[Music] these Hills beside the Little Bighorn River in Montana are the site of one of the most tragic events in American history it was here in 1876 that Sitting Bull and a combined force of Northern Plains Indians inexplicably defeated the U.S 7th Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer How could a well-trained highly mobile Cavalry officer and his command how could they be defeated by a bunch of heathen Savages the scale of the defeat and its many unanswered questions has created a heroic myth the myth of the battle of the Little Bighorn is a gallant heroic Last Stand to the last man and last bullet the story of Costa's Last Stand is legendary but did it really happen that way oh archaeologists using the forensic skills of a crime scene investigation have finally begun to uncover the evidence revealing what actually occurred at the Battle of the Little Bighorn this was not the Gallant heroic Last Stand this in fact was a gruesome terrible affair foreign the story of Caster's Last Stand is legendary how the seventh Cavalry fought heroically to the last man against a horde of indian warriors it's been told and retold in books and films but it has never been brought to such vivid life as in the annual spectacle stayed near the battlefield in Hardin Montana Custer a flamboyant hero of the American Civil War was already a celebrity people like myths George Armstrong Custer was larger than life at the time that adds to the mythical quality of the battle in the Little Bighorn the myth also flourished because there were no survivors to towel the tail in fact there was witness testimony that testimony comes from the oral traditions of the Lakota and the Cheyenne who fought here Joe medicine Crow heard stories of the battle first hand his grandfather white man runs him was one of Custer's Indian Scots who survived the battle by chance my grandfather say he was such a huge battle covering a huge area that no one man is able to see it all what the Indians did see paints a disturbing picture they talk of chaos and panic amongst the Troopers with no Gallant Last Stand but for years their accounts were discunted as unreliable for some reason the white man doesn't like to hear the Indians tell it the way it was now science is proving that the Indian stories are closer to the truth than the famous American Legend [Music] dozens of years Indian tribes roamed the Northern Plains but by 1876 they were seen as a threat to the opening of the West a military campaign was launched to force the Northern Plains Indians onto reservations but Sioux Chief Sitting Bull refused to give up his traditional way of life setting will send word to the various Sioux tribes who were already on the reservation come back come to my camp for the last big fight it will be a good day to die after the battle horrified comrades found 268 bodies and buried them where they lay today they are commemorated on the only Battlefield in the world which marks the places where men died the Little Bighorn Battlefield is unique in one specific way it has white marble markers that indicate the location men fell in battle the obvious one that people see is Last Stand hill where about 40 odd markers are placed but as you move across the battlefield there are a string of them scattered down the line what we call South Skirmish line to deep ravine and then there are just ones that are just scattered randomly and they may indicate where men had tried to move and Escape Douglas Scott and Richard Fox have spent years investigating the Little Bighorn Battlefield [Music] beneath the Earth they have found the evidence of how Custer was defeated a battlefield site is like a crime scene on the one hand the material evidence the bullets the cartridges and the eyewitness accounts let the combatants saw and what they did in the battle the victims cannot speak but the recovery of a trooper's bones provides the first Clues to what really happened on the battlefield to the side of marker 128 we found a burial pit containing most of the skeletal elements of an individual about 19 to 21 years old the range of injuries on this one Trooper reveals the ferocity of the battle massive blunt force trauma to the mandible to the point these teeth were broken in half sharp force trauma to the bottom side of the collarbone and there's a cut Mark and we think it's probably made with a knife sharp force trauma to both femurs such as would be made with an ax a gunshot wound to the left arm near the wrist bullet entered the bone and then did not leave it and shot wounds to the thorax some of the bullet probably shot into him from a distance and when the fighting closed in perhaps they found him still bleeding finished them off with the coup de gras to the Head the bones confirmed that the Indians used traditional weapons but they also had guns [Music] a gunshot wound to the hip would even provide the evidence for identification of another Trooper you can see the gunshot wound and their little pieces of the bullet that were scraped off as the bullet passed through the bone and then continued on through the bone into the abdomen and through the large intestine that kind of injury at that time would have been mortal um even today you don't mess around with a with a gut shot this is a person who died of a gunshot wound to the hip and we believe him to be Vincent Charlie when Trooper Charlie was located after the battle of bighorn he was found with the wound to his hips and with a stick jammed down his throat knowing that's the way he died we can reasonably conclude this is Vince and Charlie there are no pictures of Vincent Charlie so leading forensic artist Betty Pat gatliff is putting a human face on the past well the purpose in forensics of course is for identification but to law enforcement finding out who the victim is can be the key to solving the crime for until they know who the victim is how do they find the perpetrator killers of Vincent Charlie are not in doubt but his remains and the bones of other soldiers would show not just how they died they would also show how they lived and this evidence with Battlefield archeology would explain how a disciplined fighting unit like the seventh Cavalry could be beaten by a horde of indian warriors [Music] on May the 17th 1876 three columns of soldiers marched into Montana to force the Northern Plains Indians onto reservations it was thought Indian tribes were camped near the Little Bighorn River so George Armstrong Custer was ordered to take the seventh Cavalry and find them on the morning of June the 25th Custer's Crow Indian Scouts spotted an encampment far to the West that's when my grandfather white man wants him saw the Sue Camp they could see the horse horse on the Hills there Costa separated his Force into three battalions he sent Captain benteen to close an escape route to the South he then commanded Captain Reno to attack the Indian camp in the Little Bighorn Valley Caster turned North with 210 men when he reached the crest of the hills the Indian village was fully revealed what he saw shocked him custard looked over there for the first time and he they said his head her face turned white wider than ever first time he seen it it's a huge Camp it was one of the largest Gatherings of Northern Plains Indians with over 1500 Warriors and even after we told him that there's an overwhelming Force down there you better wait but he was determined to create an attack Reno was retreating before an Indian counter-attack Custer prepared for Action he sent a message recalling bentine and his supplies then through his interpreter Mitch boyet he told his Indian Scots to leave so The Interpreter Mitch boy is a boy's ear likey you get away from here as fast as possible I'm stuck I sign up so I'm gonna die with him Joe medicine Crow's grandfather white man runs him escaped the battle interpreter Mitch boyet Faithfully rode with Custer into a valley called medicine tale Cooley and was from here that Custer and the seventh Cavalry rode into history and met but he left behind him a trail of Clues and more than a hundred years later archaeologists started picking up that trail I do recall the very first day the first hour in fact the metal detector sang it was one find after another the fines was spent cartridges bullets and pieces of equipment the remains of a battle buried for over a century yep another Henry cartoon case double firing pin imprint on the first day alone we recovered cartridges bullets bits and other pieces of personal gear and it was stunning it was literally stunning oh John I got a pretty good beep right here The Searchers checked every location Unearthed objects and determined if they were from the battle the association of a cartridge with a button will tell us where a soldier might have fired his weapon might have been killed or at least just uniform torn or lost [Music] one of the most poignant artifacts I have ever seen is this wedding band still encircling the finger bone reminding us of the emotional impact that must have occurred to the families of those who were related or knew these individuals [Music] foreign artifacts have been found everyone was numbered and logged to create a detailed computer map of the battlefield and this was only a sample of what lies buried even today the battlefield reveals an extraordinary find yeah no sheep great condition it's a 45 caliber carbine round unfired very nice condition it's an original seventh Cavalry bullet still unfired over 125 years old and found near to lar stand Hill this was the one we picked up on last ant hill just the other day oh yeah on fire 45. caliber Springfield I guess that's uh the normal situation in combat under stress confusion people drop rounds lose them the seventh Cavalry were issued only with 45 caliber Springfield carbines and pistols so it's easy to identify U.S army bullets and cartridges but what about the hundreds of other cartridges and bullets these can only have come from Indian guns what can these bullets and cartridges actually tell us about the Battle [Music] when a trooper's carbine is fired the spent cartridge is ejected and Falls onto the ground so the place where a trooper's cartridge case is found reveals a trooper's position lead bullets have a similar story to tell Indian bullets are found impacted at Trooper positions and Trooper bullets at Indian positions [Applause] yeah that's a 45 carbine roller it was the huge amount of Indian bullets and cartridge cases that surprised the archaeologists the quantity of cartridge cases that was found in and around these Indian positions was was significant which suggested that there were a lot of weapons there how is it possible to know the quantity and types of guns that were used against the Troopers and bullets can offer Clues to the guns that fired them but those are the marks we're looking for that's what we're looking for the firing pin impression marks and the possibility of extractor marks when a bullet is fired it travels down the barrel it is marked by the rifling characteristics that are placed in that Barrel they're analogous to a fingerprint if you have enough individual characteristics to individualize a particular firearm analyzing the bullets reveals that the amount and types of Indian guns were far greater than had been previously thought what we found were in excess of 47 types of firearms used by the Warriors against the soldiers at Little Bighorn that means that more than 800 warriors were armed with anything from muzzle loading antiques to the latest repeating rifles Custer was outgunned 4-1 and we were truly surprised at the numbers of weapons that were present here the myth of indian warriors with only bows and arrows was overturned but how did they acquire so many Firearms the Indians acquired weapons just like anybody else did they could go to the trading post and purchase them or trade for them they were used for hunting in this case they were used for hunting white men any firearm was a good firearm as far as a plane's Indian was concerned yes and it could range from you know 75 caliber horse pistols flintlocks to percussion rifles to cartridge guns yeah that's the 66 Winchester because it's very lightweight and it was very appropriate for Indian use because it was like a bow and arrow that it fired very rapidly but it was still a very short-range weapon and as a warrior you wanted to get in very close and maybe use the smooth bar with a solid off more so you could again you wanted to see the look on that man's face when he knew that you knew that he knew he was going down and that's what the Warfare was all about so revolvers also were incredibly popular because they were the same thing as all the other type of weapons they were a handheld very lightweight rapid fire very close range weapon bullets revealed much but it would be the cartridge cases that held the clues to unravel The Mystery of the defeat of the seventh cavalry when that cartridge is fired it is Struck from the rear by a firing pin that firing pin impression has great value and identification every gun's firing pin is unique and it leaves the same impression on every cartridge case it fires if it's possible to match cartridge cases to the same gun it may be possible to track the movement of guns around the battlefield and there we have two firing pin imprints they're different sizes and different imperfections and that represents two different weapons if cartridges have matching firing in The Impressions they must come from the same gun Douglas Scott cross-checked over one and a half thousand cartridges looking for matching firing pin Impressions it would take hundreds of hours of painstaking work then one by one he found them let's bring our cartridge case up we've been looking at and the new one on the left we have some unique characteristics up here and here and in the middle here that say these two were fired in the same gun this one was fired at Calhoun Hill this one closer to Last Stand Hill about a quarter of a mile apart and therefore we know that weapon literally moved it might represent a fleeing Soldier or it might actually represent the captured weapon you know that the Indians picked up and then turned against Custer many groupings of Indian cartridges lay behind gullies and ridges what did this reveal about Indian tactics [Music] what it told us is how the Native Americans were able to effectively use the terrain to cover themselves from incoming fire but they were still able to pop up and get the soldiers by connecting the cartridge cases fired by the same gun it was now possible to see Troopers and warriors moving across the battlefield we could see that soldiers had moved very little but the Indians were moving all about that field the weapon reputed to have been at the battle fired to identify its filing amazingly it matched to three cartridges numbers 244 240 and 175 all from different places on the battlefield here it is this is the spot that we've picked up cartridge 175. this is a an army cartridge we found on this spot and this is the only gun in the collections here that that matched and so that gun that was right here right here on this spot 25th of June Trooper could have been here and pointing at a warrior that direction or up on the hill here or just spinning around firing in that direction firing at the ridge stop out here where we know there were many warriors trying to protect himself until he was struck down and it's had a lot of use since then I can see that and I've been repaired and fixed and probably was captured may have been used against Custer elsewhere really rather exciting moment we knew we had a tool that would allow us to do something no one had ever done before with a Battlefield that tool would reveal how tactics and especially weapons played a decisive role in this battle but what about the men who fired those guns Vincent Charlie was an ordinary Trooper he was mutilated and left to die now forensic science is revealing his face I sometimes think about them and their families and how they must have suffered and what might really have taken place but they were people they were somebody's Sons possibly somebody's fathers you know they were they were real people do we really know about the truth or seventh cover were they really the crack Troopers of Legend we know the soldiers from the enlistment records are average height of five foot seven average age of 22 years old average weight of 150 pounds some of the ones that we found are much younger in age 16 17 years of age they weren't supposed to be in the Army at that time we know that half of them were immigrants mostly from Ireland England Germany mostly from Western Europe most of them were doubtlessly from poor backgrounds these were poor immigrants but they had joined the legendary 7th Cavalry they should have been well trained and fighting fit but the Troopers bones tell a very different story your teeth and these black tarry stains suggest tobacco use particularly as in the form of pipe tobacco of life little oral hygiene bad diet and in that way he's probably very typical of most of the Troopers there's a tooth here that's missing a crown it's rotted away we also see that they had a very rough life we can see that knowing that these guys had rheumatism and arthritis at the age of 22. so what we've got here is a vertebra and you can see these depressions that indicate that disc was starting to generate deteriorate so as the Troopers rode over the top Trails these shock absorbing structures would start to deteriorate and they would end up with back problems the seventh Cavalry were ill-prepared and fully fed now after weeks in the subtle how fit were Costa's troops as they rode with him into the valley of the Little Bighorn they were in terrible shape that morning in June they'd ridden all night long they'd been riding from Fort Abraham Lincoln since May they hadn't had any rest their backs were hurting their teeth were aching they were in bad shape it probably contributed some to the overall defeat forensic evidence shows that the troopas were in poor condition for a fight now archeology would reveal what actually happened as the seventh Cavalry fought to the death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn How could a successful Commander like George Armstrong Custer and a well-armed modern Army be defeated by the Northern Plains Indians historical accounts say that as major Reno charged the Indian village Custer's Battalion reached The Ridges across the river Custer then rode down to a valley called medicine tail Cooley where he divided his troops into two wings Custer Road with the left wing down to the river threatening the Indian Camp the right wing with Captain miles Keo was deployed on Higher Ground it's here that all the detective work comes together and starts to reveal what happened to the seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn Indian Witnesses hide their first encounter with Custer's soldiers from across the river I see the column of soldiers turn eight Mrs spotted horn ball hung Papa Lakota archaeological evidence here confirms the Indian stories the left wing that came down the river did me some light resistance and there's archaeological evidence of that in this flat out here the cartridge cases and there were personal items that were lost on counter fire from the Indians across the river it wasn't a heavy action no evidence of strong intensity the reason for this most of the India India's was still fighting Reno to the South unprotected the Indian women and children fled North Custer and his left wing of 80 Troopers set off in pursuit of them meanwhile the right Wing's 120 men deploy near Calhoun Hill under the command of Captain miles Keo at this stage the fighting was sporadic and long distance but surely the seventh Cavalry even when outnumbered had been trained to deal with any Indian attack so how critical were their tactics to the outcome of this battle you're going to do a little uh tacticking for us right yeah combat can be a very stressful situation some tactics are a very very good way to maintain cohesion and stability among the soldiers Costa's Cavalry tactics were laid out in a manual written in 1874. the horse got the soldier to the scene of the action then typically the Troopers would dismant and fight on foot the Troopers formed a line each spaced five yards apart this was called a skirmish line three out of the four in a squad would rush up to the Skirmish line and prepare to fire the horse holders would then lead the lead horses back to a safe position behind the lines the Skirmish line could fire either on command or at will the Skirmish line was a response to the increasing accuracy of firearms it was safer to spread men out to avoid massing as easy targets was there any evidence of these deployments on the battlefield to find a skirmish line we should expect to find cartridge cases from Individual guns distributed at roughly five yard intervals Calhoun Hill there were cartridge cases indicating the right-wing Skirmish line the Skirmish line is represented by the flags and each one of these flags is the approximate location where we found a cartridge case or several cartridge cases each from a different carbine indicating where a soldier was placed along the line here Indians using the terrain for cover threatened right-wing Troopers Exposed on their Skirmish lines and the Warriors are beginning to swarm up out of the Valley from all directions particularly from here in the South and and they gain this Ridge out here and we found excellent archaeological evidence over there of a large number of Warriors who are on the other side of that Ridge the Indian warrior needed no command or control they fought individually as well-trained Hunters foreign most of these men being professional Predators all of their life against humans and animals you didn't have to tell them when to get down when to hide when to charge when to totally take advantage of someone when they're in complete Panic the Cavalry Soldier was trained to fight from a distance the Plains Indian fought up close and personal and everything generally had a long handle on it so they don't horseback you were able to swoop down off the side of your horse and hit men that were disabled under the ground so they would try to knock their weapon hand out and break their wrist with one blown and then just backhand them across the forehead or on the temple like that all right well the limitations of the Troopers tactics were soon evident dismounted the Cavalry had no mobility and the need for horse holders reduced a quarter of their available Firepower the United States military was trained to fight a conventional standing army the prussians the French whatever they were not trained to fight the Great Plains Indians so why did the U.S army fail to adjust to the Indian tactics the Army was very rigid by the book didn't have a lot of room to ad-lib so in an open fight on a Dusty hot Rich the conventional Army was probably at a disadvantage as the Warriors closed in on Custer's right wing Indian accounts described Captain keo's desperate retaliation about 40 of the soldiers came Galloping from the East part of the ridge within Lake Northern Cheyenne but the Indians counter-attacked and the soldiers fell back tactics were designed to control men and direct Firepower so what happens when fear and panic sets in under extreme duress Panic can overcome and people Bunch together so I thought that would be recognizable in the archaeological record and there it was there is one place on the battlefield where cartridges form Skirmish lines and nearby a cluster of cartridges suggests that Troopers began punching in panic and that punching as archeology shows took place right in here was Calhoun Hill the turning point where the battle was lost Richard Fox combed through Indiana can'ts for corroboration the archeology indicated the transition from tactical stability to Tactical disintegration and I found that in the eyewitness testimony given by Warriors who were here the Indiana cons described the soldiers panic the white man acted as if they were besides themselves shooting wildly in the air white bull Cheyenne one of the elements that exacerbated the panic and fear that developed here was the disparity between soldiers who were mounted and those who were dismounted and in the end the entire right wing disintegrated it's the evidence of matching cartridge cases that reveals the flight of guns and Men away from Calhoun Hill Captain Keels company I fell here from here right-wing survivors fled north towards the left wing which would eventually end up on Custer Hill the archeology here indicates it was a pretty one-sided affair not much evidence of cartridge cases on behalf of the soldiers but lots of Indian bullets and Indian accounts speak of a very terrible event too they speak of riding up and striking soldiers down Soldier firing wildly in every way some feigning death runs the enemy said it was like a stem peat of Buffalo almost the entire right wing was slaughtered on the desperate running fight to Last Stand Hill for decades these markers were interpreted as a skirmish line but in the context of the Custer myth the Gallant Last Stand of the last man and the last bullet probably not so probably flight the battle was already lost Costa had fatally split his command and now lost half of it but why did the tactics and stability of Custer's right wing fail so dramatically the answer May lie with the different types of guns used on the battlefield this particular weapon was the primary weapon used by the seventh Cavalry Troopers what we have here is an 1873 Springfield carbine this is a single shot weapon trap door had a range of six to seven hundred yards which in a in the hands of a trained calvaryman could do considerable damage [Music] shoots a little high Doug but when you shoot this you really are going back in time yeah range stopping power and accuracy made the Springfield Superior to any Indian weapon but it had one major disadvantage against the Indian's weapon of choice in the Henry rifle is an outstanding weapon in terms of its rapid fire capability you could load in firing cartridges in a matter of seconds the Henry was was highly effective within a 200 yard range and the when the Warriors eventually got within 200 yards and were able to use the the Henry rifle quite effectively with Warriors in close the advantage swung to whichever gun could fire more rapidly a 30-second test reveals the answer experience as to what this was really like okay well let's uh let's do a time check how many can I get how long it takes to get to 13 Rounds off compared to how many you get off let's do it [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign 30 seconds how many did you fire 13 Rounds in 30 seconds I got four off At Close Quarters the Henry rifle is three times more effective than the Springfield carbine the Troopers lost their standoff capability because of tactical disintegration they were not able to concentrate their Firepower and as a result the Indians were allowed to get closer and closer and closer and consequently the repeating weapons came into play the end result is is complete chaos and the part of the Troopers forensic evidence shows that the Indians had over 200 repeating rifles the amount of Firepower that the Indians had the types of weapon that they had was the key in their defeating the U.S Cavalry in that particular battle no question about it at the battle the right wing collapsed and ran in Flight towards Custer and the left wing of the 120 men in the right wing only 20 survived to join Custer and the left wing on Last Stand Hill 105 men left in the Battalion half the Battalion clearly the defensive has begun the offense is lost the archeology confirms that the Indians now had many Springfield carbines taken from dead and wounded right-wing troopers on Calhoun Hill these guns were leveled at Custer's desperate men huddled together on Last Stand Hill the Indian accounts leave clues that shortly after consolidation on Custer Hill there were attempts at reorganization Trumpet calls men shouting in barking orders and shortly after these attempts 40 dismounted men came rushing off the hill toward the river accompanying the men were anywhere from five to nine Riders those on foot took to the Gully while the mountain ones tried to get away he dog Ogle Allison and they say the writers rushed South but they also tell us that none of them ever made it beyond the battlefield Warriors including Crazy Horse were swarming around Custer Hill a few soldiers were still alive sensing the end they too ran in panic the Troopers jumped up and started to run towards the river they did not fire back Big Beaver Northern Cheyenne I mean in the meantime the zoo and Cheyenne warriors were coming from we had them surrounded and a little while they were all dead Last Stand Hill was where the bodies of Custer and his immediate command were found below is a line of markers indicating the route of flight to a place called deep ravine this enduring myth I think in the Public's imagination is here at Last Stand Hill that this is where the last Gallant fight occurred and we both agree that isn't quite the case that's right it was a desperate struggle here on the hill and it was a matter of life and death and I think we can all relate to that but it was over in minutes few Trooper cartridge cases have been found on Last Stand Hill but many Indian bullets the archaeological evidence for a heroic Last Stand is non-existent this unfired bullet recently found is a Silent Witness to the final minutes of the battle this was the one we picked up on last ant hill just the other day it's one of the Cavalry rounds it's incredible it's absolutely incredible well to think that some young guy got off a boat in New York and wound up frantically trying to shove this into a Springfield carbine in the last moments of his life fighting against a force of individuals who were fiercely trying to defend their hope of existence [Music] and all of that swirling around and that's the bit of evidence left behind of all those kind of tumultuous events it's difficult to have this in my hand and not not be moved by it it was a desperate grim struggle lasted only briefly and in fact Not only was there no Gallant Last Stand the last fighting did not even take place here Costa was outnumbered outgunned and out fought but if the mythical lost stand wasn't on Costa Hill where did the last of Custer's men die the battle of the Little Bighorn lasted no more than 90 minutes 268 men were killed 210 of them with Custer after a two-day Siege Reno and benteen's horrified Troopers came to bury the dead [Music] could only identify 56 of their comrades so badly had they been mutilated and when they found out there was Custer's outfit they were not there and mutually these bodies you know cut their thoughts arms off fetal the variety of injuries that we were able to see in the bone remains and the hard tissue were incredibly graphic it's a skull that's been shot from the back and top we repeatedly saw cut marks in various in various bones and these are cuts that that went through two or three inches of muscles before finally hitting the bone blunt force trauma included blows to the face literally would shatter the skull and shatter the jaw and you can't stand there but they're actually cuts on the inside of the socket too indicating that they remove the person's thigh we would see sharp force trauma inconsistent with a scalping of lift literally lifting the scalp just repeated knife marks these are Cuts suggesting castration of the trooper the Indians often mutilated the dead to impair their spirits in the afterlife now the Earthly remains of 44 Troopers have been found in one case a skull fragment would give Clues to its identity [Music] these are the facial bones recovered in markers 32 and 33 what we have are the nose and upper teeth and left eye orbit of the individual who's determined to be between 35 and 45 years of age the wear on the teeth indicate that he as a male was a pipe smoker and worn his teeth down in this area here there was a blunt instrument blow to the face causing the eye socket to be crushed and the nose to be broken so we have evidence of trauma at her about the time of death heavy high cheekbones suggest Native American ancestry and the teeth themselves suggest white ancestor indicating a racially admixed individual the only person who fits this description is Mitch Boyer Custer Scout who was killed at the Little Bighorn when the bone fragment is superimposed on a picture of Mitch boyet the match is uncanny was Mitch Boyer who saved the life of Joe medicine Crow's grandfather when he told the Scots to leave his remains were found below Costa Hill near to a place called deep ravine India can't speak of 28 men buried there but there are no grave markers what's this The Last Stand of the Little Bighorn tall ball a Northern Cheyenne was there and he says I heard a big war who the soldiers were coming soldiers came on foot and ran right through us into the deep ravine and this was the last of the fight and the men were killed in this Gully so the last fighting was not on Last Stand Hill he saw soldiers start running down the hill towards us nearly all of them were afraid I think they were so scared they didn't know what they were doing some of them shot their guns in the air iron hawk and prophecy this is the upper reaches of deep ravine the last fighting took place here we have Indian cartridge cases up along the sides of the Ravine here indicating Indians firing down had soldiers who were trying to hide to escape to evade and we also have historical counts Indian and white talking about soldiers bodies found down here [Music] the mystery of deep ravine is simply where are the men who died here and we have looked but haven't yet found them [Music] somewhere perhaps where we're standing are 28 bodies maybe more waiting to be found it must have been a frightening experience it must have been terrible my feeling is war is terrible it's a horrible thing and people have to die people had to defend too bad it had to happen that way the last fighting was a deep ravine not Costa Hill there was no heroic Last Stand we believe this to be Vince and Charlie a soldier who died at the Little Bighorn represents one of 268 men killed at the Little Bighorn he was foreign born just like 40 percent of the soldiers were Swiss immigrant he's a little taller than average at five foot ten give or take a little bit and he's a little older in between 25 and 30 years of age when most were only around 22. so he does really represent many of these people so to put a face on this skull allows us to see one person who lived and died at the Little Bighorn I like him I think he's somebody I'd like to know Vincent Charlie is now reunited with his fellow Troopers in the mass grave at the Little Bighorn Battlefield Custer's remains are said to lie at West Point more than 50 indian warriors and an unknown number of Indian women and children also died that day the reason why the Indians finally decided to make their last stand because they were being pushed out of their land and the massacred from here and there so it was sitting Bulls last stand not Custer's Last Day the work of Douglas Scott and Richard fox has confirmed the Indian stories now after more than a century the battlefield recognizes not just their oral history but also their fallen dead in June 1876 Lakota and Cheyenne Warriors defeated Custer's seventh cavalry but their victory was short-lived never again would the Northern Plains Indians have the freedom of the planes beginning of the end of their way of life