history

Custer's Last Stand
Military History » Great Battles »

Custer's Last Stand

by Andrew Curry

e-mail print

Custer's Last Stand

Contrary to legend, most archaeologists and historians now say there was no "last stand."

It was all over in less than an hour. Every one of Custer's 210 men was killed, and the blustering general himself was found two days later, stripped naked and shot in the left temple and chest. Eager to avenge the defeat - and loathe to admit they had been bested by Indian warriors armed with bows, spears and outdated rifles -- the Army made Custer out to be a national hero who ordered his men to shoot their horses to make barricades then fought bravely to the bitter end.

But contrary to legend, most archaeologists and historians now say there was no "last stand." Sioux and Cheyenne eyewitnesses later likened Custer's men in the last moments of battle to "a stampede of buffalo," "[shooting] like drunken men, firing into the ground, into the air, wildly in every way." And an archaeological survey by University of South Dakota's Richard Fox in the late 1980s found artifacts including bones, bullets and belt buckles spread far and wide on the bluff -- pointing to a running battle at best, a panicked rout at worst.

Go back to beginning with Battle of Little Big Horn.