330 chaPTEr 1 4 | the throes oF assimiLation | period six 1865 –1898Document 14.2 General PHiliP SHeriDan, Description
of Custer’s battlefield
1876In this dispatch, former Civil War general Philip Sheridan (1831–1888) provides his opin-
ion of the army’s decision to attack Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples at the Battle
of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in June 1876.I have to-day gone carefully over the scene of the Reno defeat and Custer mas-
sacre in company with a Sioux warrior who took an active part in both—“War
Club” by name. The Indian villages attacked were seven in number, with Crazy
Horse and his Sioux on the upper side of the semicircle in which they were
placed, and the Cheyennes on the lower side, with the Unepapas next, then com-
ing the Sans-Ares and Minneconjons next in the row—the semicircle of which
conformed to the bend in the river at the point, and being close to the trunk of
the river. Major Reno charged the village of Crazy Horse from above, while Gen.
Custer was to have charged the Cheyennes at the other end; but before the ford
was reached, he being on the other side from the village, Crazy Horse had Major
Reno whipped and corraled in the high hills opposite, when the entire force
attacked Custer with the sad result too well known. To-day a detail of 14 men
from each company was made to bury the dead—the dead comrades of Gens.
Terry and Gibbon and Major Reno—this being the third attempt to consign all
that was left of them to their last sad, homely resting-place. It required the evi-
dence of my own senses to believe this true, and I do not regard it as in any mea-
sure my duty to suppress this sad tale. The officers who permitted this should be
taught, by the aroused civilized sentiment of the land, that such conduct will not
be permitted to go unnoticed and uncondemned, if their own human and sol-
dierly instincts are not sufficient to spur them to a different course.New York Times, July 21, 1876.PracTIcINg historical Thinking
Identify: What is Sheridan’s opinion of the Battle of Little Bighorn?
Analyze: What is Sheridan’s attitude toward the “soldierly instincts” of the army?
Evaluate: In what ways does this conflict between Native Americans and US sol-
diers resemble similar conflicts from two centuries earlier? In what ways are these
conflicts different?ToPI c I | the Western War against native peoples 33115_STA_2012_ch14_327-342.indd 330 31/03/15 4:20 PM