June 25, 1999
On this 123rd anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, I want to tell you a story. But this time . . . you will have to help me write the ending for this unfinished tale. That's the exciting task you alone hold in your hands at this very moment. What's more, you and I together have the unique opportunity to make a little history of our own!
Shelf after shelf of books -- both fiction and non-fiction -- have been written about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, along with reams of articles, monographs, essays, and academic analyses. More ink has been devoted to this one battle than to any other during the entire period of the Indian Wars. Yet, for most of us, what really happened on that bloody Sunday remains a mystery shrouded in a continuing and bewildering controversy.
While you and I will never be able to know with the self-assured certainty expressed by some Little Bighorn experts exactly what actually happened that hot Montana afternoon, you and I nonetheless do have the unequalled challenge to affect what will now happen to the ground where much of that dramatic battle was fought.
By now you must surely know that I am a firm believer that -- for me to write with accuracy and authenticity -- I must visit the battlesites where these tragic and bloody clashes actually took place. And for those of you who have traveled with me each summer to that sacred ground beside the Little Bighorn, you know just how much insight you gain by walking across the actual site. There is no substitute to being there.
Through the untiring efforts of a friend of mine, you and I now have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to commemorate that clash on the banks of the Little Bighorn in 1876. We can truly memorialize and honor the fallen warriors on both sides of that bloody battle.
Hold on -- I don't want you thinking this is some government-funded project, handled by the National Park Service. No, what makes this opportunity truly unique is that this effort is something that remains for you and I to do out of our own pockets, with our own good will. The job won't be done with federal taxes. This dream will only come true if enough of us see the value in saving a piece of our history which the federal government itself has never been interested in preserving.
Only three years after the battle took place, the United States government created a National Monument at the Little Bighorn. Then in 1885 a site one-mile-square was set aside for the Custer Battlefield National Cemetery. But the 162-acre site now known as the Reno-Benteen Battlefield, some four miles distant from "Last Stand Hill," was not acquired until the 50th Anniversary in 1926. These two parcels, totalling less than 760 acres, is all the National Park Service owns and administrates.
Back in 1982 a friend of mine recognized that something had to be done to preserve what was about to be lost forever. Jim V. Court, then Superintendent at what was at that time called Custer Battlefield National Monument, founded a private, non-profit group called the Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee, Inc. Across the next seventeen years, with Jim's astute guidance and unflagging energy, our Committee has purchased adjoining land that includes the Reno Retreat Crossing, along with most of Medicine Tail Coulee (which carried George Armstrong Custer and three of his companies all the way down to the bank of the Greasy Grass itself).
That's nearly 2,200 acres of land, compared to the Park Service's 760 acres! And the job of acquiring it was all done by private donations -- big and small -- from private individuals like you, sums that eventually totalled more than $2.5 million.
But . . . our story is far from finished.
On March 9, 1999, Jim Court and the Committee was handed the unbelievable opportunity to purchase more of the original battlesite! On that date we signed an option to purchase what has been privately-owned, inaccessible land significant to that day's historic struggle: the significant view-shed acreage near the entrance to the battlefield itself (where the Northern Cheyenne were camped south of Highway 12), another piece of ground where stood the Hunkpapa village of Sitting Bull (attacked by Reno's battalion), as well as the entire area encompassed by Reno's valley fight (in addition to all the subsequent skirmishes between his soldiers and Gall's Hunkpapa in the timber, all the way down to the retreat crossing).
I can't possibly begin to tell you how thrilled I am to play a small role in this effort! And I want you to play a part in this project as well.
If we don't purchase these valley sites where the villages stood and this epic, momentous battle started, someone else will. And who knows how that landowner will feel about this sacred ground? Will it mean anywhere as much to them as it does to me when I walk where Sitting Bull's village stood, or to move through the grass where Gall rallied his Hunkpapa warriors to meet Reno's fateful charge? Will it mean anything to them to pause a few moments where Lonesome Charley Reynolds fell and died...where Bloody Knife was killed beside Reno in the timber...or where Lieutenant Donald McIntosh started his desperate crossing of the Little Bighorn?
We must preserve this sacred ground!
To do that, I am asking for your help. The Committee now needs approximately $100,000 a month to pay off all our purchase options by June 25, 2001 -- only two years from today! To reach our goal, we need your assistance, big and small, in this fund-raising effort. Any amount will be greatly appreciated, and is tax-deductible, but a donation of $100.00 or more will give you a lifetime membership in the Committee.
For a donation of $500.00 or more to this effort, I will donate an inscribed hardcover copy of my first novel, Carry the Wind. And for those who donate $1,000.00 or more, the Battlefield Preservation Committee will be proud to have you as our honored guest at one of the three celebration dinners we will host for you at the Radisson Northern Hotel here in Billings once our battle is won!
While none of us is reaping any monetary reward whatsoever from this effort, rest assured that we will all gain an immeasurable wealth when we succeed in preserving this land for those yet unborn. History will one day judge what we did, or didn't do, in this cause.
The enclosed full-color pamphlet explains how you can help us to assure that not only you, but future generations as well, will be able to walk the ground where the Battle of the Little Bighorn began.
Now you see why this is one story I can't write by myself. I need your help. Please take a minute to think about what an unequalled opportunity you have at this moment to shape the historical experience of generations to come as they are able to walk where cultures clashed, where heroes stood, where history was made.
Please help me compose the successful ending to this story. With your donation, we'll write a little history of our own as we get the job done for future generations. Thank you very much for your contribution!
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Send tax deductible donations to:
Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee Inc.
PO Box 7
Hardin, MT 59034-0007
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