Wow
I'm not gonna judge the Troopers too hard about things - most were, from what I've heard, inexperienced in fighting indians (many were immigrants, fairly new to teh country) and little experience on horseback. The average age of the Privates was around 30...
So, when faced with imminent death, and the possibility of torture and mutilation, I can understand them turning their guns on themselves. One Indian who was there, I dont recall his name, said in a report to the government that "The White Men went crazy! Instead of shooting us, they turned their guns on themselves!"
From all that I've seen and read, the facts seem to be that Custer and his units were taken out fairly quickly (when a group of people charge into a primitive camp and begin shooting women and children who are trying to escape, ya cause some anger ya know?) and so basically the whole command and control fell apart... after Custer's fall, some units tried to escape by fleeing west, which unfortunately took them in the direction of the camp they had been attacking. Oops. They ended up in a gully or ditch type area, where they were finally killed (or killed themselves, as the case may be) and the battle was pretty mcuh over...
The deeper one looks into the Little Big Horn event, the more fascinating it becomes... Some indians painted what they saw, and those painting are now in the Smithsonian... The paintings and drawings are pretty interesting, albeit a little crude compared to what we are used to today...
I've stumbled across photos of the battlefield that were taken months after the battle, and the bones of horses were still evident (used as makeshift defenses, from what I gather). The dead were pretty much buried where they fell, but praire/plains animals dug them up and scattered them. When Custer's "body" was returned to be buried at West Point, in reality it only contained a few symbolic bones...