History of Montana degree of longitude northward to the boundary line of the British possessions. The boundaries of Montana territory did not change during its existence. Montana was admitted to the Union as the state of Montana on November 8, 1889. The Battle of the Little Bighorn—also called Custer's Last Stand and the Battle of the Greasy Grass—was an armed engagement between a Lakota (Sioux)-Northern Cheyenne-Arapaho combined force and the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army. It occurred June 25–June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory near present-day Hardin, Montana, on land that today is part of
Battle of the Little Bighorn in dispute, however. Edward Curtis, the famed ethnologist and photographer of the Native American Indians, made a detailed personal study of the battle, interviewing many of those who had fought or taken part in it. First he went over the ground covered by the troops with the three Crow scouts White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, and Hairy Moccasin, and then again with Two Moons and a party of Cheyenne warriors. He also visited the Lakota country and interviewed Red Hawk, "whose recollection of the fight seemed to be particularly clear". Then, he went over the battlefield once more with