Photo from the Illingworth Collection in the South Dakota State Archives.

Scout’s prophecy: Custer’s favorite Arikara scout, Bloody Knife (right) was photographed with Custer and a grizzly bear after a successful hunt during the 1874 military expedition into the Black Hills. Two years later, Custer ignored the scout’s advice against attacking the huge Indian village in the valley beside the Little Big Horn River. Bloody Knife, looking at the sun, prophesized, “I shall not see you go down behind the mountains tonight.” He was killed during Reno’s retreat. 



Last Stand Hill: Custer died on Last Stand Hill, along with his brothers Tom and Boston, his nephew Autie Reed, his brother-in-law Lt. Calhoun, and every man in his immediate command.

            June 25^th marks the 125th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The day Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led more than 200 men to their deaths in the Montana wilderness.

            Perhaps no military engagement in American history has created more controversy. Despite the hundreds of thousands of articles, books, documentaries and motion pictures still being produced, the defeat of the 7^th Cavalry by overwhelming numbers of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors remains shrouded in mystery. Not one trooper of the five companies that fought with Custer survived to tell about the final moments on Last Stand Hill.

The 125^th anniversary of the battle will be commemorated the last weekend in June at the battlefield in southeast Montana, 15 miles south of Hardin on Interstate 90.

 
 Reno’s retreat: Met by a strong Sioux defense at the south end of the Indian encampment, Major Marcus Reno’s troopers retreated back across the river, into the woods, then up the bluffs, taking up a defensive position on Reno Hill where they outlasted a two-day siege.

 
After the battle: Travois, built with lodge poles from the abandoned Indian village, transported wounded soldiers on an arduous 15-mile overland trek to the Far West steamer that waited at the junction of the Little Big Horn and Big Horn rivers.

 Re-creation photos of the Little Bighorn Battle by Jim Hatzell, Rapid City.