Inclusion expands field's history

I n 1876, all was not quiet on the Western frontier.

After the Civil War, thousands of American Indians started leaving reservations and forming strategic alliances. It didn't take long to turn bloody. A series of conflicts reached fever pitch and led to the "Indian Wars" and, near my hometown of Billings, Mont., the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Famously, Lt. Col. George Custer and 262 of his retinue were slaughtered and scalped there when they surprised an encampment of Lakota (Sioux) and Northern Cheyenne. Flamboyant Custer -- renowned for his luck in war -- fatally underestimated his enemy during a hasty attack and disorganized retreat.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn wasn't always called this, of course. For most of my life, the spot just an hour east of Billings was the Custer Battlefield National Monument or "Custer's Last Stand." Even in second grade, I didn't understand why they'd name a battlefield after the side that lost. And lost badly.

But not just the names have changed, which is why my mom and I were revisiting this national landmark, along with my wife and best friend, who had never been there.

Montana's beauty on display

More than 130 years after Custer's defeat, there's more actual "field" than signs of battle left at the battlefield. But it's still beautiful -- beautiful in the way Montana's rolling, bronze prairies stretch to the horizon. The park itself includes roughly 2 miles of walkable trails, including a short, steep climb up Last Stand Hill -- where Custer, his three brothers and 38 others died. Down from the hill sits a two-room interpretive center, a bookstore, restrooms and a small national cemetery.

One of the Northern Cheyenne warriors, Two Moons, later described the scene: "We circled around them, like water swirling around a stone."

When I was a kid, the lasting visual imprint I took from the battlefield included hundreds of tiny, white marble markers speckled throughout, miniature tombstones denoting the places where soldiers fell. Some have names, others -- mostly those of enlisted or unknown men -- don't. A typical stone simply says "U.S. Soldier 7th Calvary fell here June 25, 1876."

Indian monument added

Today, those markers are joined by a dozen or so red granite stones, erected since 1999 for their American Indian counterparts. One, near the Little Bighorn River, reads "Hevovetaso, Little Whirlwind, a Cheyenne Warrior fell here on June 25, 1876, while defending the Cheyenne way of life."

This embrace of a more rounded historical perspective started in 1991, when the battlefield was renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. There's even a separate Indian monument (dedicated in 2003), a fitting semicircle of warrior names along a stone wall.

Custer continues to cast a long shadow in Montana. History has painted him alternately as a hero, a reckless scapegoat and a vain fool, the last in his class at West Point. In recent years, his image has gained more depth with the book (and, later, TV miniseries starring Gary Cole) "Son of the Morning Star," which portrays Custer as a soldier who opposed Indian policy, but still enforced it, who reached for glory but saw his famous luck run out in a high-profile conflict.

"On one hand, he didn't respect the Indians, but he admired them," said Ken Woody, chief of interpretation at the battlefield. "You can call him a fool, and you have to call him brave. He led all of his own charges."