2/2/04 8:30pm Billings, MT
This morning, I was up at 8:00am to call about replacing my car. The only Hertz office in Casper was at the airport, and there was no shuttle, so I had to call a cab. It took three trips to get all my stuff in the car and then into the airport when we got there. I counted my shirts and realized I had enough to wear each one only twice to complete the trip without washing them. I guess I over packed.
I headed northward again, just me and maybe a dozen other cars on the interstate all the way to Buffalo, Wyoming. It’s easy to overuse the word “beautiful” when describing the type of scenery all around me as I’ve gone from Colorado on up. There are mountains on either side of the highway, but for the most part both are miles and miles away, giving the traveler a perfect view from the plain on which you’re driving. Today was perfectly clear, so there was no shortage of stunning vistas to photograph. At some point, no matter how interesting the rock formation or how tall the mountain, when you see enough pictures of them, they’re just another pile of rocks, so I rationed the number of photos I took and just enjoyed the views. Another reason to take fewer pictures is the cost of a roll of film at these gas stations: almost $8.00.
Buffalo is a small, Old Western town that seems to take pride in both counts. It has managed to preserve more than a few buildings from the 1800’s, including the Occidental Hotel, one of which’s advertisements read “Butch Cassidy stayed here - you can too!” It’s still an operating hotel, with a couple of other businesses in the building, a barber shop and a restaurant. Just down the street is the Capitol Hotel, which now houses small businesses of a modern sort. I remember passing a town further south that claimed you could visit “the only jail cell to hold Butch Cassidy”. He must be good for tourism in these parts. I wonder what he’d think of that.
I got a sandwich at one of the several delis across the street from the hotels. It seemed all of them had stores in the front, food in the back. The one I entered was of the neo-hippie sort, selling kitsch, T-shirts and other detritus of the pop consumer culture, with a back door leading to the deli counter, where flavored designer coffee was on the menu and computer terminals offered me the chance to check my various e-mail accounts. Alas, nothing but spam in four days. As I was leaving I noticed Clear Creek, which runs through town by the Occidental, was frozen in a way I hadn’t seen before. The ice had formed for the most part on the bottom of the creek, but water was flowing over top of it, when usually I thought the opposite was true.
It was only a short way north before I crossed into Montana and came across the Little Bighorn River and Battlefield National Monument. I originally exited at the sign pointing to Little Big Horn Canyon, but it was 44 miles down a country road, so I turned back to the Battlefield.
The Battle of Little Bighorn National Monument is much larger than I expected, and pricier to get into unless you’re visiting loved ones buried there, since it is also a National Cemetery. Hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. soldiers and their immediate families are buried there in neatly groomed straight rows, a la Arlington National Cemetery. The members of the 7th Cavalry who fell at that battle weren’t so lucky.
General George Custer was the commanding officer of the forces that engaged a mostly Sioux force of Indians who had set up a village in a valley surrounded by low hills and gullies. From what I’ve read on him in the past, it seems he was first unjustly celebrated for his efforts against the Indians, and then unjustly demonized for same. As I learned about his famous “Last Stand” growing up, he emerged as somewhat of a pompous fool who got himself and 210 U.S. soldiers killed in one day for lack of caution and love of attention. It turns out that’s only one side of the story.
In the 1870’s, as the Civil War started to fade away in the attention of the American people, their eyes turned back to the west and the search for gold. Many Indian treaties had been signed by the U.S. government, but those settlers and adventure seekers headed west for new horizons either didn’t know the terms of those agreements or didn’t care, or both. As a result, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the heart of the land the government had agreed to leave for the Sioux to continue practicing their way of life, the huge influx of disrespectful, if largely ignorant, white men couldn’t help but stir up tensions. The Sioux refused to sell the Black Hills to the U.S. government and, correctly believing these immigrants were violating their leaders’ agreements, signed and sealed in Washington, D.C., began killing hundreds of them and attacking the U.S. soldiers dispatched to protect them, ignorant or not.
When the U.S. proceeded to unilaterally alter the lands designated for the Indians in treaties it had already agreed to, Sitting Bull and others began marshalling their forces from the reservation and preparing for a last campaign to save their culture. They ignored orders to return to the reservations and were branded enemies of the state. The 7th U.S. Cavalry was sent in to break them, under the command of General Custer, who had fought and mostly won in the Civil War for the Union Army, leading his Michigan “Wolverines”.
As the museum at the site makes clear, Custer was a bit of a dandy, who preferred proper dress, at home and away. Like most U.S. generals at the time, he employed many Indian scouts and advisers, in this case Crow and Arapaho, the tribes the Sioux had defeated previously and driven off the land. Less common, he also employed a black personal cook.
As they approached the Sioux village, Custer split most of his troops between two of his officers and sent them around in a pincer movement. He kept five companies of men for himself. He was spotted by lookouts in the village, and the camp started to break up. He wildly underestimated the number of Indians, and believed they intended to retreat. With the knowledge of the two troop movements coming, he ordered the attack. It was his 210 men against 7,000 Sioux, and every soldier died before the reinforcements came. One of Custer’s officers named Weir also lost 53 men, and he retreated twice before being rescued from siege the next day. Only 40-100 Indians died.
The National Monument covers the entire battlefield, where white markers denote where each soldier died. Their bodies, however, with the exception of Custer, are in a mass grave capped with a memorial stone listing their names, located less than 6 feet from the spot where Custer fell on the top of the hill. Custer’s remains were moved to Arlington National Cemetery. Only a few feet away from this mass grave was another grave for the horses. During the battle, Custer’s men shot their horses to use as “breastworks” at the top of the hill, a wall of carcasses to absorb Indian bullets.
A little farther down is the Indian memorial, which was just dedicated in June 2003. It’s a circle with a sculpture and 3 openings, one of which points to the soldiers’ grave, inviting their spirits into the circle. In 1991, the name of the National Monument, originally called Custer Battlefield, was changed to reflect the place of the battle and not the famous man who died there. This is the kind of give and take that enables healing while acknowledging what was lost. The entire memorial was very tastefully done and affecting, while the visitor museum informed much of this entry.
As the sun went down I stopped in Billings to gas up and decided to stay. After all, you can’t see anything interesting at night, and I was still a little jittery after last night’s accident. Tonight, I will get to bed early, and it’s only two hours tomorrow to my cousin Mark’s in Bozeman.
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