Custer's Advance

By editor

Crow Agency, Big Horn County, Montana, June 1876

George Armstrong Custer divided his regiment into four parts on the morning of June 25, 1876, which is the kind of decision that looks either bold or reckless depending entirely on what happens next. He sent Captain Benteen with three companies to scout the bluffs to the south. He sent Major Reno with three companies to cross the river and charge the village from the south end. He kept five companies for himself. He sent the pack train and its escort behind. Then he rode north along the bluffs above the Little Bighorn River, looking for a place to cross and strike the village from the flank.

He never found one. Or rather, he found several, and none of them worked out.

The marker here stands near the place where Reno's and Custer's columns separated after coming down Reno Creek together. It describes the moment of division with military precision: Custer divides his forces into four groups along Reno Creek, orders Reno to cross the river and charge, then veers to the northwest with approximately 225 soldiers and scouts for their first view of the village. The marker quotes Lieutenant Edward Godfrey of Company K, who was riding with the column that morning and recorded what he saw: "Major Reno's battalion marched down a valley that developed into the south branch of a small tributary to the Little Bighorn. The Indian trail followed the meanderings of this valley. Custer's column followed Reno's closely, bearing to the right and rear. The pack train followed their trail. Benteen's battalion was ordered to the left and front."

This is the account of a professional soldier writing for the record, and it is accurate as far as it goes. What it does not convey is the speed of events. Custer had been awake most of the night. His Crow scouts had spotted the village from the Crow's Nest at dawn, and Custer had decided to attack immediately rather than wait for the following morning as originally planned. He believed the village knew the regiment was coming. He believed the village would scatter if he waited. He was wrong about the first thing and right about the second, though the village would not have scattered in the direction he imagined.

Moving Robe Woman, a Hunkpapa Lakota woman who was in the village that morning, described the moment the alarm came: "I saw a cloud of dust rise beyond a ridge of bluffs in the east. The morning was hot and sultry. Several of us Indian girls looked towards camp and saw a warrior ride swiftly, shouting that soldiers were only a few miles away, and that the women and children, including old men, should run for the hills in the opposite direction."

The village did not scatter. The women and children and old people moved away from the fighting, as Sitting Bull directed them to do, but the warriors moved toward it. There were perhaps 1,800 of them, well-armed, well-mounted, and fighting on ground they knew. They had been expecting something like this since the army had invaded the Black Hills two years earlier, since the government had tried to buy the Paha Sapa and the Lakota had refused, since the ultimatum had gone out the previous winter ordering all the bands to report to the agencies by January 31 or be considered hostile. Many of the men in the village had been at the Battle of the Rosebud eight days earlier, where they had fought General Crook's column to a standstill. They were not surprised.

Custer rode north along the bluffs with his five companies, perhaps 225 men. He could see the valley below him, the river, the village, the dust rising from Reno's charge. He sent a messenger back to Benteen: "Come on. Big village. Be quick. Bring packs." Then he rode on, looking for a ford. The ford at Medicine Tail Coulee was defended. The ford at Deep Coulee was defended. The warriors who had finished with Reno's battalion were now crossing the river and coming up the ravines toward the bluffs where Custer's five companies were trying to find a way down.

What happened next is the most studied and least understood two hours in American military history. There were no survivors from Custer's five companies. The last man standing on Last Stand Hill was killed sometime around 5:00 in the afternoon, and when the army arrived two days later they found 210 bodies scattered across the ridges and ravines of the battlefield. The markers are still there, white marble stakes in the grass, one for each man who fell where he fell.

The marker here, at the point of separation, records the last moment when the outcome was still undecided. Custer rode north. Reno rode west. The village was ahead of both of them, and it was not going anywhere.

See also

• Custer's Advance at Crow Agency, Big Horn County (Erected by National Park Service)
• Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Crow Agency, Big Horn County