Custer National Cemetery provides a final resting place for many generations of people who served in the United States armed forces, with Americans of many races and beliefs buried side by side. Among those buried there are known and unknown veterans of the nation’s wars, women and children from isolated frontier posts, Indians, scouts, and Medal of Honor recipients, including veterans of 20th-century wars. The War Department established the cemetery in 1879, three years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and remains from 25 cemeteries were transferred there when frontier forts closed at the end of the Indian Wars. Those buried there include fallen from the battles of Fetterman, Wagon Box, Hayfield, Big Hole, and Bear Paw, as well as soldiers who fought in the Indian Wars, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Until reaching capacity in 1978, the cemetery accepted burial reservations for veterans and their spouses.