I very much doubt that Custer escaped mutilation. Likely the story of him found sleeping at rest with a smile on his face was for the benefit of Elizabeth Custer.

I’ve visited many battle sites but Little Big Horn was, to me anyway, the loneliest as it sits out on the prairie. I wondered as I was there if any soldiers, knowing their impending doom, looked about and thought, I’m dying for this? I suggest you visit it in the offseason when you’re the only one there. It makes a powerful impact.

When one considers the horrendous loss of life In civil war this was only A minor skirmish!

I have been to Little Big Horn. If you have the time take the bus tour. The guides are VERY knowledgeable. Many interesting facts are revealed during the ride!

I'm stopping again because I think every Battle of bighorn students knows that there were soldiers that went into that ravine but they could never find the bodies maybe finding parts of soldiers in the camp means they captured some and took them back do the village and I'm sure it wasn't pretty

At the time of his death he was a Lieutenant Colonel not a general.

Within 5 years, the victorious Indians had been scattered, defeated and placed on reserves where they still are today. They won one battle but lost the war.

To Julie Hudson, the reason students know several men went into the ravine was the army burial parties saw the bodies in a ravine down from Last Stand Hill. Therefore if the bodies were still there then (4 days after the battle) they had not been taken into the village.

One lost the battle,and one lost everything!

@havoscar…. More great Little Bighorn videos. Thank you !!!!

Yep.... Sitting Bull warned them Not to do this or they would face disaster

Not exactly correct ... Custer's widow was told that he was not mutilated . However a arrow was forced into his private parts destroying it ... The soldiers were so mutilated and dissected, head from body, arms and legs cut off from the body, and completely naked , that is was nearly impossible to identify anyone. One trooper has a glass eye, and that eye was shattered by an arrow, that is how he was identified. Relatives were told one thing out of kindness, totally without substantiation from the battlefield . A grave marker was set up for a Mother who came to see where he had fallen . In reality his body was never found ... What you are relating are stories not historical facts ...

great depictions of natives in their gear with feather headdress and spears and bows, but by this time many braves were armed with the latest repeating rifles. While most could not repair or fix the rifles, they we very adept in the usage.

Sad day for both sides.

A question: Custer's pocket watch turned up sometime in the 1920s...where is it today?

Tom Custer had his head smashed into a thickness of no more than a quarter That’s horrific 😢

A little known fact the Calvary had single shot carbine's. The Indians had repeating Winchesters

I heard they found trooper heads in camp fires, that had burned out.

Custer left behind two Gatling guns because he thought that the carriages would slow his movements through the Indian countryside. Wonder what would have happened if the Indians heard and saw the results of the rapid fire of bullets during the battle on Custer’s hill?

This document constitutes one opinion by men who by this time, wished to explain away and blame Custer for the general failure of the entire Campaign of 1876, which is ridiculous. A complete and thoroughly objective review of all the materials, including the latest analysis of the battlefield archeology, consult Gregory Micno's "The Mystery of E Company." Custer had no way of knowing that Crook had left the field a week earlier and that Terry and Gibbon were a day behind schedule. His job, as Lt. Godfrey recounts in his dairy (with Benteen's command), was to punish the Indians and drive them back to the reservations via a concerted effort of the entire campaign's forces, and if he had not attacked, he would have been blamed. The reasons for his dividing up his command make perfect sense when studied in detail. Custer sent Benteen out to cover the flank of his remaining forces by making sure that no hostiles were waiting in the ravines he sent Benteen to cover. In the Inquiry, it was revealed that Benteen was dawdling and did not think they would find the Indians that day. It was also well reported that Reno was a drunkard and was drinking on the day of the battle. Beteen disobeyed Custer's orders to come up. Custer waited as long as he could for Bentwen and then deployed his companies into a battle square. The Napoleonic Battle Square was a standard tactic and it is well demonstrated (by Michno) that others including Custer in 1873 had repelled similar numbers of hostiles in 1872 and in 1868, and that if Benteen had brought his troops up as commanded, he would have had more than enough men to discourage the Sioux and Cheyenne that day. Because of these important facts being left out of this video and discussion, it constitutes a repeat of old, debunked, and/or mitigated through wider, more informed, and objective analysis. I recommend that anyone truly interested in the most objective review of all materials, including Indian recollections and the latest battlefield archeological analysis of the battle, read Gregory MIchno's "The Mystery of E Company."

Lieutenant Colonel Custer, not General Custer.

The term savage" has meaning

If there were soldiers that had been killed in the village, then there were survivors of the battle, yes? Didn’t survive much longer than that, but they survived the battle. Or am I not understanding?

i have read that crippling an opponent after dearh cripples them in the afterlife. Whether that is truly First Peoples belief it has been repeated. Our aversion to touching the dead causes us to be outraged by such stories. The same sentiment that glorified Custer and made him a national hero obscures the lessons of the past.

I've read countless results of Custer's battle at the Big Horn, and I have to say that sometimes you reap what you sow.

So how did this all work out for the Indians?

Thank you very much for this information. Unless I have been looking in the wrong places, I have not found a whole lot of information on what injuries were inflicted on the bodies of Custer's men. I have often wondered what effect this had on the troopers who saw and buried the bodies. In the reports that have been passed down that I have seen, the soldiers reporting seem very indifferent and unaffected by the horrors they describe. I know that if the same atrocities were done to US soldiers today by our enemies, a lot of soldiers who would see this would eventually suffer from PTSD. It seems like this did not happen to soldiers back then.

I road a book called black elk speaks.black elk was a participant in that battle.he was a ghost dancer.

Girisy for all. I've have in life learned and was fascinated about history the West , the battle there.. Sad how history unfolds when its terribly resulted in blunder, All in all hopefully a learning lesson for all. One question I have , With great respect for Sitting Bull, Knowing his deep trances, and visions , in wound sacrifices on his arms being exhausted. he stayed in the Village when battle took place. I wonder if he after batttle rode up to Custer's area on the hill to check it out. before they headed to Canada?

Thanks fer the great INTELL!

While not mutilated to the same degree as many of his troopers, George A. Custer was most definitely treated to "special attention" in the aftermath of the battle. The truth was withheld from Libbie, but it is easy enough to discover on the web today.

Well, after years and years of Indians being robbed and evicted from their native lands, I doubt there would be no disastreous consequences... That is what unjust wars produce!...

I really love what you're doing here it's really awesome however there was mutilation done to Custer but not as severe as the rest that's because some Cheyenne women recognize him and said somehow that he had fathered a child with a Cheyenne lady they put an awl through his ear so he would hear better in the next life but that was hidden for a long time because they didn't want to hurt Libby custer. There was also an arrow shaft that was shoved up his penis. However yes he was not mutilated in the manner of many soldiers in which the manner of Plains Indians mutilated their dead enemies

They were not wild animals, but much worse than that....

If they kept going, instead of splitting up and running..you never know how far they would have went

Just subscribed

Why did they cut off the names from the clothing?

Thanks,, //Lars

2:09 Custer wasn’t a General when he was killed.

And the first nations people are still fighting for their rights 😢

Combat fatigue, battle fatigue, shell shock, were names given to mental conditions soldiers suffered from exposure to the trauma of battle before more scientific study of the condition during and after the Vietnam war termed it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The condition had been noticed for centuries, but there were no effective medical treatments available or enough scientific knowledge about diagnosis. An important result of extensive study of the condition was the the knowledge that the onset of the condition often occurred months or even years after the traumatic event(s). Your snide remark about the men burying Custer and his command seeing terrible things but apparently not being affected by the experience is irrelevant. They may well have been mentally affected, but exhibited symptoms months or years later.

No intel, compounded by a total lack of situational awareness...and interestingly duplicated at the Il Drang valley in 1965 vietnam....

Why did they wait so long to bring what was left of Custer's body back? As it is, they think (?) they brought the right bones back.

@se461 Wounded Knee was 14 years later.

By 1876 most Native Americans knew what paper money was. The ones at little bighorn escaped from reservation in the Dakotas so I am sure they knew they could buy guns, food, coffee, or Whiskey with it so I am skeptical about them throwing it away. I am also skeptical about a soldiers carry $500. That was a down payment on a farm in those days. These guys got paid less than $30 a month and usually spent their paycheck before they got the next one and many were immigrants.

Excellent video and very informative. Much better than the usual AI voice 20 minutes of useless deatil concerning this topic.

I got to hold a genuine Springfield Model 1873 carbine when I was there. The rest of you didn't.

Farher Creator, Under our Lords name, Bless these comments and this channel. Let the American people learn to know you and your authority, that we may learn and know what to do for this Nation today. Help us to know respect and apply it properly. To help rewrite our truth in all american history. Amen

No tears for Custer,only his troopers. His ego finally caught up with him.

Custer had earlier left a unit of soldiers to die. When he could of saved them but chose glory.to chase down some indians. Other than the men who died with Custer. Custer doesn't really get any sympathy from me or many others. Bentin not coming to his aid.(His reasoning was sound) Was a bit of kerma.

At the time of his death his rank was of Lieutenant Colonel.

Custer was well known amongst the Indians. He was a rock star. He had been shot through the body crossing the river to round up women and children to use as bargaining chips to end the hostilities. He was dragged from the river and back to the command post (hill). He also had a point blank shot to the temple by his own pistol. I doubt he was even alive during the final assault by Indians.

A perfect example of Ego leading and ignoring Intel.

I believe the description of Custer's body was accurate, but did he fail to mention he was stripped also? I believe that's how they found him.

NAPOLEON met his demise on Sunday June 25th at Waterloo 61 years earlier .

It’s interesting to say the marble white bodies. I thought by that point they had been sitting outside for a day or two. Seems like they would’ve been burned in the sun

A bunch of new knowledge.

The great tribes of northern plains !

Old cluster wound up getting his whole out fit wiped out because of poor decisions on his part !!!!! There’s a reason why he finished almost last in his class at west point!!!!! And surely wasn’t good at math or counting for that matter !!!! Arrogance will get you every time and he just got a taste of his own medicine !!!!

Brutal Native American customs not seen today

Cut all the gory stories. I want to hear about who, and how Custer came to his end.

Custer got exactly what he was looking for 🤣 what a fool he was

Why did I see a laughing hyena before the video. Please choose ads more carefully, I don't appreciate beggars.

That Custer flag belongs in the Smithsonian

After Wounded Knee and the many massacres of Indian Villages the Indians finally got their revenge.

Horrible.

If native Americans were treated with respect, European settlers could have learned how to treat the Earth.

What has always amazes me is that indians/native Americans always claim that the land was theirs. My question is this, who decided it was your land? It was not their land. That is a cold hard fact.

Poor ammunition would not fire. Major issue

Well, nothing really new here.

Leave the AI voice and amateur dramatics. There is a pathos story to be told ere. You aren't making it.

For all the one-way sympathies demanded these days...The reality is, the savages lost in the end, and thats a good thing.

You Yanks are allways getting your butt kicked by inferior opponents.

Justice was a long time coming for the American Indian, but they found it at the Big Horn

Colonialism was still a bit of an issue.

Custer was not a general.

I still can’t believe the brutal animals had gravestones on the hill but not one single Indian gravestone.

And people wonder why the Indians were treated the way they were....

Bottom line, everybody stole land from each other in this country. Like in the case of huge ranch lands back in the old west, the rancher with the most men and guns usually won.

Old cluster wound up getting his whole out fit wiped out because of poor decisions on his part !!!!! There’s a reason why he finished almost last in his class at west point!!!!! And surely wasn’t good at math or counting for that matter !!!! Arrogance will get you every time and he just got a taste of his own medicine !!!!