You may remember learning about the Battle of Little Bighorn in your history classes. The conflict began in 1868 when the Treaty of Fort Laramie gave the Black Hills, a region that spanned from North Dakota to Montana, to the Lakota Native Americans. Several years later, General George Custer was sent to the area on a scouting mission, where he found enough gold deposits to kick off a gold rush.
The US Army initially honored the treaty by evicting prospectors from the region, but this effort didn’t last. In retaliation, the Lakota teamed up with the Cheyenne and Sioux to revolt against the loss of their territory. In 1876, General Custer and the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, a battalion of 650 men, were dispatched to end the Native American uprising.
Right before the men went into battle, four months of back pay was distributed to each of the them in the form of gold, silver, and paper currency. It’s estimated that the total pay distributed was around $25,000 (pre-inflation). The men carried this pay into the battlefield where they underwent a massive defeat and massacre, as the Native Americans greatly outnumbered them. This later came to be known as Custer’s Last Stand.
After the Native Americans won the skirmish, they stripped the dead soldiers of their clothing, belongings, and money. It’s believed that this hoard of money and possessions was put into a saddle bag and hidden in a secret location. Two Moons, a Cheyenne chieftan, told a white Indian trader named W.P. Moncure about the lost Custer treasure, drawing him a map to the location as well.
What proof do we have of this tale of lost treasure? In 1936, Moncure reburied the body of Two Moons in a mausoleum. Twenty years later, an investigation was conducted by a reporter named Kathryn Wright, during which she found a hidden vault under a bronze plaque. The Cheyenne agreed to open it for her and a mysterious envelope from Moncure was found inside, along with stone tools and other Indian relics. This large manila envelope contained a typed message, part of which read “Hiding place and location of money and trinkets taken from dead soldiers on Custer Battlefield.”
The message stated that the envelope was to be opened on June 25, 1986, 110 years after Custer’s Last Stand and 50 years after Two Moons’ reburial. Wright received permission to open the envelope in 1957 after publishing a story about her findings. But when she went to retrieve it, she found that someone had broken into the vault and stolen the envelope along with some of the other artifacts.
It is believed that the envelope was the only reference to the final location of the lost Custer treasure. Since the theft, the treasure has never been reported as found. It’s possible that the thief discovered the treasure and kept it a secret, or the treasure may still be hidden somewhere.
In addition to the lost Custer treasure, there’s one more treasure associated with the Battle of Little Bighorn. During the time of the battle, Captain Grant Marsh was navigating a military supply boat called “Far West” along the Bighorn River to deliver reinforcements and supplies to General Custer. However, he caught wind of the bloodbath that had occurred and his mission turned into a rescue effort. He loaded 51 injured soldiers onto his boat. With the added weight, Marsh was forced to drop off some cargo.
It just so happened that Marsh had $375,000 worth of gold bars aboard his boat. He was holding the gold for miners who were worried of being attacked by the Sioux. In order to carry the injured soldiers to safety without sinking the boat, he presumably buried the gold along the shores of Bighorn River. Marsh tried to retrieve the gold a couple months later, only to find that it had been buried deeper by a mudslide. It’s believed that the gold is still buried near the battle site to this day, but the land is considered a national monument and has not been excavated.
Tales of lost and found treasure have a way of appealing to many people, no matter the age or complexity of the story. What are some of your favorite treasure hunting stories?
Barbara Oliver says
I really love the story of Forest Fenn’s treasure and have been obsessed with it for years, I promised
my grandchildren that I would take them to Santa Fe NM for a camping trip and treasure hunt, that would be the greatest adventure of my life. To see the beauty of the land and hike the trails of Jamez
Falls to fish for the brown trout in the Cimmeron River and sit by the campfire at night with my beloved husband and grand children.