Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409120041
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: SHERIDAN, WYO. LENGTH: Medium
In the space of just a few hours over three days, I stopped at several marked old military sites, and took away a deep impression of the carnage that went on in the area in the 1860s and 1870s.
nFort Phil Kearny, now a mostly bare hilltop 20 miles south of Sheridan, was once a 17-acre compound behind 8-foot walls. It was established in July 1866, in the heart of Sioux and Cheyenne hunting grounds and named for a Civil War hero. The fort lay along the Bozeman Trail, a popular but perilous shortcut to the Oregon Trail. It also served to draw warriors' attention away from the transcontinental railroad project then passing through to the south. In 1868, after the rail had advanced and hundreds of cavalrymen and Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho and Shoshone had killed each other in various ambushes and skirmishes, the U.S. Army gave up the fort and the Sioux and others burned it. Now a small interpretive center tells that story, displays artifacts and sells books and souvenirs.
nFetterman Battle Site, about five miles from Fort Phil Kearny, is another largely bare hilltop, and the scene of a cavalry defeat on Dec. 21, 1866. On that day, Capt. William J. Fetterman, who had bragged of being able to defeat the entire Sioux nation with about 80 good soldiers, was out and about with 81 men. He had orders not to stray too far from Fort Phil Kearny, but upon sight of a few Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho - including a young Sioux warrior named Crazy Horse - he violated orders and strayed across Lodge Trail Ridge. The stray warriors were a decoy. More than 2,000 more were waiting, and they quickly killed Fetterman and all of his men. The whole thing apparently took about half an hour. In retrospect, that fiasco foreshadowed the most famous of all battle fiascoes in the area: Custer's last stand.
nLittle Bighorn, Mont. (about 75 miles north of Sheridan on I-90), is the scene everyone has heard something about. The site, a series of ridges and valleys around the Little Bighorn River, had been earmarked for native occupation by the U.S. government in the Treaty of 1868. But then gold was found nearby, and Army officials became restless about Sioux and Cheyenne hunting habits, and in late June 1876, Army leaders including Lt. Col. George A. Custer resolved to attack. But they vastly underestimated the number and attitude and capability of their enemies; there were thousands of united Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho, not the hundreds that were forecast, and Custer evidently had the mistaken impression that they would scatter and retreat upon attack.
Cheyenne Two Moon, one of the combatants, said later that the defeat of Custer's unit took ``as long as it takes a hungry man to eat his dinner.'' In the welter of things that went wrong, Custer and about 225 officers and troopers under his command died in the last major defeat of the campaign, and an industry of Custer speculation and research was spawned.
One reason the event took on such historic resonance was simple timing: The word of Custer's defeat reached Washington just in time to taint the nation's celebration of its 100th Independence Day. The site today includes a well-outfitted visitor center, a stone monument to the dead, and a vast, 360-degree view of grass and prairie hills. (Admission to the monument property is $4 per vehicle, $2 per pedestrian.) A Crow reservation surrounds the site, and a national cemetery holds row upon row of dead from World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Hillside markers also show where Custer and his men fell, and a four-mile driving route allows visitors to follow the chronology of the fighting.
The markers and literature show a fascinating evolution of official attitude, from the old stone marker dedicated to the officers and soldiers killed ``while clearing the district ... of hostile Indians'' to the newer marker that cites ``our fallen heroes, both Indian and white, who gave their last full measure in defense of their country.'' In 1991, after legislation was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo., Congress and President Bush agreed to change the site's name from Custer Battlefield to Little Bighorn Battlefield.
by CNB