What History Books Often Leave Out About the Battle of Greasy Grass

Hidden among the trees in the Little Bighorn River, a handful of U.S. soldiers were still alive on the afternoon of June 26, 1876. They were separated from Major Marcus Reno's command on their chaotic retreat.

The soldiers had been pinned down for a day and a half, hoping to survive until General Alfred Terry's forces arrived. According to Lakota oral history, men dressed in cavalry blue finally arrived, so the soldiers climbed out of cover, waving their arms and shouting for help. They believed it was General Alfred Terry's men, finally coming to save them.

They were wrong. The riders were Lakota and Cheyenne warriors, wearing coats and hats taken from soldiers who had died the day before. This detail of the story of the Battle of the Greasy Grass rarely makes it into the popular version of this battle.

Most Americans know it as Custer’s Last Stand, which is told almost entirely from the U.S. Army's perspective.

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As the Battle of the Greasy Grass marked its 150th anniversary in June 2026, it gave everyone a chance to revisit the conflict through Native perspectives, forgotten figures, and historical details that rarely make it into textbooks.

Here are the treaty disputes, Native accounts, family histories, and overlooked figures that help explain the Battle of the Greasy Grass beyond the familiar Custer-centered version.

The Long Road to the River

None of what happened in June 1876 occurred in isolation, and several events led up to the Battle of the Greasy Grass. There were raids, massacres, and broken promises. Each one made war increasingly likely by that summer, and it’s important to understand key details about how everything started.

The timeline shows that the Battle of the Greasy Grass was not an isolated clash. It grew out of years of broken promises, military campaigns, retaliatory violence, and resistance across the Northern Plains.

Even after Greasy Grass, the conflict continued through battles such as the Battle of Slim Buttes as the U.S. Army expanded its campaigns across the region.

How Did the Fort Laramie Treaty Shape the Battle?

Understanding why the soldiers were hiding along the Little Bighorn River takes us back to 1868, when the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed on April 29 between the U.S. government and the Sioux Nation.

Article I of the treaty states,

“From this day forward, all war between the parties to this agreement shall forever cease. The Government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now pledge their honor to maintain it.

If bad men among the Indians shall commit a wrong or depredation upon the person or property of any one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States and at peace therewith, the Indians herein named, solemnly agree that they will upon proof made to their Agent, and notice by him, deliver up the wrong doer to the United States, to be tried and punished according to its laws, and in case they willfully refuse so to do, the person injured shall be reimbursed for his loss from the annuities…..”

The treaty also said that the Black Hills were part of the Great Sioux Reservation, where the land was set aside only for the Sioux. It also promised that the Powder River country further west would stay closed to white settlers, land that still belonged to the Lakota.

The treaty was eventually signed by most of the major Lakota leaders, but Crazy Horse (war leader of the Oglala Lakota) and Hump (Miniconjou Lakota war chief, cousin of Crazy Horse) did not.

"My grandfather Hump had thirteen more years of freedom by not signing the Fort Laramie Treaty," said Donovin Sprague, a historian, author, and descendant of the Hump and Crazy Horse families.

Hump and Crazy Horse weren’t breaking the treaty because they never signed it. When the U.S. government ordered all Lakota to report to reservation agencies by the end of January 1876 or be treated as enemies, it was targeting people who had never agreed to the treaty in the first place.

The treaty didn’t last long because U.S. Army cavalry officer George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and found gold on land the government had promised would belong to the Lakota. The U.S. government tried to buy the Black Hills, but the Lakota refused to sell them.

When Lakota leaders refused to sell the Black Hills, the government didn’t honor the treaty and instead declared the Lakota bands living outside the reservations to be hostile and sent the Army after them. That decision helped spark the Great Sioux War, which included the Battle of the Greasy Grass, but it continued long after Custer's defeat.

The Battle of the Greasy Grass

Just a week before the fighting reached the Little Bighorn, General George Crook clashed with the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors at the Battle of the Rosebud.

After the battle, Crook withdrew to his supply camp instead of continuing the campaign. The same afternoon, a Cheyenne woman, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, rescued her wounded brother, Comes in Sight.

She lifted her brother onto her horse and carried him to safety. The Cheyenne remember this as the Battle Where the Sister Saved Her Brother, in which they believe her actions helped change the course of the fighting that day.

A week later, Custer divided his command into several groups. One of those groups took up a position on what is now known as Calhoun Hill, named after Lieutenant James Calhoun. He was one of Custer’s officers who was killed there. According to the Hump family history, Calhoun Hill was one of the key places where the battle began to turn.

"Some of the fiercest fighting in our family was at Calhoun Hill," Sprague said. "Calhoun Hill turned the tide when people like Crazy Horse and Hump split the soldiers in half."

The Lakota and Cheyenne warriors used a strategy they had learned from hunting buffalo. Warriors, including Hump and Crazy Horse, helped divide the soldiers into smaller groups, changing the course of the battle.

"They described it as a buffalo hunt," Sprague explained. "It's kind of like the way we hunted buffalo. We separate them from the bigger group and get them into smaller groups."

Once the soldiers were isolated, they could no longer support one another, allowing the warriors to overwhelm each group individually.

“We really represented those fighters and warriors who were really right in the trenches," Sprague said, "that somebody had to stand up and stop this onslaught of soldiers and people that were coming in on our families."

For Hump's descendants, Greasy Grass was the defense of their families and homeland, and not just a simple victory.

Who Are the Little-Known Figures in Greasy Grass?

Most people recognize names like George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. However, many people shaped what happened that day, and most of them never made it into the story. Here are some of the little-known figures in Greasy Grass.

1. Lame White Man: A Cheyenne war chief who led one of the charges against Custer's soldiers.
2. Yellow Nose: A Cheyenne warrior who captured a U.S. cavalry flag, an act still remembered in Cheyenne family histories.
3. Mary Crawler (Moving Robe Woman): After learning that her brother had been killed, she rode into the fighting and took part in defending the village.
4. White Bull and One Bull: Nephews of Sitting Bull who fought in different parts of the battlefield.
5. Kate Bighead: A Cheyenne woman who witnessed much of the battle and later shared one of the most detailed firsthand accounts from the Native perspective.
6. Comanche: The horse of Captain Myles Keogh, not George Armstrong Custer, as it is a common misconception.

What Gen. Alfred Terry’s Reports Could Not Capture

By the evening of June 26, the warriors at Greasy Grass had already made a choice that confused soldiers for years.

A lot of soldiers didn't understand: why didn't they stay longer and kill everybody?

Sprague says, "When they (the warriors) were done, they were done. There was a time to finish and be done, and go back."

A camp that large, with thousands of people and horses, also could not stay in one place for long. Knowing the Army would eventually arrive, many families packed up and moved before another attack could come.

Meanwhile, some soldiers were still hiding in the trees along the river; the ones from the start of this story were waving for a rescue that had already come too late. General Alfred Terry's column was slowed by the difficult terrain and the vast distances of the Northern Plains.

When Terry finally reached the battlefield on June 27, the fighting was already over, and the Lakota and Cheyenne had moved on. Custer was already dead by the time Terry's report reached Washington.

His report states, “It is my painful duty to report that day before yesterday, the 25th instant, a great disaster overtook General Custer and the troops under his command….”

For the U.S. Army, it was one of the greatest defeats in its history.

The Aftermath and the Long Shadow of Greasy Grass

For the Lakota and Cheyenne, the Battle of the Greasy Grass was a monumental victory and a successful defense of their homeland and families. But for the United States, the timing of the defeat triggered immediate, devastating policy consequences.

Word of Custer’s demise reached the East Coast in early July 1876, right as the country was celebrating its Centennial. The public shock of a modern, heavily armed U.S. cavalry unit falling to Native warriors transformed the government's strategy from military containment to absolute, legislative retaliation.

Rather than honoring the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty they had already broken, Congress doubled down. They passed an appropriations bill in August 1876 that effectively implemented a “sell or starve” policy. The government cut off all promised rations, annuities, and supplies to the Lakota living on the reservations until they agreed to cede the Black Hills. At the same time, a heavily reinforced U.S. Army flooded the Northern Plains, relentlessly pursuing the bands that had fought at the Little Bighorn.

Facing the brutal plains winter, the destruction of their pony herds, and the very real threat of mass starvation, many tribal leaders were forced into an impossible choice. Under extreme duress, they signed a new agreement in 1877, turning over the Black Hills. The land that the U.S. government had promised would belong to the Sioux "absolutely and undisturbed" just nine years earlier was annexed.

But the Battle of the Greasy Grass and the fight for the Black Hills did not end in the 19th century. This history continues to shape U.S. and Native relations today.

In 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians that the government had indeed illegally seized the Black Hills. The court awarded financial compensation for the stolen land. However, recognizing that accepting the money would legally validate the theft, the Lakota Sioux Nation refused the payout.

Today, that settlement money sits untouched in a government trust fund, having grown with interest to over two billion dollars. Even in the face of deep economic struggles on the reservations, the Lakota’s stance remains unified and unwavering: “The Black Hills are not for sale.”

Victory Day, Not Custer’s Last Stand

When viewed through this historical lens, the Battle of the Greasy Grass is not merely an anecdote about an overconfident cavalry officer. It is a foundational moment of indigenous resistance, which is why for many Lakota descendants, like Donovin Sprague, the conflict is proudly remembered as "Victory Day."

"When you look at the Greasy Grass, it can be a big victory celebration for us," he says. "For some who lost people on the other side, it's a reflection. It's a very different feeling."

Greasy Grass was never remembered by the Lakota and Cheyenne families as a surrender or a tragedy. It was the opposite: a complete defeat of a U.S. Army unit by the people it had been sent to control.

“Every family has their own view of this and different stories," Sprague explained. "It's really like whoever was there at certain places, there's a story to tell from there."

The Battle of the Greasy Grass cannot be told through just one perspective. Every family carries its own memories of the battle, shaped by where their ancestors fought and what they witnessed. For generations, textbooks have framed it as Custer's Last Stand. But for many Lakota and Cheyenne families, it has never been about the fall of one Army officer. It has always been about the victory of those who defended their homeland, an assertion of sovereignty that continues to echo in the courtrooms and policies of today.