Impression Evergreen

"Little Bighorn Valley" Colored Pencil It’s springtime on the northern plains and the Little Bighorn Valley is a kaleidoscope of lively colors. From the rim of this lonely overlook, one can review Montana’s remarkable landscape. Carving a rugged valley within the vast prairie, a winding river comes rushing down out of the big, gray mountains. You can barely catch a glimpse of the water as its concealed by a sprawling forest of cottonwood. The lush treetops form wavy bands of foliage that are highlighted with lemon yellow. The trees are mostly green and modeled with dark shadows that appear more blue as they recede into the distance. The sweeping hillside is steeper than it looks as it blends smoothly into the canyon floor. Just below the summit, a small patch of scrubby woodland has found its niche in a crease of earth called a coulee. Blemishes of sagebrush are stippled randomly throughout the countryside’s quilted patchwork of fresh growth. Flowing across the p...

General Custer fell here After destroying Custer's entire battalion, the warriors raced south across the ridges to engage the last remnant of the Seventh Cavalry. Lying flat on the ground, the soldiers formed a perimeter of defense around a natural depression scooped out of the summit of their hilltop refuge. They managed to hold off a determined siege throughout the evening and into the darkness. Many of the spooked men recalled how down in the Indian village there was a celebration of dancing and singing that lasted all night. Desperate cries from captured soldiers who were being tortured below filtered eerily through the hills. Troopers who chose to hide in the timber rather than retreat, somehow worked their way back up to the relative safety of rejoining their comrades. By first light the next morning, the conflict resumed and the remaining 300 or so soldiers continued to hold the high ground. Incredibly, a group of volunteers even snuck down a steep ravine all the ...

Medicine Tail Coulee Ford What happened to General Custer after he separated from Major Reno is one of the great mysteries of the American West. Because there were no survivors from Custer's battalion, the truth will forever elude historians, fanning the flames of controversy that are sparked by the multitude of differing theories. A wealth of information can be gathered from Native American oral history as circulated by the battle's victorious participants, documents containing eyewitness testimony from soldiers who surveyed the battlefield's aftermath and recent archaeological discoveries. By combining the evidence from these three sources, we can get a pretty good feel for what happened concerning Custer's strategy, movement and ultimate demise. The following is how I believe the events of that fateful day may have transpired. While Reno and his men were being chased back to high ground, Custer was dividing his battalion into two wings. Companies C, I and ...

The Little Bighorn River Valley Located in south central Montana, the Little Bighorn Battlefield is a remarkable monument preserving a fascinating piece of American History. Here, General Custer and his battalion of 210 soldiers were massacred by a combined fighting force of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. What makes this memorial so unique is the scattering of marble markers that pinpoint the exact location of where each of the soldiers were killed. The white headstones' seemingly random arrangement betrays the sobering story they have to tell. Upon approaching the Little Bighorn in early June, the spectacular scenery is as beautiful as any place on earth. Tall, green grass is windswept across the vast prairie of rolling hills that at one time supported thousands of buffalo. Upon reaching the river valley, the terrain becomes more rugged as high bluffs to the east are broken by deep ravines and wide coulees. The serpentine-shaped thread of silver water is narrow, cold and...