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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
    The Sioux War of 1876 has ever been a subject of engrossing interest
to
students of our many conflicts with the Indians of the western plains. It
reacned its zenith on June 25 of the Centennial Year when at the battle of
the Little Big Horn River in Southeastern Montana, Brevet Major General George
A. Custer, then lieutenant; colonel in cowmaand or the Seventh United States
Cavalry, together with his entire detachment, comprising Companies C, E,
F,
I and L of that regiment, perished to a mran in combat with the warrior horde
that followed the Hunkpapa medicine man, Sitting Bull. The remaining seven
compan-es., whose field of battle was located some four riles distant from
the scene of the Custer disaster, also suffered heavy losses.
     Because of the manner in which this greatest of all armed conflicts
between the white trooper and the red warrior was waged, the battle of the
Little Big Horn, despite its comparative unimportance,, has provoked almost,
if not quite as much controversial discussion throughout the intervening
years as has any combat in which our troops have been engaged.
     A principal reason (though by no means the only one), that has contributed
most largely to this condition, has been the dearth of reliable source
material: and it is the purpose of this volume to relieve that deficiency
to the greatest extent possible, by making available to students and
historical researchers, the most comprehensive and authentic source of informal
tion in existence;  indeed, the o    source composed of testimony under oath,
taken by an authorized tribunal of the United States Government, from officers,
enlisted men and civilians who participated in the engagement, or who surveyed
both fields of battle shortly thereafter.
     Custer and his dead were scarcely cold in their shallow graves when
bitter
controversy and dispute arose over the conduct of the battle; and in particua
lar, as to the parts played in it by Major Marcus A. Reno and Captain
Frederick W. Benteen. respectively second in command and senior company
cormuander, to each of whom battalions had been assigned when the regiment
was
some fifteen miles distant from the locus of the conflict.
    General Custer, who graduated from West Point in 1861., just in tinge
to
receive his baptism of fire at Bull Run, had beeen a shining figure ever
since
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