{"id":213,"date":"2026-06-25T09:43:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T09:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=213"},"modified":"2026-06-25T09:43:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T09:43:55","slug":"the-battle-of-little-bighorn-and-why-it-never-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of Little Bighorn and Why It Never Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He went down with five of the 7th<\/sup> Cavalry\u2019s 12 companies as Native American warriors surrounded him. Men in his unit killed their horses and mounted a defense from behind their dead companions. Two weeks later, on July 4, America was celebrating its centennial. The conflagration at the Bighorn was a great victory for Native Americans\u2014and a significant loss for the U.S. cavalry. The defeat cast a pall over nationwide celebrations, although a cavalry horse named Comanche, which survived Custer\u2019s rout despite being shot numerous times, became a symbol of hope and rallied the 100-year-old nation. But it would take the assassination of the Lakota Chief Sitting Bull\u2014wrongly blamed for killing Custer\u2014in 1890 and then the subsequent massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee (which I wrote about last year for the Washington Monthly<\/em>) in 1891 to avenge the American loss. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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In September 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled a plan, first advanced under President Joe Biden, to rescind medals given to cavalry soldiers involved in the massacre. The revocation was something Native Americans had long sought, among them Wendell Yellow Bull, Marine veteran, Oglala Lakota County commissioner in South Dakota, and great-grandson of Joseph Horn Cloud, who survived Wounded Knee. Testimony about the Wounded Knee massacre has been passed down to Yellow Bull, along with accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn from Dewey Beard, Horn Cloud\u2019s brother, the last known Lakota survivor of that battle, who died in 1955. Amazingly, Dewey Beard was also among those at Wounded Knee\u2014and survived that, too. Yellow Bull carries the testimonies of these individuals, often overlooked in popular histories. Consider this from Dewey Beard: decades ago, he recalled overhearing U.S. Cavalry soldiers asking an Indian at Wounded Knee if he was at the Bighorn shortly before the government troops opened fire. In other words, \u201cDid you kill Custer?\u201d The question was really meant for any of the Native Americans who had fled into the ravine at Wounded Knee at that moment; the blame was general, and Sitting Bull had already been assassinated for it, hounded for years as Public Enemy #1 for allegedly doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the revocation of medals was under consideration, Biden administration officials consulted Yellow Bull during their visit to Wounded Knee and the site of the massacre. Earlier this year, following Trump\u2019s \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History\u201d executive order regarding signage at national parks and monuments, signs at the Little Bighorn National Monument battlefield site that referenced \u201cbroken promises to Native American tribes\u201d were removed. This edict was recently reversed by an \u201cactivist judge,\u201d in the words of a Trump official. Whether the signage will be reinstated in time for the Bighorn commemorations is unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As America prepares to celebrate our 250th<\/sup> birthday, the Battle of the Little Bighorn will mark its 150th <\/sup>anniversary. The battle is, arguably, a seismic event from which the nation has yet to recover. A significant victory for Native Americans, the conflagration was humiliating for the U.S. Cavalry. It remains its only defeat on the home front (short of the smaller Battle of Rosebud, 10 days earlier, which the army described as a victory but was in fact a retreat, with soldiers driven off by Cheyenne and Shoshone forces led by Crazy Horse). Although Native Americans won the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the greasy grass (a term used by the local indigenous population to describe the lush grasses along the Bighorn River), the battle marked the beginning of their final days of living free on the frontier. It was only a matter of time before the holdouts were rounded up and sent to reservations. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Curiously, despite the cavalry\u2019s loss, the battle became a place where America lives. Forever branded as \u201cCuster\u2019s Last Stand,\u201d it endures as the ultimate \u201chill to die on,\u201d a home address of the American Dreamtime where the nation went down swinging\u2014but not for long. Although defiance has been a coin of the realm since the country\u2019s inception, it would take the Battle of the Little Bighorn to enshrine it as a creed followed by outlaws, killers, devotees of David Koresh at the 1993 siege in Waco (aka, \u201cWe ain\u2019t comin\u2019 out,\u201d they said), Cliven Bundy and his mounted pals at Malheur, the current President, and his January 6 crowd, every Travis Bickle wannabe who has said \u201cYou talkin\u2019 to me?,\u201d and every driver who has ever been pulled over and said \u201cBut officer, how come the other guy didn\u2019t get a ticket?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it: charging up hills with guns is a thing that we do, even if the hill is in your head, and you have no weapon. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly every dive bar in America features the famous painting of Custer\u2019s Last Stand, in which the 36-year-old Custer is brandishing a gun and firing away, along with his soldiers, clutching the reins of their frightened steeds, encircled by rampaging Indians on bedecked war ponies, wielding tomahawks and rifles, moving in for the kill. Amid the frothing siege, Custer takes on all comers, holding his ground defiantly, and when it was all over, the bloody location became known as Last Stand Hill. It\u2019s a national shrine. What happened there is the subject of hundreds of books (and I count two of mine among them\u2014Mustang<\/em>, which has a chapter on the Bighorn and the horses that served there, and Blood Brothers<\/em>, which has a chapter on the Bighorn), thousands of articles, dozens of movies, a zillion conferences, and endless theories about what really happened and how exactly Custer was killed. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Like many pivotal battles, the Battle of the Bighorn is reenacted annually. Every year, thousands converge in Montana at the Little Bighorn Battlefield for an elaborate staging of the firestorm with which we are still trying to reconcile. They arrive by car, plane, caravan, RV, bus, and train, having made their reservations at local hotels months in advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other participants in Bighorn events arrive on horseback, including cavalry re-enactors who trailer in with their horses and park at encampments near the site, and Native Americans who are part of the Little Bighorn Victory Ride, which has been coordinated for years by the above-mentioned Yellow Bull and members of his family. This is a 77-mile journey across Montana from Ashland to the Crow Agency, headquarters for the Crow Nation. The Little Bighorn National Monument is within the Crow Reservation, and at the time of the battle, members of the Crow served as scouts for Custer. The situation created rivalries that persist to this day, with the Crow staging their own re-enactments and casting their own tribal members not only as cavalry scouts but as Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors who fought against Custer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I first visited the site, I experienced something so mysterious and shattering that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever recover. I\u2019ve had the same feeling on subsequent visits. The battlefield should be a required visit for all of us, a hallowed site. \u201cOn the way into the battlefield,\u201d I recounted in Mustang<\/em>, \u201cthere was a long line of Indians on war ponies. They were in breechcloths, and some wore feathered war bonnets and were barefoot. They rode horseback, and their beautiful compact ponies were painted with symbols\u2014one had red circles around the eyes and nostrils for vision and sense of smell; another had a pair of red thunder stripes on the forelegs to please the god of war.\u201d This was a prelude to the re-enactment, which began at dawn. Elsewhere on the field, at a cavalry encampment reconfigured with historical accuracy, re-enactors were saddling up their steeds. Many re-enactors actually live a kind of frontier life; they are cowboys and rebels stranded in another era. They don\u2019t drive 55 (to invoke the Van Halen hit)\u2014and in Montana, they don\u2019t have to. The speed limit on \u201cBig Sky Country\u201d highways is 80.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later that day, after elaborate re-enactments, I walked the battlefield and encountered various scholars and devotees of the battle. One was sitting among the stones, drawing pictures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been coming here for 20 years,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the memorial?\u201d I asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, all the time. I can\u2019t stay away.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He explained that his wife doesn\u2019t understand why he spends so much time here, but one of these days, he\u2019s going to exhibit his drawings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSee that place over there?\u201d he said, pointing to a depression in the grass. \u201cThat\u2019s Horseholder\u2019s Ravine. It\u2019s where the soldiers would hold the horses while three or four of the men would dismount and fight on foot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was referring to the standard cavalry practice carried out that day on the field, which is how the Indians were able to run off large numbers of army horses. I walked into the ravine and imagined the scene when the grass was three feet high and touched the underside of a horse\u2019s belly. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I asked him if he could point me to Myles Keogh\u2019s marker. \u201cOh, yes,\u201d he said, \u201cCaptain Myles Keogh [rider of the legendary horse, Comanche]. Did you know it was really his last stand? All that stuff about Custer is bullshit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what everybody said, except for the Custerphiles, and even they have many different versions of what happened. I thanked him for his time and moved on. \u201cWatch for snakes,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

While many believe Crazy Horse himself finished off Custer, Sitting Bull was the one who was accused. Following the battle, he and other Lakota members fled to Canada, where they lived in exile for seven years, until the Canadian government, under pressure from American officials, forced Sitting Bull to return to America. It was 1881, and in 1885, for four months, he joined up with Buffalo Bill and toured the country with Buffalo Bill Cody\u2019s Wild West Show, more popular in many venues on the circuit than Buffalo Bill, and more notorious\u2014still \u201cblamed\u201d for killing Custer. This belief persists to this day. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I was giving a talk about Blood Brothers<\/em> at the library in Cody, Wyoming. A woman approached me after everyone else had left and leaned in, almost whispering. \u201cI didn\u2019t know Sitting Bull didn\u2019t kill Custer,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they told us in school.\u201d People often confess things to me at my talks about their own interactions with American history, how they\u2019ve engaged with our myths. If you think these fables are abstract, think again. She thanked me for the talk and headed out into a blizzard. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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I started thinking about how deeply that era in our story resonates. Like many before her, the woman at the library believed that Sitting Bull was a villain in the national story\u2014and suddenly, he wasn\u2019t. I flashed back to my first visit to the Bighorn battlefield. Some re-enactors had set up a period camp, as the 7th Cavalry did, dressed in the garb of the time, covered in dust to simulate days of marching, and feeding their horses from a bag strapped to their noses. Some had trucked in their own horses. Others borrow one from the Crow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s the guy who plays Captain Myles Keogh?\u201d This was a reference to the man who rode the once-wild Comanche, the celebrated horse. I was asking some men who were bivouacked with their horses along the banks of the Little Bighorn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he here this year?\u201d one said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI just saw him,\u201d said another. \u201cI think he\u2019s over there with a film crew from Germany.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I head deeper into the encampment and keep asking. A guy dressed as an orderly directed me toward a tent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u201d I called out. \u201cCaptain Keogh?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Out comes junior high school history teacher Bill Rini, who dressed the part. He didn\u2019t really look anything like Keogh, though. He was short and Italian. He\u2019s been coming all the way from Queens every year since 1995. Like many re-enactors, he was certain about what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, there were four last stands,\u201d he said. \u201cCuster\u2019s, Keogh\u2019s, Weir\u2019s, and Calhoun\u2019s. Once Reno ran, Custer was in trouble. Did you know Custer\u2019s bugler is buried in Queens?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I then asked about Comanche. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComanche was identified by Keogh\u2019s best friend, Lieutenant. Nowlan. He was shot ten times, not seven. Probably by Crazy Horse. By the way, do you know how horses gave the Indians an advantage? When they surprised Custer in the morning, they ran their horses up and down the perimeter to make a dust cloud. The cavalry couldn\u2019t see where to shoot. And one more thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Captain Keogh did not die while crouching under Comanche between his forelegs and getting off a few final shots. He was definitely shot out of the saddle. You can tell from the wound in his knee.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe he was shot from the saddle and then continued to fight under the horse, Comanche? I asked. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Absolutely not, he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The bugler sounded dinner, but before Captain Keogh disappeared, I took his picture. The horse-playing Comanche had been taken back to the rez by the Crow, so it was a solo shot of Bill standing near the river. It was dusk, and as the sun set, he straightened out his buckskin shirt, stood erect in his cavalry boots, his chest swelled, his body stretched to the sky, and his eyes looked off to the future as the Crow ran ponies through the Little Bighorn River behind him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next day, I attended a press conference at the Custer Battlefield Museum in Garryowen, where the first skirmish of the battle happened. Outside the museum, a recording of \u201cGarryowen\u201d played, the 7th Cavalry siren that lured many across the prairie to their doom. Inside, Joe Medicine Crow (since deceased), 97, the grandson of Custer scout White Man Runs Him, consultant to the 1941 Errol Flynn movie about Custer, They Died With Their Boots On<\/em>, was talking story. Alas, not many were there\u2014some European press, a few academic types, a couple of local reporters. The Crow elder was wearing a full war bonnet, jeans, a denim shirt, and cowboy boots. He spoke of how the Crow got horses\u2014it was before the white man found the tribe. \u201cInter-tribal warfare started over horses,\u201d he said. \u201cThe horses reached the Crow in 1730.\u201d\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

As with all of the Horse Nations, the Crow quickly became mounted on the horse as soon as it arrived in their territory, and today they have one of the country\u2019s premier annual rodeos. The Crow re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn stands as one of the finest, most charming horse spectacles I have ever seen, with tribal history presented as gorgeous, primal scenes involving the \u201cgreat rivers of horse,\u201d in the words of Native Americans who once referred to the infinite number of steeds on the Great Plains in this manner. The show began with the national anthem, then the Crow anthem, and a prayer in Crow. A horse whinnied as the prayer finished\u2014perhaps on cue, perhaps not\u2014and then the Crow narrator told a joke:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Custer and his brother Tom are on the battlefield. Tom says, \u201cI\u2019ve got some good news and some bad news.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

George says, \u201cWhat\u2019s the bad news?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom says, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna die here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

George says, \u201cWhat\u2019s the good news?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom replies: \u201cWe don\u2019t have to go back to North Dakota.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, but there\u2019s also this to consider. During the 2024 elections, Republican Tim Sheehy defeated Democratic incumbent Jon Tester for the U.S. Senate seat in Montana. Shortly before the election, Sheehy rolled out an old attack, invoking the phrase \u201cdrunk Indians.\u201d Such remarks aren\u2019t out of the ordinary in certain quarters; I\u2019ve heard a variety of them across my travels, and there\u2019s one that appears from time to time at Little Bighorn re-enactments and celebrations. There\u2019s a participant in a local parade whose pickup truck has a display that features Sacajawea, referring to her as \u201cSac-a-Beer-A.\u201d While of course the joke is offensive, it\u2019s about way more than that. It\u2019s a covert reference to the rate of alcoholism among Native Americans. In fact, it was the guy in the truck who was visibly drunk, leaning out of his vehicle, honking his horn, and waving at spectators, who were drinking and waving back. This and similar jokes go to the schism in America, the one that is calling to be resolved, that of the white man and the Native American, which in this example is playing out in the heart of its clash\u2014at the Little Bighorn battlefield, amid re-enactments of this ongoing conflict. \u00a0<\/p>\n

During a visit to a Bighorn re-enactment, I paused at the Native American Memorial\u2014a \u201cCircle of Unity,\u201d as the installation is called. It was a large sunken circle with a weeping wall of stone ringing two-thirds of its circumference, lined with plaques honoring the Indians who fought Custer. On the outer perimeter, there was an iron-cable sculpture of Indian warriors on galloping horses; you can look through it, across the battlefield, and all the way to the horizon. A visitor had tied ceremonial feathers to the sculpture, adding to the scarves, strings of beads, and small American flags that rippled in the stiff prairie breeze. A cloud of dust rose from the south, and the Indians on their ponies raced across the field, shouting war cries. They had been traveling for 10 days, leaving from reservations in South Dakota, making their way to the canyon where Crazy Horse had carved a petroglyph on his way to the battlefield, and then resuming their ceremonial ride.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just outside the circle, they stopped, forming a line of horses that separated now from then. As they stood in for their ancestors, a powwow circle came together inside the shrine. Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen beat their drums and sang songs of war. Native warriors across several generations stepped into the circle and surrounded the men, pounding their drums. There were veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, the Gulf War, in their army fatigues or Marine finest, and wearing war bonnets or feathers in their military caps\u2014fighters all, men and women whose ancestors fought for the Horse Nations and who themselves fought in twentieth and twenty-first-century wars for the nation that had conquered them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With war ponies flanking the memorial circle, the sun rising higher in the east, and the powwow drummers and singers chanting for the ages, two Indians joined the circle. The drums and singing stopped. One of them was Donnie Red Thunder, a former Navy SEAL and great-great-grandson of Crazy Horse. He had traveled the 365 miles from the Cheyenne River camp in South Dakota on horseback. \u2018We\u2019re the only country that can say they defeated the United States,\u2019 he said, a record that stood for decades until joined by the Vietnamese, Afghans, and now Iranians. But as we approach America\u2019s 250th<\/sup> birthday, that victory against the U.S. on the home front by the nations that were here first still stands.<\/p>\n

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Custer\u2019s last stand was 150 years ago. 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