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)
George Armstrong Custer Hills region from the Sioux. When the Sioux refused to sell, they were ordered to report to reservations by the end of January, 1876. Mid-winter conditions made it impossible for them to comply. The administration labeled them "hostiles" and tasked the Army with bringing them in. Custer was to command an expedition planned for the spring, part of a three-pronged campaign. While Custer's expedition marched west from Fort Abraham Lincoln, near present-day Mandan, North Dakota, troops under Colonel John Gibbon were to march east from Fort Ellis, near present-day Bozeman, Montana while a force under General George Crook was to