The Battle of the Little Bighorn,
known to Lakota as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and commonly referred
to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined
forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, against the 7th
Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which occurred June
25–26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory, was
the most prominent action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó in Standard Lakota Orthography, literally "His-Horse-Is-Crazy,
c. 1842 – September 5, 1877) was a Native American war leader of the Oglala
Lakota. He took up arms against the United States Federal government to fight against
encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people,
including acting as a decoy in the Fetterman Massacre and leading a war party
to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer
and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. On
June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana
against a coalition of Native American tribes, he and all of his battalion were
killed. The battle is popularly known in American history as "Custer's
Last Stand." Custer and his regiment were defeated so decisively at the
Little Bighorn that it has overshadowed all of his prior achievements.
