But neither he nor the 209 men in his immediate command survived the day, and an Indian counterattack would pin down seven companies of their fellow 7th Cavalrymen on a hilltop over four miles away. military history, and the immense literature on the subject is devoted primarily to answering questions about Custer’s generalship during the fighting.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is one of the most studied actions in U.S. That June, Custer attacked an encampment of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Little Bighorn River, in what is now Montana.

The Grant administration tried to buy the hills, but the Sioux, considering them sacred ground, refused to sell in 1876, federal troops were dispatched to force the Sioux onto reservations and pacify the Great Plains. At the time, the United States recognized the hills as property of the Sioux Nation, under a treaty the two parties had signed six years before. George Armstrong Custer found gold in the Black Hills, in present-day South Dakota. Editor’s note: In 1874, an Army expedition led by Lt.

Cheyenne betson