The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.
Busby is a census-designated place (CDP) in Big Horn County, Montana, United States. It is on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. The population was 745 at the 2010 census. The town is approximately twenty miles northeast of the site of the Battle of the Rosebud and the associated Rosebud Battlefield State Park, where General George Crook's forces encountered Sioux and Cheyenne forces led by Crazy Horse.
The Tongue River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately 265 mi (426 km) long, in the U.S. states of Wyoming and Montana. The Tongue rises in Wyoming in the Big Horn Mountains, flows generally northeast through northern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, and empties into the Yellowstone River at Miles City, Montana. Most of the course of the river is through the beautiful and varied landscapes of eastern Montana, including the Tongue River Canyon, the Tongue River breaks, the pine hills of southern Montana, and the buttes and grasslands that were formerly the home of vast migratory herds of American bison.
The Battle of the Rosebud took place on June 17, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and its Crow and Shoshoni allies against a force consisting mostly of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The Cheyenne called it the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother because of an incident during the fight involving Buffalo Calf Road Woman. General George Crook's offensive was stymied by the Indians, led by Crazy Horse, and he awaited reinforcements before resuming the campaign in August.
The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, was a battle that was fought on November 25, 1876, in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warriors of the Northern Cheyenne. The battle essentially ended the Northern Cheyennes' ability to continue the fight for their freedom on the Great Plains.
White Man Runs Him was a Crow scout serving with George Armstrong Custer's 1876 expedition against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne that culminated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Goes Ahead was a Crow scout for George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. He was a survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and his accounts of the battle are valued by modern historians.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman, or Brave Woman, was a Northern Cheyenne woman who saved her wounded warrior brother, Chief Comes in Sight, in the Battle of the Rosebud in 1876. Her rescue helped rally the Cheyenne warriors to win the battle. She fought next to her husband in the Battle of the Little Bighorn that same year. In 2005 Northern Cheyenne storytellers broke more than 100 years of silence about the battle, and they credited Buffalo Calf Road Woman with striking the blow that knocked Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer off his horse before he died.
The Battle of Wolf Mountain was a battle fought on January 8, 1877, by soldiers of the United States Army against Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The battle was fought in southern Montana Territory, about four miles southwest of modern-day Birney, Montana, along the Tongue River.
Wooden Leg (1858–1940) was a Northern Cheyenne warrior who fought against Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
The Battle of Powder River, also known as the Reynolds Battle, occurred on March 17, 1876, in Montana Territory, United States. The attack on a Cheyenne Indian encampment by Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds initiated the Great Sioux War of 1876. Although destroying a large amount of Indian property, the attack was poorly carried out and probably solidified Lakota Sioux and northern Cheyenne resistance to the U.S. attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation.
Wolf Mountains Battlefield/Where Big Crow Walked Back and Forth was the site of the Battle of Wolf Mountain, the last major combat of the Great Sioux War of 1876–77. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
The Wolf Mountains, el. 4,842 feet (1,476 m), sometimes referred to by local people as the Rosebud Mountains, and also known to the Crow Indians as the Wolf Teeth Mountains, are a mountain range east of Lodge Grass, Montana in Big Horn County, Montana.
Crow Scouts worked with the United States Army in several conflicts, the first in 1876 during the Great Sioux War. Because the Crow Nation was at that time at peace with the United States, the army was able to enlist Crow warriors to help them in their encroachment against the Native Americans with whom they were at war. In 1873, the Crow called for U.S. military actions against the Indigenous people they reported were trespassing into the newly-designated Crow reservation territories.
Fort McKinney (1877–1894) was a military post located in North Eastern Wyoming, near the Powder River.
Kirby was an unincorporated community in Big Horn County, Montana, United States. The community location is at an elevation of 3,878 feet (1,182 m). The site is on the west bank of Rosebud Creek. Rosebud Battlefield State Park lies approximately twelve miles south of the community, just west of Rosebud Creek.
White Swan (c.1850—1904), or Mee-nah-tsee-us in the Crow language, was one of six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation, White Swan went with Major Reno's detachment, and fought alongside the soldiers at the south end of the village. Of the six Crow scouts at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, White Swan stands out because he aggressively sought combat with multiple Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, and he was the only Crow Scout to be wounded in action, suffering severe wounds to his hand/wrist and leg/foot. After being disabled by his wounds, he was taken to Reno's hill entrenchments by Half Yellow Face, the pipe-bearer (leader) of the Crow scouts, which no doubt saved his life.
Half Yellow Face was the leader of the six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. Half Yellow Face led the six Crow scouts as Custer advanced up the Rosebud valley and crossed the divide to the Little Bighorn valley, and then as Custer made the fateful decision to attack the large Sioux-Cheyenne camp which precipitated the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. At this time, the other Crow Scouts witnessed a conversation between Custer and Half Yellow Face. Half Yellow Face made a statement to Custer that was poetically prophetic, at least for Custer: "You and I are going home today by a road we do not know".
Deer Medicine Rocks is a sandstone formation located on the west bank of Rosebud Creek in the vicinity of Lame Deer, Montana, United States. The formation is significant for its association with the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, and its connection with Sitting Bull's visionary sun dance of early June 1876 which prophesied victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. At its nomination to National Historic Landmark status in 2011, it was described as the only site to offer "a wholly Native American historical interpretation of the Battle of the Little Big Horn."
