Day 9 - Billings to Sundance

Up early and filled up the tank before taking off east on Interstate 90 again. The weather was overcast and the prediction was for rain all day.

I only had a short drive to get to my first stop of the day at the Little Big Horn National Monument. This is the area where Lt. Colonel George Custer led the 7th Cavalry into a region to attempt to move the nomadic Indian tribes back to the government sanctioned Reservation in the Dakota Territory.

As a background to the battle The Indian people had been given a large area of the region to have as there own and no white people were to enter that area. Except of course the military who could enter the region to observe and monitor the Indians. On one of these trips the press were allowed to travel with the military and they found gold in the streams in the area.

The press of course reported this and once everyone knew about the gold the Government tried to buy the land area of the Indians for $6 million. The Indians rejected this offer many times before eventually the government decreed that the Indians needed to leave the area within a set time and move to the area they created further to the north called the Sioux Reservation.

Those who did not were to be forced to move there. Custer and his men found about 2000 Indians at Little Bighorn and Custer dispersed his troops into three groups to try to surprise them with an attack. Custer’s own Indian scouts advised not to do it as there were to many warriors in amongst the Indians.

Well long story short he did not listen to the Indian scouts and being separated from his other troops he and 226 other white men were killed that day on June 25th 1876. 

The memorial and interpretative centre are right on the edge of the battlefield and after paying the $20 fee to enter I went in the centre to plan what I was going to see. Whilst I was looking at the displays an announcement was made that a Park Ranger was going to be giving a battlefield talk up on Last Stand Hill in 10 minutes time.

I walked up to the hill which is only about 400 yards from the building. At he top of the hill is a monument honoring the dead. And that monument has a small grassed area around it. This was the exact site where Custer was killed. One bullet in the head and one in the chest. Although the believe from the autopsy done later that the bullet in the chest was inflicted after he died.

Just on the hillside beside that it’s a fenced off area with a lot of white post markers in it. These depict other soldiers that died in the battle and scattered across the fields around these are other white markers and also some red markers depicting places where the Indian warriors died during the battle.

The talk from the ranger was very good, giving descriptions of what happened that day and in the days following when other troops came to the area. As the hill is higher than the rest of the area he was able to point out other significant areas of the lead up to the battle that day including what happened to the other two groups of soldiers that Custer had deployed to surround the Indians, some of whom were also killed that day.

Following the talk I walked across the hill to another memorial that was built for the Indian warriors that died that day. It was only built this century but is a very fitting tribute to those men.

You can also drive 5 miles down the road inside the park to the other Battlefield where the other troops were deployed. They attacked the Indian encampment but were forced back to a hill top and surrounded but held their placement. The next day the Indians left the area as they had noticed that other troops where coming along the valley and left before they arrived.

As I finished wandering around the walkways of the battlefield and came back to the buildings there was a talk being held there by another ranger. This talk was basically the same as I had heard earlier but I think that the first one was better as being given at the top of the area the ranger could pinpoint the areas where the events happened the second talk could not do this.

By now it was raining steadily and I walked the short distance to the Custer National Cemetery which is also on the site. The cemetery is for Military personnel or their families but has been closed for many years. Custers remains are not here as they were taken to WestPoint in the years after the battle and are buried there.

Following that I returned to the car and continued driving towards South Dakota at about 12 noon. I crossed into Wyoming and stopped for lunch in Sheridan at another Perkins Family restaurant.

Then I drove most of the afternoon in rain until I finally arrived at the Devils Tower National Park to look at the Tower. It was just about then that it stopped raining and the clouds started to lift.

It is a natural rock formation that is mainly circular and sticks straight up into the air from the flat land below. It has a flat top on it as well. The rock is of different formation than the surrounding soils were millions of years ago and when they were worn down by waters and erosion this formation was left.

It is very impressive against the rest of the landscape. It has been climbed many times now, the first recorded time was in the 1893. In the land at the base of the tower is an area that in inhabited by Black Tail Prairie Dogs, you can pull up in your vehicle right next to where they are and watch them eat and play.

Leaving there it was almost dark and I drove towards Deadwood in South Dakota but decided to pull up early in Sundance, Wyoming for the night. I arranged to stay in a motel and had dinner and watched the Olympics for the night.