June 25, 1876

Greasy Grass Creek: Or Custer's Last Stand.

Following the Civil War many Americans resumed the expansion Westward, chasing open spaces and valuable mining opportunities. To protect American citizens and to deal with the Native Americans already occupying these Western lands, many regular U.S. Army units were redeployed to the frontier after the war. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota, an area the local Indians considered sacred, tensions were bound to boil over. Years before, the Indians had been promised by the government that this land would remain untouched. Some tribes, led by the Lakota Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne, left their reservations and began harassing whites.

The actions prompted a quick reaction from the Army, who began sending columns of men and cavalry into the Black Hills to push the Indians out. In the summer of 1876, the Army had chased the Native Americans into the hills of Western Montana. Late in June a cavalry detachment led by General George Armstrong Custer was sent to scout a series of uncharted valleys and determine Indian presence there.

Through one of these valleys snaked the Little Bighorn River, and Custer soon began receiving reports from his scouts of a large Indian village led by Sioux Chief Sitting Bull on the river's banks. What his scouts failed to tell him, or what he chose to ignore, was that the village had been joined by hundreds of Indians for a hunt in the buffalo-rich region. Either way, not wanting to let such a large target scatter and escape, Custer decided to divide his force and attempt a pincer movement to destroy the village on June 25, 1876.

The first part of his forces swept in and attacked from the Southeast, but were driven back when they discovered the true size of the village they were attacking. What happened next is uncertain, but it is believed that the second half of the force, led by Custer himself, was lost in the maze of bluffs and hills to the East of the village. When they finally did attack, the Indians had already driven back the first assault and were free to concentrate on Custer alone. Post-battle accounts from many Indians claim that Sioux warrior Crazy Horse caught the cavalry troopers in the very same pincer move they had tried to execute. There are no accounts of the attack from the cavalry troopers. Custer was killed, along with every member of his detachment.


This painting of the Battle of the Little Bighorn depicts Custer at center, in buckskins. Note the men firing in front of him; it is believed the troopers shot their own horses to use for cover.

After the fight, the Native Americans combed the field at the spot of Custer's demise, stealing rifles and equipment and mutilating the bodies of dead troopers. Interestingly enough, the General had been dressed in buckskins that day, not the blue cavalry uniform, and thus his body escaped mutilation. The chase and the war with the Sioux continued into the next year until Sitting Bull led his people into Canada. The fight would come to be known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and would go down as the worst defeat the U.S. suffered during the Indian Wars. The Native Americans know it as the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek, as the prairie near the river that day ran slick with blood.

Ironically, the expedition that found the first gold in the Black Hills in 1874 was led by Custer himself.

June 23, 1865

The Bitter End: Or the Surrender of the Last Confederate General.

While many remember April 9th, 1865 as the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, some forget that day was not the end of the American Civil War. Lee surrendered only the famous Army of Northern Virginia to Grant that day, and while he effectively ended major combat, he did not surrender the Confederacy itself. In fact, several generals in the South's Western departments kept their armies operational for the rest of the spring.







Brigadier General Stand Watie, C.S.A., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.








The last of these generals to surrender was Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian who had risen to command the cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. After the Battle of Doaksville on June 23, 1865, a full 75 days after Lee's surrender in the East, Watie finally surrendered his command to Union forces at Fort Towson, Indian Territory, modern-day Oklahoma.

Watie, however, is a pretty interesting guy. As mentioned, he was a full-blooded Cherokee, and his cavalry force was made up almost entirely of Native American riders. A good read for young historians is the novel Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith, the title of which refers to our Watie. While the events in Keith's book are mostly fictional, they do justice to the guerrilla tactics Watie's cavalry was known for in the war's far western theater. It's fair to say Watie stood with other Confederate horsemen Nathan Bedford Forrest and J.E.B. Stuart in gray hairs given to Federal commanders.

When the war broke out, some leaders of the Cherokee decided to remain loyal to the government in Washington. Others felt that past treatment by the United States did not warrant such loyalty, and saw the Confederacy as a chance for a better future for Indian Rights. When the Chief of the Cherokee Nation fled to the North in 1862, Watie was elected as the new Chief. Watie was as against these pro-Union Cherokee as he was against the U.S. itself, and even after the war he advocated for a split of the Cherokee Nation on those lines. One of only two Native Americans to rise to the rank of general during the Civil War, Chief of his people, and as fierce a politician as he was a fighter. An interesting guy to say the least.

Oh, and the Battle of Doaksville? Watie's men won the fight, but low on provisions and with all other Confederate resistance disbanded, were forced to surrender. It's a cool piece of trivia that the last battle of the Civil War was actually won by the South.