There is a specific historical question about whether Custer and his commanders knew or should have known that the camp they were about to attack was Black Kettle’s — a peace chief who had moved his band to the assigned reservation area and who had just returned from Fort Cobb, where he had been meeting with military officials to discuss his band’s safety.

In November 1868, just before the Washita attack, Black Kettle had been at Fort Cobb.

He had met with Colonel William Hazen, the Indian superintendent for the southern plains, to ask for protection for his band.

Hazen told him that the matter of protection was beyond his authority — that he didn’t have the authority to offer the kind of guarantee Black Kettle was asking for, and that Black Kettle’s band would need to go to General Sheridan to seek terms.

Black Kettle returned to his camp on the Washita without the protection he had sought.