on june 25, 1876, george armstrong custer with 647 troops will attack a massive camp located about a mile and a half to two miles to the south of us down in the river valley bottom. there's 8,000 people in that village. 1,500 to 2,000 of them are warriors. custer will have 647 troops. it's the only battlefield in the country, only one of two in the whole world, where white markers indicate where soldiers were killed on the battlefield and buried where they fell. red markers, like the one at the mouth of deep ravine, just to the left of this gentleman, 17 warrior markers across the battlefield, much more warriors died in the fight. but we've got 17 markers placed there by oral histories and families. they're not buried on the battlefield. they are picked up very quickly and later buried in trees and caves and scaffolding. on top of the hill, just below the monument, custer perishes at the age of 36 years old. buried in an 18-inch grave. disinterred a year later, what was left of him, placed in a box about this big, taken back to west point, where he's buried today. five years after th

for these little tykes over here, there's nobody in this audience who has never heard of george armstrong custer. there's nobody in this audience who has never heard of sitting bull or crazy horse. and i promise you this, there's nobody here who has never heard of elvis presley. well, folks, it's a simple story. and yet it's a complex story. you are on the battlefield right now. on june 25, 1876, george

tykes over here, there's nobody in this audience who has never heard of george armstrong custer. there's nobody in this audience who has never heard of sitting bull or crazy horse. and i promise you this, there's nobody here who has never heard of elvis presley. well, folks, it's a simple story. and yet it's a complex story. you are on the battlefield right now. and it stretches five miles to the south of us, well beyond the in the hill, way out there, five miles. on june 25, 1876, george armstrong custer with 647 troops will attack a massive camp located about a mile and a half to two miles to the south of us down in the river valley bottom. there's 8,000 people in that village. 1,500 to 2,000 of them are warriors. custer will have 647 troops. it's the only battlefield in the country, only one of two in the whole world, where white markers indicate where soldiers were killed on the battlefield and buried where they fell. red markers, like the one at the mouth of deep ravine, just to the left of this gentleman, 17 warrior markers across the battlefield, much more warriors died in

the stage is set. 8:00 in the morning, george armstrong custer is up on those wolf mountains way out there on the far horizon, 15 miles out. a place called the crow's nest. his scouts have gotten up on top there and they've looked down in the wee hours of the morning and they've seen smoke rising from the tipis. he goes up to the crow's nest at 8:00 in the morning, looks down into the valley with a cheap spy glass, but he can't see a thing because the breakfast campfires have turned the valley into los angeles. the scouts tell them, look for worms in the grass. folks, little big horn river is right below us. that thick green line of trees at the bottom of the ridge. across the valley to the second line of trees, above those trees on the bluffs, the morning of the 25th, there's 20,000 horses grazing. 20,000. worms in the grass. custer can't see them. the scouts are very alarmed. you better not go down there. you don't have enough bullets in your whole command to fight the sioux. but other scouts see it differently. you better attack because that village is going to run. they're going

interestingly, george armstrong custer was there as part of the seventh calvary for a brief time until he moved out west. and we know what happened to him out there. so the klan effectively went away, which was okay at that point, because once reconstruction and the army left, the south reverted to the way it was before the civil war. jim crow laws were passed, extremely unfair laws, in a system of share cropping, which is essentially like slavery. so we move ahead now to the second klan, the modern ku klux klan, which is the one i've written about. and that was 1915. not in indianapolis but in atlanta, georgia. and on thanksgiving night of 1915, a man named william joseph simmons initiated the new klan atop stone mountain, georgia, with a fiery cross and all of that. he coincided this with the debut in atlanta of birth of a nation, if you're familiar with the tremendous film by d.w. griffith. i say tremendous. i'm a film major, because he was a brilliant filmmaker who did things no one had ever done. he chose a pretty bad story to do it with, based on a play called the klansmen and it

two of the critical players, we see sheridan and george armstrong custer and we'll talk more about that in a few moments. right now, i want to move up to cedar creek by look at things going on. where was the field elsewhere at this time? 1864, the endgame of the civil war was in progress. williameep south, tecumseh sherman would be placed in charge of the army that will sweep through georgia and into the carolinas and we'll talk about sherman. sherman's record was marginal. inwas a colonel at board run 1861 -- bull run in 1861. he had rallied his men. it was noted by his superiors although ultimately his brigade left the field in much the same way as the rest of the union troops that day, which was fling. -- fling. his first large command was a colossal failure and many journalists consider him as having lost his mind. he was at shiloh in it is easy to a managed -- in a difficult 1862. managed -- in it is plagued with logistical problems. however, he was one the most trusted men that were continued through the war. sherman's march georgia as subsequent action of total war as he moved up

two of the critical players, we see sheridan and george armstrong custer and we'll talk more about that in a few moments. right now, i want to move up to cedar creek by look at things -- by looking at things that were going on. where was the field elsewhere at this time? by early 1864, the endgame of the civil war was in progress. in the deep south, william tecumseh sherman would be placed in charge of the army that will sweep through georgia and into the carolinas, and we talked for a moment about sherman. sherman's record was marginal. he was a colonel at bull run in july of 1861. against strong forces, he had rallied his men. ultimately, his brigade left the field in much the same way as the rest of the union troops that day, fleeing from the rebel onslaught. his first large command was a colossal failure and many journalists consider him as having lost his mind. he performed well at shiloh in the spring of 1862 but managed a disastrous attack a few months prior to the 1863 seats to vicksburg. his march was plagued with problems. thehis performance at battle of chattanooga was also q

on june 25, 1876, george armstrong custer with 647 troops will attack a massive camp located about a mile and a half to two miles to the south of us down in the river valley bottom. there's 8,000 people in that village. 1,500 to 2,000 of them are warriors. custer will have 647 troops. it's the only battlefield in the country, only one of two in the whole world, where white markers indicate where soldiers were killed on the battlefield and buried where they fell. red markers, like the one at the mouth of deep ravine, just to the left of this gentleman, 17 warrior markers across the battlefield, much more warriors died in the fight. but we've got 17 markers placed there by oral histories and families. they're not buried on the battlefield. they are picked up very quickly and later buried in trees and caves and scaffolding. on top of the hill, just below the monument, custer perishes at the age of 36 years old. buried in an 18-inch grave. disinterred a year later, what was left of him, placed in a box about this big, taken back to west point, where he's buried today. five years after th