Eyewitness accounts suggest that this Montana ground is indeed haunted by its bloody history. Are there ghosts haunting the Little Bighorn Battlefield?
Battlefields are known to have a disproportionately higher share of reported ghostly occurrences than other historic sites, and Montana’s Little Bighorn Battlefield is no exception.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was the culmination of an attempt by the U.S. Army to halt attacks by the Lakota Sioux led by Sitting Bull on encroaching American settlers and miners. When the battle ended on June 26, 1876, the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment under Lt. Col. George Custer suffered 268 dead, with six more soldiers dying later from among the 55 wounded. The number of casualties of Native American warriors was never officially tabulated, but consensus among historians would place the total at around 100.
Sitting Bull, ca. 1883, Dakota Territory (PHOTOGRAPHY: D.F. Barry).
A great number of eyewitness accounts suggest that the ground is indeed haunted by its history. The heart of the Little Bighorn’s supernatural encounters is the Stone House, which was built in 1894 as the residence for the grounds’ superintendent. The Crow Indians referred to the first superintendents as “Ghost Herders” who kept the spirits of the dead from traveling beyond the grounds where they perished. This may not have been an incorrect definition, considering that the Stone House has recorded a surplus of peculiar happenings. Staff living on the premises have dealt with lights that turned on by themselves, doors that inexplicably refused to open but abruptly offered access without problem, and shadowy figures that appeared without warning but vanished with equal abruptness.
Many of the Stone House stories were recorded with the identities of the eyewitnesses withheld — which is no great surprise, as many people did not wish to permanently stigmatize themselves for bearing witness to ghosts.
Perhaps the most fantastic of these stories came in the summer of 1986, when a newly appointed battlefield ranger residing in the Stone House’s upstairs apartment saw a figure in his bedroom that appeared to be a soldier who was missing his head and legs.
The Stone House, the site of multiple ghostly encounters (PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of the National Park Service).
One person who agreed to be identified in connection with the Stone House’s ghosts was Christine Hope, who was employed at the battlefield in 1983 and was in residence at the property when she awoke one autumn night at around 2 a.m. to find the figure of a man with a long handlebar mustache sitting at a table. The man did not speak but conveyed a painful expression. Hope would later engage in research into Lt. Benjamin H. Hodgson, who died in battle; when she found a photograph of Hodgson, she recognized him as the phantom figure in her room.
Hodgson’s ghost has been a presence at the Little Bighorn since the battle ended. The earliest recorded acknowledgement came in an 1877 séance, when Hodgson reportedly made brief contact with his friend Lt. Clinton H. Tebbetts and used their communication to praise his battalion’s courage.
Over at the battlefield, ghost sightings have occurred for decades, with the spirits of Native American warriors and Custer’s troops coming into spectral view. “Many people have heard frightening screams of men undergoing a grisly death, while touring the battle fields,” according to hauntedhouses.com. “Some with psychic abilities have even witnessed some of the battle.”
Custer’s Last Charge by Feodor Fuchs (PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of Library of Congress).
There have also been two separate reports of men who visited the site and insisted they were transported back in time to the day of the battle, where they watched the rival sides engaged in bloody warfare.
The notoriety of the Little Bighorn’s ghostly residents was cited by W. Haden Blackman in his 1998 book The Field Guide to North American Hauntings. Blackman considers the Montana site to be “the perfect training ground for ghost hunters,” but he cautions his readers that its ghosts could be “surly and ill-tempered.”
The battlefield’s most famous spirit, Custer himself, is apparently not particularly interested in having a post-battle analysis with the living. Blackman noted that Custer’s ghost has been reportedly viewed wandering the halls at the battlefield’s museum. “There he can be seen roaming the hallways late at night,” Blackman writes, adding that Custer “remains eerily silent” as he continues to occupy the site of his Last Stand.
Custer’s ghost was allegedly seen by the man he was pursuing when he arrived at the Little Bighorn. Lakota Sioux tradition claims that Sitting Bull visited the battlefield after the conflict ended and the ghost of Custer appeared to him at that time. If the story is accurate, this would have been the only time the two enemies met face-to-face — albeit in different spheres of existence.
Lt. Col. George Custer (PHOTOGRAPHY: Mathew Brady).
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