Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Custer are among the most famous names in American history. But each one made decisions that shaped the fate of Native nations, and those decisions are rarely in the textbooks. Here is what the record shows, and where it is disputed.
Crazy Horse is said to have avoided cameras all his life. Yet one small tintype has been called his only photograph. Here is the story of how it is said to have been taken, who owns it, and why many Lakota historians say the man in it is not Crazy Horse.
In Monroe, Michigan, a bronze Custer on horseback has stood since 1910. Since 2020, thousands of people have asked for it to be removed or changed. Here are the strongest arguments on both sides, and a middle path some are asking for.
Three weeks before Custer’s Last Stand, the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull danced a Sun Dance and fainted. When he woke, he told his people he had seen soldiers falling upside down into their camp. This is the story of the vision that gave the Lakota hope.
More than a thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors fought at the Little Bighorn, but a handful of leaders became famous. Here are eight chiefs of the battle: who they were, what they did that day, and what happened to them afterward.
Ten years after his death, a famous writer said Minneconjou warrior White Bull had killed Custer. White Bull left his own story behind, written and drawn in a ledger book. This is what he really said, and why historians doubt the claim.
A young Italian trumpeter rode away from Custer with a hurried pencil note. He never saw Custer again, and he lived to be blamed for what came next. This is the story of the last soldier known to see Custer alive.
For years, people said the Lakota and Cheyenne won at the Little Bighorn because they had better guns than Custer’s soldiers. Battlefield archaeology gives a more surprising answer. This is what the warriors really carried, and how much it mattered.
After the Little Bighorn, the Army buried Custer’s dead where they fell. But some men were never identified, and dozens more may still lie in a ravine that no one has been able to find. This is the mystery of Custer’s missing soldiers.
Wooden Leg was an eighteen-year-old Northern Cheyenne warrior at the Little Bighorn. In 1931, his story was published as one of the first book-length Native accounts of Custer’s last battle. It includes claims that still divide historians.
On June 25, 1876, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors won the greatest Native victory of the Plains Wars. Within a year, most of them had surrendered, been driven to Canada, or lost their land. This is what happened to the victors of the Little Bighorn.
Five years after the Little Bighorn, the Minneconjou Lakota chief Red Horse told what he saw, in sign language, and then drew it in 42 pictures. His account of soldiers begging for mercy and a mysterious “bravest man” is one of the most haunting records of Custer’s last battle.
In 1912, Jim Thorpe won two Olympic gold medals and was called the greatest athlete in the world. Six months later, the medals were taken from him. It took 110 years for the record to be set right.
After the Little Bighorn, America’s most famous poet wrote that Rain-in-the-Face took revenge on Custer. For the rest of his life, the Hunkpapa warrior was known as Custer’s killer. But when he finally told his own story, he called it a lie.
His horse gave out on the way to the Little Bighorn, and he fell behind. Years later, Private Peter Thompson claimed he had seen Custer near the river, alive, in the final hour. Historians have argued about his story ever since.
He was the last white survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Seventy years later, Sergeant Charles Windolph described two days trapped on a hilltop, men begging for water, and the silence from Custer that never broke.
After Crazy Horse was killed at Camp Robinson in 1877, his grieving parents carried his body away. Where they finally buried him has never been revealed, and nearly 150 years later, the secret is still kept.
He was called “the last man to see Custer alive” and “the only survivor” of Custer’s Last Stand. But the young Crow scout Curly told very different stories over the years, and one of them was never true.
He stood nearly 6 feet 9 inches tall, led his people through the last days of the Great Sioux War, and stayed at Crazy Horse’s side as he died. This is the story of Touch the Clouds.
They led war parties, rode into battle beside their husbands, saved their brothers and carried messages through enemy lines. These 10 Native American warrior women fought as hard as any man, and most history books never mentioned them.