Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

I first visited the monument in 1957 when it was the Custer Battlefield. I was 9 and I got hooked. It is fascinating how much scholarship has been accomplished since then including inclusion of Native American accounts and the archeological investigations. Now we have interpretations from and memorials to the warriors who were, in fact, defending their homes and families. For the military historian there is much to enjoy in the story and the complicated historiography. Even the military leader can learn from June 25 (recon the objective!).

My great grandfather's (I met him) older brother, PVT Richard Dorn, was KIA at the Reno-Benteen Battlefield at dawn on June 26, maybe the last man killed in the battle.

"Garryowen!"

"It is a good day to die!"
 
Thanks for the reply. I was aware of his history, just wasnt sure why they decided to address him as General at the Little Bighorn. One thought that crossed my mind was to make him sound more important than he was. But who knows.
Maybe it's a courtesy. A president is still called "president so-snd-so" when no longer in office. It would be interesting to find out it this happened with other former generals of the ACW.
 
What battlefield is in Hawaii? :D

Joking aside, your post are the best. Great photos and explanations. I nominate you as member of the century.

Thank you!!


Thank you for the kind words!

My post and picture was directed towards Pat's comment about getting around.

And Hawai'i is filled with battlefields.

Before the islands were united, King Kamehameha the Great landed his army (Big Island of Hawai'i) on the beach of Waikiki on the island of O'ahu. His army traveled up the Nu'uanu Valley and fought the army of O'ahu on top of the Pali Lookout. Soon after King Kamehameha captured the island of O'ahu, the islands became a united kingdom.

My Hawai'i an 101 class in 1981 was awesome! Thanks, Mrs. Nakamura!!!

Bill

* James N is one of my inspirations!
 
I highly recommend this book!

IMG_20150625_152522.jpg
 
Thank you for the kind words!

My post and picture was directed towards Pat's comment about getting around.

And Hawai'i is filled with battlefields.

Before the islands were united, King Kamehameha the Great landed his army (Big Island of Hawai'i) on the beach of Waikiki on the island of O'ahu. His army traveled up the Nu'uanu Valley and fought the army of O'ahu on top of the Pali Lookout. Soon after King Kamehameha captured the island of O'ahu, the islands became a united kingdom.

My Hawai'i an 101 class in 1981 was awesome! Thanks, Mrs. Nakamura!!!

Bill

* James N is one of my inspirations!
I should have known. That's some great info. Would make a great setting for a Bernard Cornwell novel. Sharpe's Beach?
 
Like ole I've been there a couple of times before the Indian memorial was built. I walked from Last Stand Hill to the Reno-Benteen battlefield and the history just soaks through you. You walk over to the spot Capt. Keogh and his little group tried to make a stand (watch out for rattlesnakes) and you just think what a lonely place to die. It's really overwhelming.
 
I've been there twice, once back in the 70s when it was still Custer National Battlefield, and the second about 10 years ago. The visitors center is wonderful, very balanced presentation and good gift shop. The Reno Hill area is an awesome tour. You can see the battle unfold in front of you. Definitely one of the eeriest fields I've ever visited. It's very lonely, even when filled with tourists. The sight of the white markers scattered throughout the grass is very moving. Thanks for your pics; it was like being there again.
 
Bill,
Thanks for your usual wonderful posts. I was hoping to visit this year but will have to put it off at least until next year. Looking at the map I will be coming down I-94 and there appears to be a small county road 447 that follows the Rosebud. Since it goes through a Reservation before intersecting with US 212 i am wondering if you know if it is open to the public.

The horse burial detail must have been brutal.


Thanks
 
William,
I have been there once. The landscape is so different than my native Alabama I thought that I had landed on an entirely different planet. Planning a trip now to go back out there and to Yellowstone again next summer God willing. Great pictures as usual!
Same here.
I've been there once myself.

It's some beautiful landscapes, but definitely not what you and I are used to seeing on a daily basis.
I do hope to travel to that part of the country in the near future.
 
A little known part of Canadian history.


Courtesy of www.genforum.genealogy.com

Two Canadians who fought at Little Big Horn
Posted by: Richard Brezet (ID *****5603) Date: June 25, 2005 at 15:11:17
of 169

From Nova Scotia's largest daily newspaper - a story about 2 of the 10 Canadians who fought with Custer.

Saturday, June 24, 2005 - The Halifax Herald by BRIAN MEDEL < [email protected] > / Yarmouth Bureau

YARMOUTH - Gen. George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry troopers rode into a Sioux ambush and the annals of history 129 years ago today. Custer's defeat at the battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, resulted in the deaths of more than 260 soldiers. With him were two men from Yarmouth. One survived. The other died - with his boots on.

Richard D. Saunders was born in 1853 in Yarmouth. He was a stonemason until the summer of 1875, when something happened. He either needed more excitement in his life or was compelled for some reason to leave Yarmouth.

He no doubt took a steamer from Nova Scotia to Boston, where he enlisted Aug. 16 in the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry. He was a member of 'F' Company, which stood with Custer until the bitter end, as Crazy Horse and his warriors encircled them.

All of this information about Saunders would have continued to exist in relative obscurity if not for Arthur Thurston, the late Yarmouth historian, writer and Civil War authority. More than a dozen years ago, he was skimming old copies of Yarmouth newspapers for bits of shipping news when an obituary caught his eye. In December 1876, six months after Little Big Horn - Custer's Last Stand - a death notice stated: "We regret to report that Richard Saunders died at Little Big Horn River with Custer's command on June 25, 1876. He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Saunders of Deerfield, Yarmouth County."

Mr. Thurston was intrigued and made some inquiries. He dug deeper and learned that James Harris was the other Yarmouth man.

Harris was a house painter who signed up in Boston on Sept. 21, 1875. He survived Little Big Horn and was discharged from the army on Sept. 20, 1880 at Fort Yates, Dakota, having served out his five-year enlistment.

What possessed two men to set sail from Yarmouth to join up with the cavalry at a Boston recruiting station? Given their ages when they enlisted - Saunders was 22 and Harris 21 - they had probably listened spellbound to stories about the adventurous lives afforded many Yarmouthians during the Civil War.

"Yarmouth was a town almost on a war footing," Mr. Thurston told this writer nearly 10 years ago when we first talked about the subject. "Almost everybody was involved in (Yankee) blockade-running."

Union warships would do their best to keep supplies from entering southern ports, or cash crops from leaving, but the most trouble in the form of fast ships came from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

"They operated out of Saint John," Mr. Thurston said of the Yarmouth blockade runners. "They would buy materials from Boston factories, take them back to Saint John and then use a faster ship to take them from Saint John to some of the southern ports like Beaufort, Wilmington and Charleston.

"They were usually paid in English gold," Mr. Thurston said. Southern cotton crops were sold in the U.K. He said Custer's men from Yarmouth "heard so many stories of adventure" that they likely couldn't resist looking for some of the action.

In all, 10 Canadians stood with Custer at his Last Stand. Harris and Saunders were the only Maritimers. "Most were largely westerners and Ontario (residents), who enlisted in places like Chicago or in Minnesota - closer to the action," Mr. Thurston said.
 
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