Without bothering to identify the village or do any reconnaissance,
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer led an early morning attack
attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living with Chief Black
Kettle.
Convicted of desertion and mistreatment of soldiers earlier that
year in a military court, the government had suspended Custer
from rank and command for one year.
Ten months into his punishment, in September 1868, General Philip
Sheridan reinstated Custer to lead a campaign against Cheyenna
Indians who had been making raids in Kansas and Oklahoma
that summer.
Sheridan was frustrated by the inability of his other officers to find
and engage the enemy, and despite his poor record and unpopularity
with the men of the 7th Cavalry, Custer was a good fighter.
George Armstrong Custer
(December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876)
Black Kettle
(c1803 – November 27, 1868)
During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early morning
of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists stormed the
Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and
taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were part of a group
known as Black September, in return for the release of the hostages,
they demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held
in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the
Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five
terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition
was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the
slain athletes.