In early 1876 the US government decided to drive the Indians out of the Black Hills, although the territory had been granted to them by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.
Lieutenant Colonel Custer led 750 men of the 7th Cavalry into the vast wilderness, leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory on May 17, 1876.
The strategy was to trap the Indians who had rallied around the Sioux leader, Sitting Bull. And, of course, the expedition turned into a disaster.
Custer discovered that Sitting Bull was camped near the Little Bighorn River. Instead of waiting for a full force of the US Army to assemble, Custer divided the 7th Cavalry and chose to attack the Indian camp. One explanation is that Custer believed the Indians would be confused by separate attacks.
On June 25, 1876, a brutally hot day on the northern plains, Custer encountered a much larger force of Indians than anticipated. Custer and more than 200 men, approximately one third of the 7th Cavalry, were killed in the battle that afternoon.
The other units of the 7th Cavalry also came under intense attack for two days, before the Indians unexpectedly broke off the conflict, packed up their immense village, and began leaving the area.
When US Army reinforcements arrived, they discovered the bodies of Custer and his men on a hill above the Little Bighorn.
There was a newspaper correspondent, Mark Kellogg, riding along with Custer, and he was killed in the battle. With no definitive account of what happened during Custer's final hours, newspapers and illustrated magazines took license to depict the scene.
The standard depiction of Custer usually shows him standing among his men, surrounded by hostile Sioux, bravely fighting to the end. In this particular print from the late 19th century, Custer stands above a fallen cavalry trooper, firing his revolver.