massive pressure for a military response. The Army launched relentless winter campaigns, and by 1877, most of the Plains tribes had been forced back onto reservations. Sitting Bull fled to Canada; Crazy Horse surrendered and was killed while in custody in 1877. The Battle of Little Bighorn stands as the high-water mark of Native American military resistance in the West — a hard-won victory that could not halt the larger forces of displacement and dispossession bearing down on Indigenous peoples.