Little Bighorm Battle

Little Bighorm Battle, a set on Flickr.

After the battle, Lakota and Cheyenne families remove their dead, estimated between 60-100 and place them in tipis and on scaffolds and hillsides. On June 28, 1876, the bodies of Custer and his command are hastily buried in shallow graves at or near where they fell. In 1877 the remains of 11 officers and two civilians are transferred to eastern cemeteries. Custer's remains are reinterred at the U S Military Academy at West Point. In 1881, the remains of the rest of the command are buried in a mass grave around the base of the memorial shaft bearing the names of the soldiers, scouts and civilians killed in the battle. In 1890 the Army erects 249 headstone markers across the battlefield to show where Custer's men had fallen. In 1999, the National Park Service began erecting red granite markers at known Cheyenne and Lakota warrior casualty sites throughout the battlefield.

The Battle of Little Bighorn continues to fascinate people around the world. For most, it has come to illustrate a part of what Americans know as their western heritage, heroism and suffering, brashness and humiliation, victory and defeat, triumph and tragedy. These are the things people come here to ponder. ENJOY.