The Summer of '13 - The Olympic Peninsula: Day 16 - Billings MT

Today we continued west to Billings MT. Our stop along the route was at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. It's unfortunate so many had to die to get me $10 closer to break-even on my Park Pass. The park ranger did an outstanding job in his presentation of how the battle unfolded starting with some history going back into the 1840's and ending with the aftermath of the battle. From where he gave his talk we were able to see many of the locations he described. He noted that this was the only battlefield in the country and one of a few in the world that had markers where each participant fell. In addition to the most famous cluster of 42 markers on Last Stand Hill, there were multiple other clusters of up to 20 along with the occasional lone marker scattered over probably 15 square miles.

What I learned was Custer's Last Stand was not the end of the battle. After Custer and the men immediately around him were killed, another company remained and tried to make an escape back across the Little Bighorn but ended up trapped in a ravine and were also wiped out. The ranger also emphasized that while Custer and the 210 men with him all died, there were 350 survivors of the battle under Custer's command. They were just the men Custer split off to attack the Indian camp from another direction. Those men were actually the first to attack, but managed to escape the initial battle and withstand Indian attacks until reinforcements arrived two days later.