The geography tells the story. Dissected uplands give way to rugged bluffs above the Little Bighorn River. The terrain that channeled cavalry charges into killing zones now channels visitors along interpretive trails. In 1879, the Secretary of War first protected this ground as a national cemetery, preserving the graves of 7th Cavalry troopers. By 1886, it had become the National Cemetery of Custer's Battlefield Reservation. The name persisted for over a century, centering the narrative on one man rather than the thousands who fought here. Not until December 1991 did Congress rename it Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, acknowledging that this ground holds meaning for more than one people.

Lieutenant Charles Roe and the 2nd Cavalry built the granite obelisk atop Last Stand Hill in 1881, reinterring soldiers' remains near the memorial. They left wooden stakes where bodies had fallen. In 1890, those stakes became white marble markers, 210 stones scattered across the ridges and ravines tracing the final movements of Custer's command. For over a century, only the soldiers were so honored. Then on Memorial Day 1999, the first red granite markers appeared for Cheyenne warriors Lame White Man and Noisy Walking. Since then, markers have been added for Sans Arc warrior Long Road, Miniconjou warrior Dog's Back Bone, and an unknown Lakota fighter on Wooden Leg Hill. The battlefield finally shows both sides of the story.

Architects John Collins and Alison Towers won a 1997 Congressional competition to design a memorial honoring the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho who fought here. Their creation takes the form of a circular low wall of sandstone, topped with sculptor Colleen Cutschall's bronze figures called Spirit Warriors. Cutschall, of Oglala and Sicangu descent, created a procession of mounted warriors emerging from the earth. The memorial's open circle reflects sacred geometry common to many Plains tribes. A "spirit gate" window faces the 7th Cavalry obelisk, symbolically welcoming the cavalry dead into a shared space of remembrance. The theme inscribed on the walls reads: Peace Through Unity.

A wildfire in August 1983 transformed the battlefield. Dense thorn scrub that had grown over the site for decades burned away, exposing the ground to archaeological investigation for the first time. Excavations in 1984 and 1985 yielded cartridge casings, buttons, and bone fragments that rewrote parts of the battle narrative. The positions of expended Springfield and Henry rifle casings revealed firing lines and movements invisible in the historical record. One discovery proved particularly significant: contrary to Army claims that defective Springfield carbines contributed to the defeat, archaeological evidence showed the weapons functioned reliably. The failure was tactical, not mechanical.

Custer himself rests elsewhere, reinterred at West Point Cemetery in 1877. But Custer National Cemetery remains an active burial ground, accepting veterans from conflicts up to the present day. Among those interred here is Stanley Vestal, the western historian who spent decades interviewing battle survivors and wrote definitive accounts of Sitting Bull and the Plains Indian wars. In 1967, Major Marcus Reno finally received military honors when he was reinterred in the cemetery, rehabilitated by history after a century of questions about his conduct. The landscape holds bones from 1876 and ashes from the twenty-first century, American military history compressed into rolling Montana grassland.