CH, in keeping with your welcome posts on American history---
147 years ago, today, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and their warriors slaughtered Custer and his 7th Calvary along the Little Big Horn River. I've walked that ground 4 times and always picture what it was like on June 26, 1876.
10 days before the Little Big Horn Battle, there was the Battle of The Rosebud River, the next drainage east of the Little Big Horn. General Crook and his calvary force had come out of Ft Sheridan, Wy, to join General Terry in trying to get the Sioux and Chyenne to return to their reservations.
A large party of Indians, that were part of the Little Big Horn Encampment, encountered Gen Crook and his force, on the Little Rosebud. An all day, running battle ensued.
There was no clear winner, but Gen Crook withdrew. He felt shamed and headed back to Ft Sheridan. Crook was so shamed , that he didn't send word to Terry or Custer. Custer didn't know what a strong force of Indians that he was riding into..
While working in Billings, MT, I became acquainted with the man who owned most of the land where the Rosebud battle was fought. His name was Slim Kobel.
Slim was in his 80s, when I met him, in 1978. He had come to Wyoming , from Oklahoma, in 1915, as a 16 yo boy. Slim was in WW I and acquired his ranch through a veterans program..
Slim acquired the land , just 45 years after the battles. Indian survivors of the Battles would have annual pow wows, on Slim's ranch, to commemorate the Battles. Slim came to know them and their stories, well.
I spent a couple of days with Slim and he would guide me around the site telling me amazing, first person tales, from the Indians .that fought Custer and Crook.
" Stop here!, See those boulders, over there. A Unit of calvary came over this hill, just as a bunch of Indians shoed up among those boulders. Shots were exchanged and the bugler was shot through both wrists. His horse bolted and ran to the Indians.
A warrior brained the bugler, beside that boulder."
A true American History story from life.
B2B
