Aubrey Waddle
1/27/15
United States History Since 1877 HIST-1302 4020 1

The Battle of Little Big Horn The eye witness accounts in America Firsthand show that the battle was indeed a massacre. Not one in the sense that there was an excess of mutilations and carnage, but that the U.S. Army participating in the battle were destroyed with little effort from the Indian forces. One Bull makes this clear in his account when he says, “I went with Sitting Bull and volunteered to go help kill these soldiers but Sitting Bull said no. So we watched the fight from a hill.” Sitting Bull did not feel the need to help the other Indian warriors in killing the remaining soldiers. Also, in Charles DeRudio’s account, DeRudio’s continual narrow escapes from the Indian warriors and the defeat that led to his adventure with the Pvt. O’Neill show that the American Army never had a chance. The U.S. Army was attempting to push the Indians that had fled their reserve back onto the reserve. The Indians had left because the whites refused to respect and stay away from their tribal lands in the Black Hills. The reason that the word ‘’massacre” fits what happened at Little Big Horn is mainly because the U.S. army was overall greatly outnumbered. In fact, General Custer’s scouts had estimated there were roughly 2500 to 5000 Indians in the village Custer had chosen to attack. Custer ignored these high estimates and figured there were only about 1000 Indians which could have easily been overcome by Custer’s 647 men. Not only is that a fact but also the eye witness accounts show this as well. Even with the accounts of One Bull and She Walks With Her Shawl were filtered by white reporters and clearly biased in certain areas, that was one thing that remained irrefutable. The U.S. Army was defeated from the beginning.
The two Indian accounts were taken by warriors. These were practically civilians that took up arm in the moment of battle. She Walks With Her Shawl and One Bull’s eye witness accounts seemed the most compelling to me. They both gave a better over view of the battle. Whereas DeRudio’s account was more about his escape from the battle. It seemed as though DeRudio barely saw any battle and what he did see, he ran away from. However, this does not mean the Indian accounts were the most credible. Being filtered by white interviewers, there is no doubt that the stories told were not as they are in the book currently. In She Walks With Her Shawl’s account, she says,”The brave men who came to punish us that morning were defeated;” She refers to the U.S. soldiers as “brave man”. This does not make any sense as she should have shown hatred toward these soldiers, not complement their bravery.
In conclusion, there was likely a bit of bias on all three eye witness accounts. However, all accounts do support the fact that the U.S. Army, primarily General Custer, were outnumbered drastically. The Indians were not victorious in the end, they were only victorious in this one battle. And many would argue that the victory did not come from the overwhelming might and skill of the Indian forces, but from the poor judgment of a few U.S. Generals; most famously, General Custer. The battle, however, is correctly labeled today as a massacre.

Work Cited:
N.p., n.d. Web. .

"Battle Of Little Bighorn." History Net Where History Comes Alive World US History Online RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2015. .