The story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn is usually told through the eyes of the soldiers who fought and died there. But one of the most detailed accounts ever recorded came from a Lakota woman who watched the battle unfold from the village itself. Her name was Red Woman, the wife of the distinguished Lakota warrior Spotted Hornbull, and her eyewitness testimony offers a rare glimpse into the chaos, courage, and triumph of that fateful day in June 1876.
Red Woman did not fight in the battle, but she was an active observer. She watched the soldiers charge, saw the warriors rally, and witnessed the final moments of George Armstrong Custer’s command. Her account, translated by Major McLaughlin in 1908, preserves the dramatic, lyrical quality of Lakota storytelling.
It is a narrative filled with sharp images, blunt judgments, and a deep sense of pride in her people’s victory.
The Days Before the Battle
Eleven days before the clash with Custer, the Sioux had set up camp near the Little Bighorn River, which they called the Greasy Grass. There, they conducted a solemn Sun Dance, a ritual of spiritual endurance. Sitting Bull, more a spiritual leader than a warrior, took part in the ceremony, enduring the agony of the suffering pole.
The scars on his chest bore witness to the ordeal. While others surrendered to pain or exhaustion, Sitting Bull remained steadfast, lost in deep meditation. For two full days and nights, he refused food and water before collapsing on the third.
His devoted wives and companions revived him and urged him to eat.
Upon awakening, Sitting Bull shared a powerful vision. He foretold the Sioux’s triumph over Custer and his troops. The prophecy gave the camp a sense of destiny, a belief that the coming fight would be won.
Two mornings later, just before the main battle, a fierce skirmish erupted when a large force of Crow warriors attacked the Sioux. The fight lasted all day, costing the Sioux only seven lives. As the Crow retreated into the Wolf Mountains, they carried away all but one of their fallen.
Though the Sioux considered it a hard victory, Red Woman insisted the Crow had outnumbered them, a claim her husband disputed.
The following day, the Sioux relocated their camp to the lush Little Bighorn Valley, roughly 14 miles south of present-day Fort Custer and 30 miles from the Crow battleground. The bodies of the seven fallen Sioux were brought to the new site on travois and placed in a teepee at the village’s southern edge. Soon, the settlement stretched nearly five miles along the river’s west bank.
The Camp and the Terrain
Red Woman knew the land intimately. When questioned later by a journalist, she answered each query with confidence. With quiet pride, she replied, “Why wouldn’t I know this place?
It is my homeland.”
Like most Sioux, she was adept at sketching. Using a visitor’s card and pencil, occasionally assisted by her husband, she drew a diagram to illustrate her account. The river at the battle site flows northward.
The Sioux camp occupied flat terrain on the western bank, while the five northern tribes settled on even ground near the water. The remaining two tribes were positioned on a modest rise, four to six feet high.
To the east, where the soldiers advanced, the hills climbed sharply, reaching at least 200 feet at the point where Reno hastily dug his shallow defenses. The river’s Indian-side bank was just a few feet high, but the opposing bluff ascended at a severe incline. Only panicked troops would attempt such a climb.
Red Woman noted that the Sioux, too, had moments of chaos during the fight.
The spot where Custer died sat on open, rolling high ground with a gentler descent to the river compared to the steeper southern slopes. A dry gully nearby only filled with water in June.
The Morning of the Attack
In the early hours of June 25th, seven Cheyenne rode southeast to join Spotted Tail. Five likely slipped through safely, but the remaining two reached the bluff’s edge and frantically signaled with blankets, warning of approaching soldiers. These were Custer’s men.
Moments later, as the camp erupted in confusion, Reno’s troops appeared from the south on the river’s west side and opened fire. The soldiers fought dismounted. The camp descended into bedlam.
Women and children screamed, and over half the warriors were absent, tending to the pony herds.
Red Woman’s voice rose with passion as she declared, “That man leading the soldiers, Major Reno, must have been drunk or mad. He had our camp defenseless. He could have destroyed us or chased us naked onto the plains.”
She doubted a single shot was fired when Reno’s men turned tail. Her husband nodded. “Not much shooting from our side either.
But when they ran, they ran fast, dropping guns, dropping bullets.”
By then, Lakota warriors were ready. They cut down soldiers as they fled across the plain at the river crossing and on the hill beyond. Red Woman saw boys drag men from saddles and finish them on the ground.
She believed Reno panicked upon seeing the village’s true size. “Worse than our own panic,” she said, as warriors racing back with the pony herds met families fleeing camp, both fearing disaster.
The Destruction of Custer’s Command
Reno’s route was barely over when Custer’s trumpet sounded, but the Sioux were waiting. Men swarmed the river, then galloped to encircle Custer’s troops. First at a distance, then tightening like a noose.
Red Woman spurred her pony to a ridge behind camp. From there, she watched soldiers dismounting, every fourth man gripping three extra horses, the rest charging toward the river, only to be shredded by gunfire from the willows. She chuckled.
“Our people, even the boys, had more than enough guns and bullets for fresh soldiers. And the ones who ran, they left theirs behind.”
Riding north along the camp’s edge, she saw warriors closing in. Soldiers scrambled back to their horses. War cries and white men’s shouts tangled in the air until dwindling troops vanished beneath swarming Lakota.
Her pony carried her downstream to the Miniconjou camp on the far left. Within an hour, the battlefield showed no living soldiers, only fat, fine-looking horses, as her husband described them. Lakota ponies darted like sparrows through broken soldier lines.
Five lives lost per minute was the toll.
The Last Officer
From her husband came one final detail. A lone officer, the last to fall, rode a magnificent horse. Finding himself the last survivor, he spurred his mount up a ravine.
Five Lakota warriors gave chase on swift ponies. One by one, the pursuers fell behind until only an unarmed Hunkpapa remained in the desperate race.
Just as this last warrior nearly abandoned the pursuit, the soldier turned and saw him. Recognizing his exhausted horse could run no further, the officer drew his revolver and ended his own life.
“That was a fine horse,” Spotted Hornbull remarked, noting the Sioux warrior who claimed the mount rode it for many years after. They estimated the chase covered seven miles or more from the battlefield. While Lieutenant Harrington’s body was never identified, this grim suicide may have been his final act.
Aftermath and the Siege on the Hill
No sooner had Custer’s force been destroyed than the Sioux redirected their attention to Reno and Benteen’s besieged troops on the hill. Red Woman’s laughter bubbled up as she described young warriors gleefully picking off soldiers who risked dashes downhill for water.
After looting Custer’s fallen men, the Sioux identified the long-haired commander by his distinctive beaver-trimmed buckskin coat. Their victory came at a cost: 30 dead, twice as many wounded, including eager boys of 12 and 14 who charged into battle to prove their courage. She recalled two wounded youths, one shot in the heel, another losing his right arm, who survived to boast of their first war honors even seven years later.
With visible regret, she recounted finding stacks of green banknotes they foolishly destroyed, ignorant of their value. “We understand paper money now,” she admitted sorrowfully. “We wouldn’t waste it so carelessly today.”
Though celebrations began, news of General Terry’s approaching forces sent the village fleeing. They traveled tirelessly for days until reaching the safety of the Big Horn Mountains, where they stayed before dividing, the Hunkpapas and others turning northward.
A Second Telling
In a later version of her account, Red Woman’s positioning of tribal groups differed slightly, and she omitted mention of the seven Cheyenne scouts who left camp that morning. In this telling, she claimed women and children harvesting turnips first spotted Custer’s troops six to eight miles east of the river.
She stressed how Reno’s premature attack before Custer was in position allowed the Sioux to defeat each force separately. Had Reno coordinated properly, the surprise assault might have devastated the village.
Her description of Reno’s valley engagement burned with intensity. “Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Oglala, and many Miniconjou warriors swept through camp like fire before wind to where the soldiers had dismounted. Had they all charged together on horseback, they might have broken our nation.
Our young men were distracted by Custer’s approach.”
“The Great Spirit protected his children,” she continued. “He made Reno strike too soon.” Sioux warriors fell upon the soldiers like hail on corn, killing many in minutes.
Those who didn’t cross the river perished where they stood, all while Custer remained three miles distant. By the time the shadows had barely shifted, 40 blue coats lay dead.
The Final Charge
Downstream along the Greasy Grass, opposite the Cheyenne and Santee camps, lay an easy river crossing. Red Woman recognized Custer’s plan. He meant to strike the village’s lower end while Reno attacked from above.
Even the women could see Reno had come too soon.
From her vantage point behind camp, then by the riverbank, she watched the strategy unfold. “Before the first shot, I knew no soldier following Long Hair would live to tell this story.”
Across the water, bugle calls echoed as the blue coat column turned toward their attack position. What happened next came like lightning. Warriors swept through camp like a prairie wind, charging down ravines while women rounded up the ponies.
Between Custer’s approach and the hidden ravine that curled behind the butte, the soldiers couldn’t see the danger. Hundreds of warriors, first Cheyenne, then men from her band, then countless others, crossed the river and disappeared into that ravine. Others waited along the banks.
Red Woman realized then that Custer’s men would be caught between two forces.
After driving off Reno’s attack, Gall and his fighters recrossed the river with women following. They heard Gall’s orders echo across the water: “Scare their horses.” Young men’s war cries sent the army mounts bolting, and the women caught them.
The Sioux fought with bullets taken from dead soldiers, riding captured horses.
Red Woman remained with other women by the riverbank, witnessing history unfold. Crazy Horse led Cheyenne through the water. Crow King’s Hunkpapas followed.
Then Gall, fresh from killing soldiers upstream, rode straight for where Custer had halted his men.
From their side of the river, they heard the war cries still ringing when two Cheyenne warriors tried to cross, but one fell to Custer’s bullets. Then, like a storm rising from the earth, warriors led by Crow King, Hump, Crazy Horse, and other great chiefs surged up the hillsides from all directions.
The last clear sight they had before the gunsmoke and dust swallowed the battlefield was a mass of gray horses, riderless and wild. Though the soldiers fired without pause, the warriors’ aim was sure. By the time the women crossed the river, the fight was over.
Custer lay among his dead, and more than 200 blue coats littered the hill.
No Prisoners Taken
The boys, their blood still hot with battle rage, fired into bodies already lifeless. No prisoners were taken that day.
When asked if there was more fighting, Red Woman said, “Little.” Reno’s men trapped on their hill only risked death when they crept down for water. Gall kept warriors along the riverbanks, picking off thirsty soldiers who dared approach.
A few skirmishes flared, but none of the young men fell.
That night, the Sioux celebrated. Fires blazed across the camp as men, women, and children danced in triumph, their voices rising in victory songs. Some urged finishing Reno’s men where they cowered.
But Gall, Crow King, and Crazy Horse counseled patience. “We will shoot, but not charge. Thirst will do our work for us.”
The young men agreed. While most feasted, a few kept watch, ensuring no soldier who slipped toward the river returned alive. The next day brought scattered fighting until word came of more soldiers advancing from the north.
With that, they prepared to move on.
Never before had the Sioux won so great a victory at so little cost. Only 22 dead.
A Story Preserved
Red Woman delivered her account with unwavering conviction, never imagining her words would be published. Neither she nor her husband knew this private telling would become part of history’s record. The presence of writing materials would have silenced them immediately.
Major McLaughlin had introduced the correspondent as a friendly listener, making the story seem like casual conversation rather than something significant.
When questioned about mutilation of Custer’s men, the woman reacted sharply, denying it at first, then conceding many scalps were taken.
The smoke cleared, and the guns fell silent. But the story of that day, of Custer’s fall, of the Sioux’s defiant triumph, did not end on that bloodied hill. It lives in the wind that still whispers through the Greasy Grass, in the songs the people sing, and in the questions that haunt historians.
What if Reno had waited? What if Custer had seen the ravine? What if the bullets had flown differently?
One battle, one victory, a thousand unanswered stories.