Garryowen in Glory: A Tactical Study of Little Bighorn

This episode examines the Battle of the Little Bighorn on 25-26 June 1876, the most iconic engagement of the Great Sioux War and the most analysed military disaster in American history.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment, operating as part of General Alfred Terry's three-pronged campaign to force the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne onto reservations, encountered a massive encampment on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Custer divided his command into three battalions, his own, under Major Marcus Reno, and under Captain Frederick Benteen, and attacked without adequate reconnaissance. Within two hours, Custer and all 210 men of his immediate command were dead. Reno and Benteen's combined force survived a desperate two-day siege on the bluffs above the river.

Drawing on the 1879 Reno Court of Inquiry testimony, personal exploration of the battlefield, and GIS terrain analysis of the ridges, coulees, and river crossings, the episode reconstructs the tactical sequence: Custer's route along the bluffs, the Reno valley fight, the Weir Point advance, and the final stand on Last Stand Hill. The analysis examines the decisions that separated Custer's battalion from any possibility of support and why the terrain made those decisions fatal.

The Lakota and Cheyenne perspective, the encampment's scale, the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the tactical response that overwhelmed the 7th Cavalry, is examined alongside the American military analysis.

The battlefield at Little Bighorn is among the best-preserved in the United States. The marble markers where soldiers fell remain on the ground where they died.

The full article including primary source analysis, GIS terrain mapping, and battlefield photography is at:

https://battlefieldtravels.com/battle-of-little-bighorn/

The podcast is entirely based on original battlefield research by battlefieldtravels.com and was created with AI assistance.