Later came the Custer affair. Probably no action in our history has been more discussed and less understood. The story goes back a long way and doesn’t show us up in any fine colors. The government had made a treaty with the Great Sioux Nation in which it gave to these tribes the Black Hills and all of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. Gave them what was theirs in the first place. Kind of us. Another law confirmed by our Senate, made it a crime for a white settler to go into this region. Well, the whites as usual went in, because the land appealed to them. And they went out of their way to trespass because the Indians were six hundred miles from the nearest railroad and far from white settlements. When the Indians complained and got no redress, they went upon the warpath. Did so for the same reason that we took up arms in the Revolution--from behind each “farmyard fence and wall.” The Secretary of the Interior ordered the troops to put the Indians on their reservations. He made a consistent sweep of things for he not only violated the treaty, but did not uphold the law. So, little companies of Infantry and Cavalry under General Terry, were ordered to drive the victimized Indians to where neither the Indian nor the soldier wanted to go. Fifteen hundred troops, half of whom were afoot, were sent against six thousand hardy Sioux who were well-mounted. Why such a small body of soldiers? Because other little groups were busy with Assineboines, Piegans, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Pawnees, Commanches and Flatheads. And there weren’t any more troops. The entire regular force on the plains would scarcely have been a match then for the Great Sioux Nation, but we were content to send this paltry number out against this overwhelming force. Terry’s command accordingly advanced toward the Indians. Custer, who was in command of the Cavalry, was sent ahead with instructions to move toward the Tongue River, keep on the flank of the Sioux, and not let them escape. It was an impossible task in the face of so many Indians. But the soldier couldn’t know that such a big force was there, for there were too few troops to scout the Sioux country and find out. And if they could have found out, what was there to do about it? They had to go against the Indians. No matter how perfectly Terry’s force might act, it was in for a licking. So Custer split his command into three parts in order to keep the Indians from escaping. The irony!--from escaping. Well, it happened just as you would expect. Custer’s little band was overwhelmed and annihilated. The other two parts were backed against the wall and had to fight in desperation for their lives. It was not a real massacre. It was a fight in which the Indian used his normal methods of no quarter. We knew his methods. And we unjustly and murderously sent a puny force against him to be butchered to the extent of two hundred sixty-five killed and fifty-two wounded.