The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and National Cemetery are located alongside I-90 in Montana.  The ridge along which the battle was fought runs alongside the interstate and is easily seen when you are aware of it's location.

The first photo below is the view as you walk up Battlefield Hill.  Those are not gravemarkers, they are the markers where the individual soldier, scout or civilian fell.  They were initially buried at that place but a year later the bodies of the officers were removed to other cemeteries in the East with George Armstrong Custer being reburied at West Point Military Academy.  About 200 enlisted soldiers, civilians and scouts were reburied, five years after the battle, in a mass grave around the mounument at the top of the hill.  The lady in red with the hat on the left is my bride, our classmate, Polly St. Andre.

The second photo is the view from the hilltop monument looking down across the battlefield and beyond to where the soldiers would have seen the approaching indians who would shortly kill them all.  The marker in the middle with the black background is the spot where Custer fell.  As best I remember, the historian stated the indians actually were armed with better rifles for this type terrain than the calvary.

The third photo is that reflecting the spot where Custer fell.  All of the markers have similar inscriptions with Custer's being the only one to have the highlighted background.  The battlefield actually runs for about five miles along the ridge.  There are many other markers along the ridge and down the slope, each marking where a soldier, scout, or civilian was killed.  As recently as a few years back another skull was found by visitors.  It was identified through modern technology as that of one of Custer's indian scouts.

This is a particularly sobering site as it is the only place where the specific place of a soldier's death is marked and not his grave.  You can walk along a number of trails and here and there you will found a marker scattered along the ridge where a soldier was caught away from the others and killed.

There is a national cemetery here but it is already filled to capacity.

These photos were taken in June 2009.