After spending a day and a half in Yellowstone, the next stop on our trip was the Little Big Horn National Park. So, off to Montana! The battlefield is located in the south center of the state, close to Sheridan Wyoming. We had stayed in Cody the night before, so the drive was not too long.
I was expecting a short visit to the site. Expecting a marker or two and a small museum. Well, assumptions totally destroyed again (I think there is a saying about assuming….). You drive into the park through the original native encampment under Sitting Bull. You then drive up a rise to the cemetery. The century is actually a national cemetery for US soldiers. As such, only a handful are soldiers that actually fought at the Battle of Little Big Horn. There is a small pavilion next to the parking and cemetery that has a gift and information shop (no museum). This area is placed in the area of Custer’s initial attack towards the native encampment.
From the cemetery, you can then walk up hill to the marker and site for Custer’s “last stand”. There is a driving path from the cemetery all the way to Benteen’s final position. There are a few overlook pull overs, but no parking until you make it all the way to the end. An interesting thing is that a large portion of the drive is actually through private property (which you are allowed to drive through).
All along the road, there are markers describing what happened at each particular point. There are also markers not he ground to show the approximate falling position of solders and scouts that were killed in the battle. There are also a number of posts with scan codes that you can use your smart phone to access narratives from various individuals involved in the battle.
The road terminates at Benteen’s final position and has another memorial marker. From each location, you can get an idea of the terrain that was encountered by each force and what they must have gone through to fall back to the final defensive positions. You also get a very good idea why the size of the encampment was such a surprise the cavalry and how each task force got so close before seeing what trouble they were in.
I have ready a decent amount about this battle and played it on the tabletop a number of times (even with alternative armies). However, I did not appreciate the great distances that each task force was away from each other and how much ground they actually had to cover during the various movements. Once again, I needed a lot more time than I thought to see everything! A visit well worth taking.
- Manteuffel
Thanks for this I now see it was a large area of a series of different fights, I always assumed it was just one single battle