Battlefield Atlas
Plains Wars · 1876 Free to explore

Little Bighorn, 25–27 June 1876

On 25 and 26 June 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked a great camp of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Custer divided his regiment; Major Reno's attack on the south end of the village was routed, while Custer and the five companies with him — some 210 men — were surrounded and killed to the last man. Reno and Benteen's survivors held out on the bluffs until the village moved away. The battle was the greatest Native American victory of the Plains Wars, but the shock in the East brought a massive Army response, and within a year most of the Lakota and Cheyenne had been forced onto reservations.

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"Custer's Last Stand" (Paxson)
"Custer's Last Stand" (Paxson) — Edgar Samuel Paxson, 1899 — Public domain

The battle, stage by stage

  1. 25 June 1876, about 3 PM

    Custer divides his regiment

    Custer has split the 7th Cavalry: Benteen's three companies scout to the south-west, Reno's three cross the Little Bighorn at Ford A to attack the southern end of a great Lakota and Cheyenne village, and Custer rides north along the bluffs with five companies to strike it from another side. The village, along the west bank, holds perhaps 6,000–8,000 people and 1,500–2,000 fighting men.

  2. About 3:15 PM

    Reno's charge and skirmish line

    Reno charges down the valley, then halts short of the Hunkpapa circle and dismounts in a skirmish line. Warriors pour out of the village and work around his left flank; Reno pulls back into the timber along the river. On the bluffs above, Custer looks down on the village near Weir Point and sends for Benteen and the packs.

  3. About 3:45–4:20 PM

    Reno routed; Custer at Medicine Tail Coulee

    Reno's retreat becomes a rout across the river at the Retreat Ford and up the bluffs to Reno Hill, with heavy losses; Benteen arrives there about 4:20. Custer divides again: Yates's two companies ride down Medicine Tail Coulee toward Ford B and are turned back, while Keogh's three companies hold the high ground to the east.

  4. About 4:30–5 PM

    Calhoun Hill and the Keogh sector

    Custer's battalion reunites on the ridge north of Medicine Tail. Calhoun's L Company and Keogh's I Company hold Calhoun Hill and the swale behind it while Yates's wing scouts north. Gall's warriors work up Deep Coulee and Greasy Grass Ridge; Crazy Horse and the Cheyenne under Two Moons sweep round to the north and east. Weir rides to Weir Point on his own.

  5. About 5–6 PM

    The Last Stand

    Calhoun's and Keogh's companies collapse; survivors stream north to Last Stand Hill, where Custer, his brothers and about 40 men of F Company fight on until overrun. Smith's E Company, sent toward the river, dies in and around Deep Ravine. All 210 men with Custer are killed. At Weir Point, the rest of the regiment sees dust and smoke to the north, then is driven back to Reno Hill.

  6. Night of 25 June and 26 June

    The siege of Reno Hill

    Reno's and Benteen's seven companies and the pack train dig in on Reno Hill under fire from the surrounding ridges, including Sharpshooter Ridge. They hold through the night and the next day; water parties crawl down the ravines to the river under fire. Late on 26 June the village packs up and moves south.

  7. 27 June

    Terry and Gibbon arrive

    General Terry's Montana Column comes up the valley from the north and finds the village gone. Lt. Bradley's scouts discover the bodies on Custer's field; Reno's survivors learn Custer's fate. The 7th Cavalry lost 268 killed; Lakota and Cheyenne losses are estimated at 30–100.

Paintings and photographs

"Custer's Last Stand" (Paxson)
"Custer's Last Stand" (Paxson) Edgar Paxson spent some twenty years researching this painting, interviewing participants on both sides; it is one of the most detailed depictions of the battle. Edgar Samuel Paxson, 1899 — Public domain · source
"Custer's Last Fight" (Adams/Becker)
"Custer's Last Fight" (Adams/Becker) The Anheuser-Busch lithograph after Cassilly Adams's painting, distributed to saloons across the country — probably the most widely seen picture of the battle. Otto Becker after Cassilly Adams, 1896 — Public domain · source
Kicking Bear's painting of the battle
Kicking Bear's painting of the battle The battle as painted by the Lakota Kicking Bear, a participant: Sitting Bull, Rain-in-the-Face, Crazy Horse and Kicking Bear himself stand at the centre among the fallen soldiers. Kicking Bear, 1898 — Public domain · source
Bones on Custer's field
Bones on Custer's field A pile of bones on Custer's field, looking toward the ford and the village site, photographed in the years after the battle when the dead were reburied. Photographer unknown (National Archives), c. 1877 — Public domain · source
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa holy man and leader whose vision of soldiers falling into camp preceded the battle. David F. Barry, 1885 — Public domain · source
Red Horse's drawings
Red Horse's drawings One of 42 drawings made in 1881 by Red Horse, a Minneconjou who fought in the battle — among the earliest Native accounts of it. Red Horse, 1881 — Public domain · source

Sources and method

Battle of the Little Bighorn (Greasy Grass), 25–27 June 1876. Positions are placed on the battlefield sites as mapped in OpenStreetMap and the National Park Service battlefield (Last Stand Hill, Calhoun Hill, the Keogh sector, Deep Ravine, Fords A and B, Weir Point, Reno Hill), following the standard reconstruction of the battle. The village camp circles and the warrior groups are approximate: the village moved and fought as a whole, and the blocks show where the main fighting groups were. Unit positions are good to roughly 100–300 m; times are approximate. The reference map (Wikimedia Commons, "Bighornbattle en") is schematic, so it is shown as a picture rather than laid on the ground.

How to use: pick one entry under "The battle". Tall blocks moved since the previous stage, flat yellow outlines show where they came from, arrows join them, low grey blocks are everyone else. Red = Lakota and Cheyenne, blue = 7th Cavalry. In the last two stages the grey blocks on Custer's field mark where his companies fell.