This day in history, at the Little Bighorn

Just about this time 142 years ago today forces from two cultures were locked in life and death combat on these grassy plains of Montana .... but, this is what you see now at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument when looking from James Calhoun Hill toward G.A. Custer Hill in the far distance. Custer, two of his brothers, a nephew, a brother-in-law and nearly 300 troopers and contract workers of the U.S. Army Seventh Cavalry, as well as an unknown number of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, died on these slopes on June 25, 1876. The markers between the two hills indicate where the body of Captain Myles Keogh and many of his men from Troop I were found after the battle. The body of Custer and a number of other troopers were found on the downside of the slope just beyond the distant monument. Contrary to the conception of many, the "scrap" took place over the distance of a few miles and was done in the fashion of cavalry tactics of the era.
 
The river of time flows ever onward
(This is the initial of two related posts)

June 24
5 A.M. to 7 P.M.
3 hour halt. 
 marched 10 miles &  found a large branch nearly as large as main stream
found another 7 miles beyond
marched within a few miles of the forks 
found lots of new signs
old camps in profusion
they begin not to be so high

Those words formed the final entry in the diary of Dr. James M. DeWolf. He was an army surgeon and one of the members of the ill-fated George Armstrong Custer expedition who was killed at the battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25 in 1876. Rather ironically, DeWolf had written earlier in a letter to his wife that ".... I fear we shall not find even a sign that is new this time it is believed that the Indians have scattered & gone back to their Reservations."

If I had a time machine and could travel back to witness three events, the first would be a journey to Jerusalem to witness the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and the second would be to the plains of Montana to witness the annihilation of the troopers under the immediate command of G.A. Custer at the Little Bighorn and the third would be .... hmmmm .... I think I will save that one for a while.

Curiosity should be my name, because I occasionally encounter events which grip me with a near-insatiable fascination to learn everything there is to know about them. My time machine allusions are two of the mysteries primary to my existence. Why they are, I have no explanation: They just are ....