What happened at the Little Bighorn?: Archeological technology sheds light

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Modern archeological technology has joined forces with military science to shed new light on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

No U.S. cavalrymen survived at Custer's Last Battle in southern Montana on June 25, 1876.

Overall, the event lasted about 90 minutes and the final mayhem took only a half hour: it was not the prolonged "stand" of legend. Two hundred sixty eight troopers and Indian scouts perished, and about 50 American Indian warriors (of about a thousand) died. The only white witnesses of any sort were surviving soldiers in other nearby units and the men who came to bury the dead cavalrymen after the fighting.

Obviously, there was the testimony of the Sioux (Lakota) and Cheyenne Indian warriors who fought George Armstrong Custer and his troops. But archeologist Richard Fox (on the Custer's Last Battle: Little Bighorn Battlefield Self-Guided Auto Tour audiocassette) listed at least four reasons why white historians of the past failed to heed this firsthand evidence:

1) The Native American accounts sometimes appeared to contradict each other.

2) The accounts sounded unrealistic, because the Indians often used metaphors to describe events.

3) Translators often distorted the meaning of the Indian testimony.

4) Some Indians would say what the historians wanted to hear, for fear of retribution. [On a Billing, Montana television show in 2002, this writer heard a local Crow Indian tell how he'd been fired as an adviser on the 1941 movie, They Died with Their Boots On, for suggesting that Custer was somewhat less than a martyred hero. "By golly, they fired me," he said.]

Today's researchers accept the Indians' testimony as valuable evidence in reconstructing the battle scene. Fox mentioned other important clues:

1) Results of archeological field work at the site.

2) Analysis of the artifacts.

3) Knowledge of the cavalry tactics of Custer's times.

4) How soldiers behave in battle.

Researchers comb the battlefield with metal detectors to find cartridge cases and bullets, recording the location with a computerized surveying instrument (the computer remembers each item's identification number, description, depth in the ground and direction in which the artifact was facing). It is then possible to match the bullets and shells to the type of rifle that shot them: though the Indians used more than 40 different types of guns, Custer's troopers used only two, the Colt 45 six-shooter and the single-shot carbine rifle. So, the distribution of spent ammunition tells a great deal about the relative positions of Indian and cavalry combatants. It also reveals troop and Indian placements previously unknown to researchers.

What is more, each firearm leaves its distinct mark on the base of a fired cartridge, a microscopic "firing pin signature" as unique as a fingerprint. Mapping the trail of shells with the same firing pin signature lets researchers track the movement of an individual person over the Little Bighorn battlefield.

We know, too, that the troopers followed the tactics of an 1874 cavalry manual when engaging the enemy. They went strictly "by the book" when it came to deployment, firing their weapons and forming a skirmish line (at intervals of five yards between men). Bullets fired in strict formation will fall in corresponding patterns. But when overwhelmed by the enemy, cavalry troops tended to bunch together, and -- as fear gave way to panic -- they would break formation and flee for safety. Their cartridge cases and bullets reflect this progressive disintegration; projectiles also become scarcer and scarcer, because fleeing men fire their guns less often and even throw away their weapons. The final evidence is skeletal remains where the slain cavalrymen fell and more ammunition from Indian guns than from trooper firearms.

Richard Fox said that the evidence backs up the testimony of the Indian warriors (they reported that cavalrymen "were crying like babies, shooting wildly in the air, feigning death and acting as if they were drunk"). Runs-the-Enemy, a Sioux warrior at the battle, later called the troopers' retreat "a buffalo stampede."

Though films and paintings have depicted a bold "last stand" on the hill where Custer died, analysis of the artifacts showed that there were many more Indian bullets than cavalrymen's cartridge cases. Fox concluded that the engagement was a brief and desperate struggle that was over in a matter of minutes.

The bodies of 52 cavalrymen were found at the site. Most now lie in a mass grave there under a large monument stone, but the supposed remains of George Armstrong Custer were later removed for burial at the Military Academy at West Point.

• Visit Little Bighorn live via webcams at the National Park Service web page,  http://www.nps.gov/libi/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm