In the early 1860s, disillusioned with the Great White Father's reservation policy, angry Indians inhabiting the North American Plains took to the warpath. Some Indians resisted outright any limits to their hunting grounds; other tribes, willing to accept the government's boundaries, felt betrayed whenever whites infringed on their designated lands. A series of bloody engagements ensued between Indians and bluecoats throughout the West over the next three decades.

Fierce Sioux resistance in the Powder River region of southeastern Montana Territory and northern Wyoming Territory caused the government to seek negotiation in 1868. The resulting Fort Laramie Treaty called for the United States to abandon its guardian forts along the Bozeman Trail, awarded to the Sioux all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, and allowed the Indians to continue hunting buffalo within the "unceded territory" stretching from the western boundary of the Black Hills to the summit of the Bighorn Mountains. Essentially, the Sioux could choose to live on the Great Sioux Reservation and draw provisions from the government, or roam freely throughout the Powder River Basin to hunt buffalo. Either way, there was to be no significant interference from whites. Within a half dozen years, both treaty parties would commit acts in violation of the Fort Laramie agreement.

During the summer of 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was assigned to lead an enormous expedition through the Black Hills. Its dual purpose was to determine a suitable location for a military fort (to better supervise the Indians) and settle the question of gold in the Hills. The expedition's confirmation of gold there made whites immediately covetous of the region. While geological survey parties were sent into the Hills to confirm the presence of gold, army patrols made half-hearted efforts to keep prospectors out. However, it was just a matter of time before the government would bow to the influx of settlers. In 1875, the United States began to apply pressure on the Indians to sell the Black Hills. Some Sioux were willing; others indignantly refused, even if it meant bloodshed.

Two of the most defiant Sioux leaders were Crazy Horse, the tribe's preeminent warrior chief, and Sitting Bull, spiritual emissary of the Sioux. Both roamed the unceded territory, resolutely refusing to live on the reservation. An increasing number of the reservation Sioux, infuriated by trespassers and fed up with broken government promises, moved to the unceded land, thus augmenting the militant Indians already there. Then, along with their Northern Cheyenne allies, the massive Indian league headed north to Montana Territory.

In mid-May of 1876, the War Department ordered General Alfred Terry to proceed from Fort Abraham Lincoln in northern Dakota Territory to the Powder River region. Terry's mission was to intercept the Indians there and force them back to their assigned reservations. With Terry was Custer, in command of the 7th Cavalry. According to plan, the Terry column would act in chorus with those of General George Crook (advancing northward from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming Territory) and Colonel John Gibbon (coming from Fort Ellis in western Montana Territory) to converge on the hostiles. When the rendezvous with Gibbon was realized, Terry sent Custer ahead with orders to block the Indians' probable escape route. Once in position, Custer was to avoid engaging the Indians except under dire necessity; only after the other columns arrived would the attack commence.

Custer proceeded at an intense pace, covering almost 60 miles of difficult terrain in just two days. Instead of swinging well to the south and then doubling back to block the Indians' escape, as instructed, Custer turned his march almost directly toward the massive Indian village. It appeared he was making ready to attack even though Terry, Gibbon, and Crook were still far off!

On the morning of June 25, Custer divided his already grossly outnumbered command. (The Terry/Gibbon forces were not expected to arrive until the next day; Crook's column had been halted several days earlier by Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Rosebud.) He dispatched Major Marcus Reno with three companies to cross the Little Bighorn and attack the Indian encampment from the south. Captain Frederick Benteen, as well, was assigned three companies accompanied with vague orders to sweep the bluffs southeast of the valley. Another company, under Captain Thomas McDougall, stayed to guard the vulnerable pack train. Custer would lead the five remaining companies against the Indian village from the northeast.

The formidable Indian alliance, numbering at least 2,000 strong (some estimates go as high as twice that amount), was led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Other notables present were Gall and Rains In The Face, both courageous Sioux chiefs, and Two Moons, a daring Cheyenne leader.

While historians know with high degree of accuracy the events leading up to the Little Bighorn clash, piecing together the details of the battle itself is a much more difficult task since there was no white survivor to tell the story. The questions that linger have served as fodder for myth and legend about Custer and his "Last Stand."

The movie Son of the Morning Star is largely based on Evan S. Connell's 1984 national bestseller of the same title, considered by many scholars to be the definitive work on George Armstrong Custer and the Little Bighorn clash. Meticulously researched, the book explores the complexity of the man and explains the details of the battle. Connell deftly intertwines Custer, other military officers, and Indian leaders whose lives all had one common, eventful date. The historical authenticity of the made-for-television movie, which debuted in 1991, is commendable, but hardly flawless. It presents a balanced story (some Hollywood flare added) told from two starkly different perspectives—those of Custer's wife, Elizabeth ("Libbie"), and Kate Bighead, a Cheyenne.

After the Little Bighorn, Libbie remained a widow until her death 57 years later, writing a trio of volumes about the "Autie" she loved and the General Custer she revered. Her decidedly slanted recollections and interpretations of his thoughts and actions reflect her selfless devotion. Libbie was outspoken and relentless in blaming her husband's demise on the battlefield behavior of two of his subordinate officers, Major Reno and Captain Benteen. (Reno's shoddy performance at the Little Bighorn led to a formal review. Though he was exonerated in this case, the Army later dismissed him on another matter. Benteen, a good military man, was never shy about challenging Custer's leadership and tactics. Nothing that happened at the Little Bighorn tempered his rabid criticism). Libbie's loss revealed her great blessing: she seemed to have had what too many wives never obtain—a real-life husband-hero. The Custers' graves are adjacent at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Bighead was a little girl when she fled barefoot across the snow to escape Custer's 1868 mid-winter surprise retaliatory raid on Black Kettle's Southern Cheyennes camped near the Washita River in western Oklahoma. Later, she transferred to the northern branch of the tribe and was therefore with the Cheyennes who joined their Sioux comrades at the Little Bighorn in 1876. In an interview conducted during the 1920s, Bighead maintained that in the months after the Washita attack her 17-year-old cousin Me-o-tzi (or Mo-nah-se-tah), daughter of slain Chief Little Rock, became impregnated by Custer during the course of his patrols throughout the region, the product of which was a boy named Yellow Hair (or Yellow Bird or Yellow Swallow) because of light streaks in his otherwise dark hair. Bighead also indicated that many of the soldiers at the Little Bighorn fight killed themselves and each other rather than face death by torture at the hands of the Indians. Both claims are very suspect.

The story of Custer's child by a Cheyenne mistress is discounted as mere legend by most reputable historians. Stephen E. Ambrose, for example, classifies it as nothing more than "gossip." Me-o-tzi was one of three captive Cheyenne women taken to Fort Sill after the Washita attack. Those who would believe Bighead's tale point out that Custer described Me-o-tzi as an outwardly attractive woman; she, in turn, attached herself to Custer, assisting him as an intermediary guide when he conducted business with the Indians of the western Oklahoma and Texas panhandle. Even Benteen supported the liaison rumor, slanderously reporting that another soldier observed Custer and Me-o-tzi in the sex act. The determining fact is that the time gap between when Custer first met the woman and the birth of her baby is just seven weeks! Intercourse or not, the biological clock obviously eliminates any chance of pregnancy. (Immediately after the Little Bighorn battle, Sioux warriors wanting Custer's scalp were turned away by Cheyenne women who told them Custer was a tribal relative.)

As for the Army casualties at the Little Bighorn, recent forensic testing performed on bone fragments suggests that perhaps as few as ten percent of Custer's troops were killed by actual battle wounds. Most of the soldiers, wounded and helpless, were murdered after the fight subsided by Indians searching among their fallen enemy for bodies to scalp and mutilate. Moreover, it is questionable that Bighead, as a child, ventured far enough from the Indian village to get sufficiently close to the intense action—no doubt obscured by much gun smoke and dust—to witness as many details of death as she alleged.

The Son of the Morning Star story begins at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1866 (where Custer was first stationed after the Civil War) and culminates with the infamous battle a decade later. The film runs three hours and is rated PG-13. It features Gary Cole as Custer and Rosanna Arquette as his adoring wife. Primary cast members are listed alphabetically below.

Two notable character omissions are Lieutenant James Calhoun (Custer's brother-in-law) and Captain Myles Keogh (perhaps the most colorful member of the 7th). Both officers fought gallantly to their death at the Little Bighorn. The best performances among the principal actors are those of Tim Ransom (as Custer's younger brother Tom) and David Strathairn (as Benteen); minor acting parts of mention are by Sheldon Wolfchild (as Bloody Knife, Custer's favorite Indian scout) and Demina Becker (as Kate Bighead when she was a young child). The narrative voice of Bighead is provided by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Incidentally, Kevin Costner was initially offered the role of Custer, but declined because he was busy producing his own western movie epic, Dances With Wolves.