Little Bighorn
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48 free Little Bighorn trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
On June 25, 1876, five companies of the 7th Cavalry rode into the largest Native village their scouts had ever seen, and none of them rode out. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Greasy Grass to the Lakota, was the biggest defeat the United States Army suffered in the Plains wars and became the most argued-over afternoon in the history of the American West. These 48 questions cover the campaign and the fight: the three columns that were meant to converge, the Sun Dance vision of soldiers falling like grasshoppers, the Battle of the Rosebud that knocked Crook out of the plan, Custer's decision to split his regiment, Reno's retreat to the bluffs, the note that told Benteen to bring packs, and the hour on Last Stand Hill. There are questions on the weapons, the scouts, Comanche the surviving horse, the steamboat that raced the news to Bismarck and Libbie Custer's long defence of her husband. Easy questions stick to Custer and Sitting Bull; the hard tier asks about the Lone Teepee, the Far West's record run and which general said Gatlings were useless for Indian fighting. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who was U.S. president when Custer was killed at the Little Bighorn in 1876?
Grant
Grant. Weeks earlier he had stripped Custer of his command for testifying in a corruption inquiry that touched the president's own brother, then relented enough to let him ride.
Q 02By what name do the Lakota and other Plains peoples know the Battle of the Little Bighorn?
The Greasy Grass
The Greasy Grass. It was their name for the river and its valley, so the fight is remembered for the place where it happened, not for the man who lost it.
Q 03Which U.S. Army regiment did Custer command at the Little Bighorn?
7th Cavalry
7th Cavalry. Custer split its twelve companies as he closed on the village, and the five that rode with him were wiped out to the last man.
Q 04What was George Armstrong Custer's actual Army rank at the Little Bighorn?
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel. He had been a major general of volunteers before he turned 25, a wartime rank that lapsed when the Civil War armies disbanded, which is why he is still remembered as 'General Custer'.
Q 05In which present-day state is the Little Bighorn battlefield?
Montana
Montana. The valley lay inside the Crow reservation, so the Lakota and Cheyenne camped there were on another nation's treaty land, which is why Crow scouts rode with the Army.
Q 06Which third nation joined the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne against Custer's regiment?
Arapaho
Arapaho. Only a small number were present, while the Crow, Arikara and Shoshone, old enemies of the Lakota, spent that summer on the Army's side as scouts and allies.
Q 07Which Hunkpapa Lakota holy man's vision inspired the warriors at the Little Bighorn?
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull. He took no direct part in the fighting: he acted as the camp's spiritual leader that day and saw to the safety of the women and children.
Q 08What discovery in the Black Hills in 1874 led to the Great Sioux War?
Gold
Gold. An expedition led by Custer himself confirmed it, miners poured onto land a treaty had promised to the Lakota, and the government's offer to buy the hills was refused.
Q 09Which Oglala war leader do Lakota accounts credit with the charge that broke Custer's battalion?
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse. Lakota accounts have him leading a surprise charge from the northeast that shattered the soldiers' command; little more than a year later he was dead, bayoneted in Army custody.
Q 10Which 1868 treaty had promised the Black Hills to the Lakota?
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Treaty of Fort Laramie. It set the hills aside for the Lakota's 'absolute and undisturbed use'; within a decade the government had taken them back without compensation.
Q 11Which battle on June 17, 1876 forced General Crook's column to pull back before Little Bighorn?
The Rosebud
The Rosebud. Short of supplies and burdened with wounded, Crook fell back to his base camp and stayed there for seven weeks, so he played no part in the fight eight days later.
Q 12Which general commanded the Dakota column that Custer's regiment marched with in 1876?
Alfred Terry
Alfred Terry. A Yale-trained lawyer who had risen to general in the Civil War, he sent Custer ahead on June 22 and reached the battlefield with the relief force two days after the fight.
Q 13From which post did Custer's regiment set out on the 1876 campaign?
Fort Abraham Lincoln
Q 21What did Custer's last written message, sent back for reinforcements, say to bring?
Packs
Packs. The scribbled note said to come on, be quick and bring packs, then said 'bring packs' again in a postscript: the pack mules carried the regiment's reserve ammunition.
Q 22Who carried Custer's final written message back toward the rest of the regiment?
John Martin
John Martin. An Italian immigrant bugler, he rode off with the note as Custer's battalion went on toward the village, and was billed for years as the last white man to see Custer alive.
Q 23Which Arikara scout was killed beside Reno, shaking the major badly?
Bloody Knife
Bloody Knife. Custer's favourite scout was shot through the head at the major's side, spattering him with blood; the shaken Reno gave contradictory orders and then led a headlong retreat to the bluffs.
Fort Abraham Lincoln. Custer had commanded the Dakota post since 1873, and seven weeks after the regiment rode out a steamboat came back down the river with its wounded and the news.
Q 14Which weapons did Custer leave behind before the Little Bighorn, fearing they would slow his march?
Gatling guns
Gatling guns. Each needed four horses to haul it and had to be dragged by hand over rough ground; the troopers also boxed up their sabers and sent them back.
Q 15From the Crow's Nest at first light, what did Custer's scouts make out in the distant valley?
A huge pony herd
A huge pony herd. With it rose the smoke of morning fires, though the village itself was hidden from view, and Custer, arriving later, could not make the herd out for himself.
Q 16Which general, commanding the Army's Division of the Missouri, devised the 1876 campaign against the Lakota?
Philip Sheridan
Philip Sheridan. His plan sent three separate columns into the Lakota's hunting grounds, on the assumption that any one of them could beat whatever force it met.
Q 17At the end of the Civil War, Custer's cavalry division blocked the retreat of which Confederate general's army?
Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee. Custer's horsemen got across the line of retreat in April 1865, he received the first flag of truce, and he was present when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
Q 18Which captain led the battalion Custer sent scouting to the south before the fight?
Frederick Benteen
Frederick Benteen. He found no one, turned back and reached the bluffs in time to join the survivors there; he had thought Custer a braggart since the day they met.
Q 19Which Irish drinking song was the marching tune of Custer's regiment?
Garryowen
Garryowen. Named for a district of Limerick, it began as a drinking song of the city's young roisterers; the regiment made it its march and took its nickname from it.
Q 20Nearing the Little Bighorn village, what did Custer fear most?
The village scattering
The village scattering. Believing his regiment had been spotted, he gave up his plan for a dawn attack the next day and went in at once, in full daylight.
Q 24In which standard Army formation did Reno's men dismount to fight in the valley?
A skirmish line
A skirmish line. Every fourth trooper took charge of the horses, so only three in four could fire, and warriors soon swept round the thin line's left flank and forced it back into the timber.
Q 25What do the white marble markers scattered across the Little Bighorn battlefield show?
Where each soldier fell
Where each soldier fell. The bodies themselves were gathered up in 1881 and reburied in a mass grave around the granite memorial on Last Stand Hill; the markers followed in 1890.
Q 26Red granite markers added to the Little Bighorn battlefield since 1999 honour whom?
Native warriors
Native warriors. Until then the official markers were for the Army's dead alone; the Park Service began adding the red stones in 1999 after consulting the Lakota and Cheyenne.
Q 27Besides two brothers and a nephew, which other relative of Custer died with him at the Little Bighorn?
A brother-in-law
A brother-in-law. Lieutenant James Calhoun had married Custer's sister Margaret, who lost her husband, three brothers and a nephew in a single afternoon.
Q 28Custer was first buried on Last Stand Hill, but where were his remains reburied in 1877?
West Point
West Point. A year after the battle what could be found of him was dug up and reburied with honours at the academy where he had graduated last in his class.
Q 29Most of the battle's Medals of Honor went to men on Reno Hill who did what?
Fetched water under fire
Fetched water under fire. The wounded were suffering badly from thirst, so volunteers went down the bluffs to the river and back; of the 24 medals given for the fight on the bluffs, most went to them.
Q 30What news reached Reno Hill only with the relief column?
Custer's battalion was dead
Custer's battalion was dead. They had heard heavy firing downstream on June 25, but spent two days besieged a few miles away without learning how his fight had ended.