s/y Nine of Cups Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument - Montana June 2012 |
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument memorializes a major battle fought on June 25, 1876, between Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians against the US Army. These tribes were fighting to preserve their traditional way of life as nomadic buffalo hunters. The US Army was carrying out the Grant Administration's instructions to remove the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne peoples to the great Sioux Reservation in Dakota Territory. This battle is known as Custer's Last Stand. |
Sitting Bull was a political and spiritual leader of the Lakotas. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was sent to comply with orders to move the Indians to a reservation. Custer Battlefield National Monument was designated in 1940 and had its name changed in 1991 to reflect Native American participation in the battle and a better understanding of what they were fighting for. |
No memorial honored the Native Americans who struggled to preserve and defend their homeland and traditional way of life until this striking one was erected in the park in 1997. |
The Custer Battlefield Trading Post across the street from the national monument entrance offered Custer and Native American souvenirs. |
A memorial to the horses |
Little Bighorn is also a National Cemetery, one of 146 nationally important cemeteries generally designated as a military cemeteries containing the graves of U.S. military personnel, veterans and their spouses. |
On the knoll known as Last Stand Hill, Custer and 41 of his men fought to the death. A total of 253 US soldiers and an estimated 100 Indians were killed during the battle. The soldier's remains were placed at the base of the monument on the top of the hill and individual grave markers were placed where the soldiers were thought to have fallen, including George Custer. |
This caught our attention. |
We spotted a Boisduval Blue butterfly fluttering among the gravestones. |
The visit here was informative and sad. It serves as a reminder of promises made and broken, of man's inhumanity to man, of duty and honor. |
Check out: More National Parks & Monuments? American Odyssey...Part I? (Las Vegas to Denver) American Odyssey...Part II? (Denver to Boston) Birds of North America? Wildflowers of North America? |
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