Chief Gall’s account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn does not match the heroic legend that grew up around Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. As a Lakota leader who fought in the battle, Gall described a chaotic confrontation shaped by grief, malfunctioning weapons, and a desperate fight for survival. His testimony, given years later, offered Americans a Native perspective that had never been heard before. When Custer rode into the valley of the Little Bighorn in June 1876, Gall and his people had only hours to prepare.
At 36, Gall was already a celebrated warrior among the Hunkpapa Lakota, known for courage and battlefield instinct. His standing was so respected that Sitting Bull had adopted him as a brother. Together, they defended their people’s freedom against the U. S.
Army. By late June, scouts brought word that soldiers were closing in. After discovering discarded army rations just a few miles from the village, scouts raced home to warn the camp. Sitting Bull called a council of chiefs, including Gall and Crazy Horse, to organize a defense.
When it became clear that Custer had split his command into three columns, the Lakota and Cheyenne prepared for attack. Major Marcus Reno struck first, crossing the river and slamming into the southern edge of the village. Gall’s own lodges sat directly in the line of the charge. Gunfire tore through the camp as women and children fled.
Gall fought through the chaos to find his family, only to discover his two wives and three children dead in the wreckage of their lodge. “They were killed there by the white soldiers,” Gall later remembered. “It made my heart bad. ” Among the Lakota, that phrase meant a rage deep enough to consume fear.
From that moment, Gall abandoned his rifle and fought with a hatchet, saying afterward, “I killed all my enemies with the hatchet. ”
Sitting Bull did not take up arms that day. He performed sacred rituals while Gall and Crazy Horse led the counterattack. Their strike overwhelmed Reno’s men, who began to collapse under relentless fire.
During the chaos, a bullet struck Bloody Knife, a scout of mixed Hunkpapa and Arikara heritage who had once lived among Gall’s people. Gall considered him a traitor and called him an old enemy. Reno, covered in his scout’s blood, panicked and retreated. Gall later realized it was Custer himself—the man the Lakota called Long Hair—leading the northern attack.
Gall claimed the Lakota struck first, suggesting Custer’s final stand was not a charge but an attempt to survive. Other warriors gave different versions, some insisting Custer attacked first and was driven back. By the time Gall reached the northern ridges, chaos ruled. Custer’s five companies were surrounded.
Their single-shot Springfield carbines jammed under rapid fire, forcing soldiers to fight with revolvers. Warriors closed in from all sides, some carrying only clubs or hatchets. They stampeded horses through the cavalry ranks, splitting the soldiers apart. “It was a slaughter,” Gall later said.
“We took no prisoners. Our hearts were bad, and we cut and shot them all to pieces. ”
Custer’s command split. On one hilltop, later named Custer Hill, Custer and his brother Tom fought alongside companies C, E, and F in their final stand.
Gall never saw Long Hair fall and did not claim to know who killed him. Farther southeast, Captain Myles Keogh’s company and Lieutenant James Calhoun’s company fought to the end. Gall remembered them retreating step by step until their ammunition ran out. “They fought bravely,” Gall said, “but it did not save them.
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Custer’s portion of the battle lasted less than an hour. The fight continued, and Gall turned south to confront Reno’s remaining troops, who had dug in on a bluff. By late afternoon, Captain Frederick Benteen arrived with reinforcements, bringing their numbers above 400. They pushed toward Custer’s last known position, unaware that his entire command was already dead.
Lakota and Cheyenne forces stormed Reno Hill with fury. The Americans formed a defensive ring and fired from shallow trenches as bullets and arrows rained down. Gall and Crazy Horse led the siege but avoided a nighttime assault. They chose to wait, believing thirst would break the soldiers.
“They will fall into our hands,” Gall told his fighters. “When the thirst burns their throats and drives them mad. ”
By morning, soldiers were delirious from heat and lack of water. Wounded men begged for a drink.
A few crawled toward the river, and Gall’s sharpshooters shot them down. The attempt to bring back even a single bucket of water became an act of suicidal courage, and several men later received the Medal of Honor for it. Then, under the blazing afternoon sun, everything changed. Scouts spotted great clouds of dust rising from the east.
Gall called it “the big dust. ” It was General Terry and General Gibbon arriving with fresh troops. The signal went out to vanish. Sitting Bull ordered the camp broken, and by sunset, the enormous Lakota village was moving west into the Bighorn Mountains.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, ended as an astonishing triumph for the Lakota and Cheyenne. But the victory brought harsh consequences. Within months, the U. S.
launched a relentless campaign of retaliation. Villages were torched, and buffalo herds were slaughtered. By year’s end, the Lakota faced surrender or exile. Gall followed Sitting Bull into Canada, holding on to the last remnants of their freedom.
But even that refuge did not endure. Over the years, the two warriors drifted apart. Gall eventually returned to the United States and settled at the Standing Rock reservation, where he accepted Christianity, made peace with the federal government, and formed cordial relationships with American officials. Some Lakota saw it as betrayal; others viewed it as the only way to survive.
In 1886, ten years after the battle, Gall returned to the battlefield as a guest of honor for a memorial gathering. For the first time, Americans truly listened to a Lakota eyewitness describe the fight. Speaking in a mix of Lakota, English, and sign language, Gall tried to explain what had taken place and what it had cost his people. His account, however, was never entirely consistent.
Each time he spoke, the narrative shifted. Memories faded, and events changed places. Newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press printed wildly different versions.
In some, Gall claimed he fought Reno; in others, he confronted only Custer. In one telling, the death of his family was missing altogether. Historians continue to debate whether Gall reshaped his story to fit his audience or whether reporters misunderstood translations and added embellishments. Despite the contradictions, one thing remains constant: Gall gave Americans a native perspective they had never heard.
His testimony, emotional and unfiltered, cut through generations of myth and forced the country to face the other side of its own history.