A big day in history today; 141 years ago the Seventh cavalry unit under Gen G.A. Custer was killed to a man on the Little Big Horn. My wife and I drove up to Forsyth, MT, yesterday on an errand and followed Rosebud Creek most of the way up to the Yellowstone. There's a plaque on the highway that designates where the 7th camped the night before that big day, not far outside the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. You could look down on the Rosebud and easily imagine a camp of troopers in bivouac, tending to their mounts.
As we made our turn to the east on Hwy 212, and just outside of Busby, MT, on our way to Lame Deer, there was a camp of Cheyenne (my wife and I presumed, and probably some Lakota folk, too) tending to their fair number of horses getting ready for the big re-enactment near Hardin, MT, on the 25th.
Years ago, I talked to a Lakota man working in the trading post/restaurant near the entrance to the Battlefield and asked him if he'd been to the re-enactment. He told me I should go sometime, which I haven't yet, and said it gets quite "Western." He said he'd been there a couple of times, but didn't need to go anymore because, as he said, "it always turns out the same."
As we made our turn to the east on Hwy 212, and just outside of Busby, MT, on our way to Lame Deer, there was a camp of Cheyenne (my wife and I presumed, and probably some Lakota folk, too) tending to their fair number of horses getting ready for the big re-enactment near Hardin, MT, on the 25th.
Years ago, I talked to a Lakota man working in the trading post/restaurant near the entrance to the Battlefield and asked him if he'd been to the re-enactment. He told me I should go sometime, which I haven't yet, and said it gets quite "Western." He said he'd been there a couple of times, but didn't need to go anymore because, as he said, "it always turns out the same."