*Includes pictures
*Includes accounts
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
Among the soldiers who fought in the Indian Wars, perhaps none are as famous as the 7th Cavalry Regiment, but it's typically for the wrong reasons. Since the Battle of the Little Bighorn, George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry have become associated with a relatively insignificant battle during America's Indian Wars, but one that has become one of the country's most mythologized events and continues to fascinate Americans over 140 years later. That's because the Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought in June 1876, was one of the U.S. military's biggest debacles. All told, the 7th Cavalry suffered over 50% casualties, with over 250 men killed and over 50 wounded. The dead included Custer's brothers Boston and Thomas, his brother-in-law James Calhoun, and his nephew Henry Reed. Custer and his men were buried where they fell. A year later, Custer's remains (or more accurately, the remains found in the spot labeled with his name) were relocated to West Point for final interment.
Of course, the military failures at Little Bighorn would be overlooked, and even though Army officers in the wake of the battle largely faulted Custer for what had happened, and men like Jesse Reno went about trying to protect their own personal reputation, the image of the 7th Cavalry as brave soldiers making a defiant Last Stand captured the public's imagination and continues to be one of the popular perceptions today. Eventually, Custer and the 7th Cavalry's "Last Stand" would become a symbol for American heroism in the face of overwhelming odds, and it has only been recently that historians have begun to move away from the myth to analyze that battle in a more objective manner.
Given what happened at the Little Bighorn, it was somewhat poetic that the 7th Cavalry participated in the last major event of the Indian Wars, but as fate would have it, that event would also be the most controversial. In late December 1890, a group of roughly 350 Lakota Sioux led by Big Foot and Spotted Elk were escorted to the Wounded Knee Creek area and ordered to establish a camp there, but fearing another possible uprising despite the fact the band was comprised mostly of women, about 500 Usoldiers from the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Major Samuel M. Whitside, approached the Lakota encampment on the morning of December 29 with orders to disarm and escort the Native Americans to a railhead for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. Some of the men in the 7th Cavalry had also been part of the regiment at Little Bighorn, so there could not have been a worse command to send on a mission that required interacting with the Lakota.
The Wounded Knee Massacre had several outcomes. The soldiers who participated in the massacre were commended and awarded for their actions, with 20 of them receiving the nation's highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for action during the "battle." At the same time, Wounded Knee would grow to become a source of inspiration for a generation of Sioux people who came of age in the 1960s, and they sought to reestablish negotiations with the United States as a sovereign and independent nation. The American Indian Movement would engage in confrontational and at times violent resistance to perceived U.S. government oppression at Alcatraz, the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington D.C., and later the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and the Wounded Knee Massacre site.
After the Indian Wars, the 7th Cavalry would go on to fight in every major war moving forward, but it remains best known for its role in the shaping of the late 19th century. The U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment: The History and Legacy of America's Most Famous Military Unit during the Indian Wars examines the regiment's war record, from its inception to today.