The Battle of the Little Bighorn is remembered as one of the most significant defeats in American military history, but the popular story of what happened there in 1876 is far simpler than the reality. For decades, the narrative portrayed General George Armstrong Custer as either a heroic martyr or a reckless glory-seeker who led his men into a doomed attack. The truth is more complicated. Custer was not the sole architect of the disaster, and the battle was not a straightforward clash between white soldiers and Native American warriors.
The situation on the ground was shaped by divided loyalties, intertribal conflict, and alliances that cut across racial lines. Sitting Bull attracted roughly 10,000 followers to his camp, a remarkable gathering for the Plains tribes, but that represented only a portion of the region’s native population. Many Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people did not join him. Some actively opposed him, including the Arikara and Crow, who aligned themselves with the U.
S. Army. Thirty-three Native scouts rode with Custer’s cavalry, and several died alongside him at the Little Bighorn. These alliances grew out of necessity, not unity.
Sitting Bull’s warriors were accustomed to intertribal warfare and often targeted rival groups that cooperated with the Americans. Bloody Knife, an Arikara scout and one of Custer’s most trusted men, harbored a deep hatred for Sitting Bull after a raid that cost him his family. The Crow, meanwhile, viewed Sitting Bull as an invader on their ancestral land. For them, Custer was not the intruder, Sitting Bull was.
The notion that Custer recklessly charged into battle and lost his entire command is also misleading. Custer led roughly 650 officers, soldiers, and scouts to the Little Bighorn. Of those, 268 died. The other seven companies of the Seventh Cavalry largely survived.
Five companies that followed Custer were nearly wiped out, but the remaining units, divided between Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen, suffered far lighter losses despite enduring a siege. Custer’s attack was part of a planned strategy. Reno was to strike from the south, Custer from the north, and Benteen was to flank to the west to cut off escape. When Custer discovered the camp was larger than expected, he sent word to Benteen requesting reinforcements and supplies.
Those orders were disregarded, forcing Custer to proceed with fewer men than he wanted before surprise was lost. Military doctrine of the time held that Native American forces were not dangerous unless they vastly outnumbered U. S. troops.
That belief had been tested repeatedly on the battlefield, including by Custer himself. With more than 200 men under his direct command and another 450 attacking from other directions, doctrine suggested victory was likely. In hindsight, that assumption proved fatal, but at the time it was a reasonable basis for action. Because none of the soldiers who followed Custer survived, accounts of his final hours rely on Native testimony and archaeological evidence.
Custer attempted to cross the Little Bighorn River into the camp but was driven back. Some Native accounts describe an officer in a buckskin coat being shot from his horse almost immediately, which caused panic among the troops. That description could fit Custer, who was known for leading from the front, but other officers wore similar clothing. Custer’s body was found about a mile from the river, on a ridge later named Custer Hill, with two fatal wounds to the head and chest.
That suggests he was not killed during the river crossing. He withdrew to higher ground as resistance proved overwhelming, and the Native warriors pursued, inflicting heavy casualties. Custer made his stand at the top of what became known as Last Stand Hill, though there were actually two defensive positions. About half of the survivors from the river attack held a nearby ridge now called Calhoun Hill, named for Custer’s brother-in-law, Lieutenant James Calhoun.
Calhoun’s men were surrounded and cut down. At most, around forty men reached Custer’s final position. Whether Custer was the last of his men to fall remains uncertain. Sitting Bull later told a newspaper that his warriors reported Custer was the last man alive, his long hair resembling a sheath of corn with all the ears cascading around it.
But other accounts conflict. The Cheyenne warrior Yellow Nose claimed he struck down the final man at the top of Custer Hill, and a body identified as Custer’s brother Tom was found there. Other warriors said the last American standing was an officer on horseback who shot himself rather than be killed by the enemy. A lone officer, possibly with a self-inflicted wound, was found a short distance from the other bodies and identified as Lieutenant Henry Harrington.
The far larger question is what happened to the rest of Custer’s troops. Reno’s three companies were supposed to attack the camp simultaneously with Custer, while Benteen had received orders to send reinforcements. Neither happened as planned. Those who defended Custer often blamed Reno and Benteen for failing to carry out their orders.
Custer’s widow, Libbie, was the most vocal advocate of that view and later obstructed a monument to Reno on the battlefield, saying the army should not honor the regiment’s coward. The reality is more complex. Reno did lead his attack on the southern flank, and his men were the first to engage the enemy that day. But like Custer, he underestimated the opposition and ordered a retreat after less than an hour.
Some witnesses later claimed Reno had been drinking. Private William Taylor recalled seeing Reno and other officers sharing a bottle before the battle, and Reno’s commands were delivered with a slur. Several accounts support this, and Reno was later court-martialed in 1880 after a drunken brawl. Drinking before combat was common among soldiers in the nineteenth century.
Native survivors of the battle said most American soldiers carried whiskey rather than water in their flasks. The critical question is whether Reno’s intoxication changed the outcome, and most evidence suggests it did not. His 140 men faced thousands of warriors who were well armed and highly skilled. By the time Reno ordered the retreat, at least a third of his command was dead or wounded.
His mistake was not retreating too early, but too late. Benteen has received even harsher judgment in many retellings. He abandoned his intended flanking maneuver and ignored Custer’s call for reinforcements. On its face, that looks like treachery.
But a closer look offers some justification. When Reno’s assault collapsed, Benteen’s flank became highly vulnerable. Had he continued as planned, his troops could have been surrounded and destroyed. Instead, he aborted the attack and joined Reno’s remaining men on a defensible hill.
Benteen acknowledged receiving Custer’s orders but chose not to follow them. He claimed he believed Custer was still alive and riding off looking for glory, as was his reputation. But Benteen was focused on his own dire situation. The warriors who had crushed Reno were likely to turn on the remaining companies, and both Benteen and Reno concluded they could not risk sending men to help Custer when their own position was precarious.
They proved correct. The Native forces soon besieged all six companies for two days. Benteen and Reno held out through the night of June 25, all of June 26, and only stopped fighting on June 27. Neither man could fairly be called a coward.
As one soldier later recalled, wherever Benteen went, the faces of the soldiers brightened with hope. His men called him the savior of the Seventh, even if the public never embraced that title. A court of inquiry in 1879 found no fault with Reno or Benteen regarding their conduct in the battle. They were not responsible for the 268 American deaths that day, and they likely prevented the number from being far higher.
The search for American failures misses the larger point. The battle’s outcome owed more to the skill and determination of Sitting Bull’s forces than to the mistakes of their enemies. On June 18, 1876, just a week before the Little Bighorn, about 1,500 warriors under Crazy Horse had already defeated a similarly sized U. S.
force at the Battle of the Rosebud River. General George Crook, the American commander, was stunned by how his troops were outmaneuvered. That news never reached Custer. The Lakota and Cheyenne were experienced fighters who used modern weapons and horses effectively.
Firearms and horses had been central to Plains Indian life for generations. Native boys learned to ride and shoot before many white Americans finished their schooling. The warriors at the Little Bighorn were fully capable of matching U. S.
soldiers in combat, even before considering the numbers. Motivation also played a role. Sitting Bull’s people were defending their way of life against a government that had pledged to remove them from their land. Custer’s troops were carrying out a military campaign.
Sitting Bull’s warriors were fighting for their survival. History confirmed the stakes. The United States responded to the defeat by sending more troops, and Sitting Bull’s movement was eventually crushed. He surrendered in 1881.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was his greatest victory, but it was also his last. The uncertainty surrounding Custer’s final hours, combined with the emotional weight of the battle, guarantees that myths about the event will persist. The questions asked after the battle remain the ones asked today. Was Custer a hero or a fool?
Did he bring about his own destruction, or was he betrayed by his officers? Should it be understood as Custer’s defeat, or as Sitting Bull’s triumph?