DID YOU KNOW THAT CUSTER WAS A TAXIDERMIST?

Gen. George A. Custer and his Last Battle

Only 50 miles east of Billings, Montana, is one of the most outstanding, historically-preserved spots in our nation. This is too close to Billings for you to miss seeing on your trip to the nta Convention, July 15 through 17, 1999. Even if you fly and rent a car, a short hour-drive will put you at a special place which should trigger some special emotions.

I've often wondered why this spot moves me so much. All I can say is this: we walk the Earth every day, unaware that our steps are falling on the invisible steps of those dead who proceeded us. A cemetery is one thing; to know the actual place where a person died is quite another. Thanks to historical preservation, a few places on earth "where souls left this earth," are set aside, and our attention is alerted to that fact. I believe we all feel a tingle as we pass those little white crosses alongside our highways. I've also been moved at the battlefields Gettysburg and Shiloh. However, nothing compares to the "time travel" in my mind as I stand at Custer's Battlefield, near the three-ton, granite memorial that covers the skeletal remains of what was 7th Cavalry troopers, interred five years after the battle.

Another startling contrast of this battlefield is that as you stand at the monument, in front of you is a lonely, wrought-iron fence, enclosing approximately 52 white marble markers that resemble tombstones, here on "Last Stand Hill." In 1881, an attempt was made to collect all remaining soldier bones for the mass grave behind you, as most of the officers' bones had already been recovered in 1877 and reburied back east. (Custer's bones, if they got the right ones, are reburied at West Point in New York.) Many more white markers are scattered in smaller groups over the four-mile battlefield, which represent the 210 soldiers who died with Custer. As you approach any one of the white marble markers, the inscription will answer your question. Most markers read, "u.s. soldier, 7th cavalry, fell here, June 25th, 1876." This is the eerie spot where General Alfred H. Terry's command discovered the stripped, mutilated corpse of General George Custer and his men, where each had lain for three days naked in the hot June sun...

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