“Notes of a Cavalryman’s Daughter: Or How I Became an Accidental Historical Reenactor at the Battle of Little Bighorn” is a multimedia public humanities lecture created to honor the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn in 2026.

Since 2017, I have been traveling every June to Little Bighorn Battlefield to document the multiple commemorative events that take place there. Since 2023, I have also been participating in the historical reenactment that is hosted by the Real Bird (Crow) family together with the U.S. Cavalry School. 

My presentation shares an insider’s perspective from “Custer’s Last Ride” together with my photography and video documenting this eight day experience exploring the Little Bighorn Battlefield on horseback. I participate in the historical role of Mark Kellogg, the doomed civilian newspaperman from the Bismarck Tribune who was the only reporter allowed to ride with the Seventh and is considered the first embedded journalist on a wartime expedition to die in battle.

Of the few scholars who have written about historical reenactment at Little Bighorn, I believe I am the first to embed from the inside as a participant. My unique vantage point—from the literal seat of an 1870s Hope saddle—uniquely allows me to bear witness through storytelling and photography on how this historic battle is remembered from the multiple perspectives of Seventh Cavalry reenactors and riders from the Crow Nation.

What some have called “Custer’s Last Stand”—and what the Lakota call the Battle of Greasy Grass (Pezi Sla)—has inspired over 50 films, a thousand books, and more great and bad art than any other event in the history of the American West. If you return enough times to this sacred ground, it is easy to fall down into its sagebrush covered rabbit hole which, from the inside, looks a lot like Akira Kurosawa’s epic film “Rashomon” where everything you think you know will shift beneath your feet depending on where you stand and from what vantage point you look as you attempt to get at the “truth” of what happened on that historic day. 

The Battlefield is living proof that history is a palimpsest where land and memory are forever layered. While riding across these grounds as part of “Custer’s Last Ride,” I have become obsessed with asking what is it that we stir up while reenacting scenes from the past? “Notes of a Cavalryman’s Daughter” offers a meditative reflection on how we might answer this question vis a vis how we remember the Battle of Little Bighorn.