BBC to film Bighorn documentary near Wasta
This map shows the site where historians have believed Custer and his troops tried to cross the Little Bighorn River at Medicine Tail Coulee. A new theory, the subject of a planned BBC documentary, holds that Custer tried to cross the river farther downstream near where Interstate 90 and a railroad now cross the river. In either case, the result was the same. Custer and his command were repulsed, driven back up on the hills above and annihilated. (Kevin Wagner and Deanna Dowlin/Journal staff)
By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer
A television crew from the British Broadcasting Corp. will come to western South Dakota next spring to film a ground-breaking documentary about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, according to a Rapid City man involved in the project.
The BBC documentary will focus on new information about where Lt. Col. George Custer tried to cross the Little Bighorn River in the 7th Cavalry’s 1876 defeat at the hands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors, according to Jim Hatzell, a cavalry re-enactor who will serve as technical adviser for the documentary.
The BBC crew plans to film for about 12 days in late May and early June along the Cheyenne River on a ranch north of Wasta, Hatzell said.
Hatzell, who helped BBC director Dave Stewart pick the location earlier this fall, said the National Park Service doesn’t allow re-enactment film projects nor firing of blank ammunition inside the battlefield boundaries. Hatzell said the distinctive landscape of the Little Bighorn Battlefield cannot be found outside its boundaries in Montana and that many locations outside the battlefield fence are not usable because of Interstate 90, other roads and modern buildings.
When Stewart saw the Cheyenne River location, he said it would be perfect for the documentary, according to Hatzell.
Hatzell said he is not sure how many BBC crew members will come to South Dakota because the BBC will try to hire as many locals for the crew as possible.
The documentary will use as many as 40 local American Indian and cavalry re-enactors, Hatzell said.
The BBC originally planned to make a broad-brush documentary on the battle but has rewritten its script to focus on a new explanation on how part of the battle unfolded, Hatzell said.
Conventional wisdom previously has held that after Custer split his initial force, ordering Maj. Marcus Reno to attack the southeast end of the Indian village along the Little Bighorn River, he then led five companies to the northwest and tried to cross the Little Bighorn River at Medicine Tail Coulee, where he was repulsed.
Custer and all 210 members of his battalion were killed in the subsequent battle, so their exact movements could not be confirmed.
But Mike Donahue, a longtime interpretive ranger at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, has studied archival accounts by Indian participants in the battle and concluded that Custer and his troops tried to cross the river about two miles farther downstream, where a railroad bridge now spans the river, almost straight west of the current battlefield’s visitor center.
Donahue, an art professor at Temple College in Texas, was working on a book of maps about the battle when he discovered some of the Indian accounts in the archives, Hatzell said. Hatzell served as an interpretive ranger during the summers of 2002 and 2003 and was Donahue’s roommate.
Donahue argues that many of the Indian accounts were discounted because they didn’t fit into the Medicine Tail Coulee crossing theory. But they do fit if Custer tried to cross farther downstream, Hatzell said.
In addition to the Indian testimony, Donahue also includes data about artifacts found in the area farther downstream that indicate a battleground.
The attempted crossing farther downstream would fit with Custer’s belief that the Indians would try to escape, he said.
Historians say that when Reno attacked the Indian village to the south, the women and children were sent in the opposite direction for their safety and hid in some cottonwood trees near the spot that Donahue says Custer tried to cross. Hatzell said Custer might have been trying to capture the women and children as he did eight years earlier at the Battle of Washita in present-day western Oklahoma, where Custer’s troops reportedly killed or captured more than 100 Cheyenne men, women and children.
Hatzell said former battlefield superintendent and Little Bighorn expert and author Robert Utley will be interviewed for the BBC documentary.
“The BBC realizes what an important story this is, so they’re pulling out all the stops to make this thing happen,” Hatzell said.
The documentary will air on the Discovery Channel as well as on BBC, he said.
Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or Steve Miller
Special thanks to Bea Woodward for sending this on!
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December 2005 Reports
Last updated on December 05, 2005