View from Last Stand Hill The Battle of Little Bighorn, commonly known as “Custer’s Last Stand,” was a battle between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, in what is now the Crow Indian Reservation in the southeastern part of the Montana Territory. Led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, five of the 7th Cavalry's twelve companies were annihilated, after they attacked a huge Indian village gathered along the banks of the Little Bighorn River and were quickly pursued up a ridge by warriors from the encampment. Custer was killed as he and some of his company fought on top of “Last Stand Hill.”
Gravestones mark where they fell, with Custer’s marker (with a black background) in the foreground. More markers can be seen in the distance most likely of some of the survivors of the battle tried to retreat towards Deep Ravine. The precise details of Custer's fight are largely conjectural since none of the men who went forward with Custer's battalion (the five companies under his immediate command) survived the battle. Later accounts from surviving Indians are conflicting and unclear. The site of the battle was first preserved as a United States national cemetery in 1879 to protect the graves of the 7th Cavalry troopers, with the current marble obelisk at the site erected in their honor in 1881. Then in 1946, it was re-designated as the Custer Battlefield National Monument, with the name changed to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991 to better reflect the larger perspective of a battle between two cultures.
This view from “Last Stand Hill” looks down over the markers of Custer and his soldiers that perished, toward trees that line the Little Bighorn River, as well as the modern transportation corridors of Interstate 90 and the main line of Burlington Northern. While visiting this site, horns from passing trains can sometimes be heard, such as this westbound BN coal train headed across the Big Horn Subdivision.
The EMD SD (special duty) series are a strong and reliable kind of locomotive which still serve America's rails today. They have proved themselves reliable by clocking in several million miles of freight service over several decades.
