The Great Sioux Massacre The Great Sioux Massacre The Great Sioux Massacre is a 1965 film directed by Sidney Salkow in CinemaScope using extensive action sequences from Salkow's 1954 "Sitting Bull". In a fictionalized form, it depicts Custer as an incompetent warmonger, and the Indians as his victims, and covers events leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Custer's Last Stand It stars Joseph Cotten, Philip Carey and Darren McGavin. The film begins at Board of Inquiry over the Battle of the Little Big Horn; specifically examining the conduct of Major Marcus Reno. Captain Bill Benton (perhaps inspired by Frederick Benteen)
Battle of the Little Bighorn Riley, Kansas, during which time it fought one major engagement and numerous skirmishes, experiencing casualties of 36 killed and 27 wounded. Six other troopers had died of drowning and 51 in cholera epidemics. In November 1868, while stationed in Kansas, the 7th Cavalry under Custer had successfully routed Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita River in the Battle of Washita River, an attack which was at the time labeled a "massacre of innocent Indians" by the Indian Bureau. By the time of the Little Bighorn, half of the 7th Cavalry's companies had just returned from 18 months of