Convinced that the main hostile camp was downstream, Crook made a tactical error. He dispatched Col. Anson Mills, at the head of eight cavalry troops, to find the village, capture it, and hold it.
From the very heart of the battle, Crazy Horse saw the horse soldiers moving away. He waited until they were too far to offer support to Crook’s main unit, then began to mass warriors on the left flank. At the same time, he sent a large contingent to the rear of the remaining portion of Crook’s column.
At the last minute, Crook realized he was being outmaneuvered and sent a runner to bring Mills back. When Mills’s cavalry troopers reappeared, Crazy Horse broke off the engagement, pulling his
warriors back and abandoning the valley of the Rosebud.
Crook withdrew from the field, claiming a victory, but he was unable to get word through to Terry’s command. Terry had no idea either where Crook was or that he had encountered a huge force of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. The most critical failure of communication was that Terry and his commanders, including Custer and Gibbon, were unaware that Crazy Horse had taught the hostiles a new method of engagement. The massing of warriors and the constant pressure at close quarters were unheard of in Indian warfare, and Terry’s ignorance of that development would carry a high price tag.
T
HE
S
IOUX WERE JUBILANT
. They had overwhelmed the huge force of Three Stars and, although they had sustained some losses, they had also inflicted significant casualties on the bluecoats. But Crazy Horse was more restrained in his enthusiasm. Sitting Bull, too, was worried.
“I don’t like what happened yesterday,” he said, sitting on a hill overlooking the sprawling village. The Little Bighorn River glinted in the sun, and he watched the waters for a long time, waiting for Crazy Horse to answer. When Crazy Horse said nothing, the medicine man poked him with an elbow. “You’re very quiet this morning.”
Crazy Horse nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“You are worried about yesterday, too, I can see that.”
“I have a feeling there are more bluecoats. I don’t know why, but something tells me there are many more.”
“And you don’t think we can beat them?”
“I don’t know. I want to think so, but it is just because I want it so much that I wonder if we can. I am afraid the younger men will get reckless now,
they will think they can’t be beaten and that recklessness will
get
them beaten.”
“You don’t believe in my dream, then?”
“I didn’t say that. But how do we know that your dream was not about yesterday’s fight? Maybe all the bluecoats we will kill were killed yesterday. The dream was not precise.”
“It said they would fall into our camp. Yesterday’s fight was not like that. I still believe in the dream. I believe that it is still to be realized.”
“Then it will be other bluecoats. The ones from yesterday went south, where they came from. They are still moving south, and …”
“Where are the other bluecoats, then?” Sitting Bull asked.
Crazy Horse shrugged. “Close, somewhere close. I can feel it. I can almost smell them.”
“We will continue to send out scouts. If they are near here, we will find them.”
Four days later, Gen. Alfred Terry met with Custer. The combined command, numbering over three thousand troops, had been waiting for word from General Crook, and when it hadn’t come, Terry started to worry.
“The Crow scouts say there are many Sioux out here somewhere. We have to find them. We can’t let them slip away. Not this time. With Crook coming from the south, we have them trapped. It’s our best chance to put an end to this bloody business.”
Custer nodded. “That’s why we’re here, General. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to follow the Rosebud. You know about the trail Major Reno found a few days ago?”
“I do.”
“When you strike that trail, I want you to follow it. See what you can find. Make sure you keep checking your flank. When you get to the mouth of the Tongue River, head for the Little Bighorn. I can’t tell you exactly what to do, because I don’t know what you’ll find, if anything. If the Crows are right, there’s a big camp out there. If you stumble across the Sioux, you’ll have to use your judgment.”
“When do you want me to leave?”
“This afternoon. I can let you have four troops of the Second Cavalry, and the gatling guns. General Gibbon and I will follow along shortly.”
Custer smiled. “Won’t need them, General. The guns’ll just slow me down. And I have more than six hundred men in the Seventh. I can’t imagine needing more than that.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, General, I am. The faster we move, the sooner we’ll find that village.”
Four hours later, to the strains of Custer’s favorite song, “Garryowen,” the 7th Cavalry paraded past Generals Terry and Gibbon. As Custer passed and snapped a crisp salute, Terry said, “Now, Custer, don’t be greedy, but wait for us.”
Lowering his hand, Custer shouted over his shoulder, “No, I won’t.”
The 7th followed Rosebud Creek for twelve miles before camping for the night. The following day, with a full day’s march, they made thirty miles, and thirty more the day after that. Signs of the Sioux were everywhere. Huge patches of grazed land, the grass down to the nub, trampled patches of muddy ground along the creek bank, the ashes of
the burned sun-dance lodge. Everywhere they looked, the scouts found traces. And they knew the Sioux party was a large one.
On the twenty-fifth, they found the remains of a camp, complete with sand paintings showing the details of Sitting Bull’s vision. Bloody Knife, Custer’s favorite Ankara scout, showed him the paintings and explained what they meant, but Custer shrugged it off.
When they found the trail of the village once more, it was almost a mile wide. The travois poles, thousands upon thousands, had plowed the ground into raw furrows. They were getting close, and Custer was determined to find the Sioux quickly. On the twenty-fifth, the 7th marched another ten miles after midnight. His men were getting beaten down by the relentless pace, but he pushed them still harder, sending scouts out ahead to try to locate the village itself, which he knew couldn’t be too far away now.
Bloody Knife found the village, and what he saw terrified him. Hurrying back to Custer, he tried to convey the size of the village. “More Sioux than we have bullets,” he said. “The ponies are like nothing I have ever seen. They fill the valley. The white lodges are like snow, everywhere lodges and more lodges.”
Custer thanked the Arikara, but didn’t seem disturbed by the news. Mitch Bouyer, a white scout who had been there with Bloody Knife, tried again to impress the significance of the discovery on Custer. “General, it’s the biggest village I ever seen. Maybe the biggest there ever was. I been here thirty years, and I never saw nothing that even come close.”
Custer saddled his mount and rode out with Bouyer and Bloody Knife to see for himself. But by the time he reached the vantage point, fifteen miles from the Little Bighorn, a haze had settled into the valley, and he could see almost nothing. Moments later, advance scouts reported that the village was getting ready to move. They also reported that Sioux scouts were heading toward the column, and were certain to discover it.
Custer had the bugler trumpet Officers’ Call, and when his commanders assembled, he said, “The largest Indian village on the North American continent is ahead, and I am going to attack it. Gentlemen, make sure your men have plenty of ammunition. A minimum of a hundred rounds each. Captain Benteen, I want you to take three troops, H, D, and K. Major Reno will take three also, M, A, and G. We’ll leave B Troop to defend the ammunition train, and I’ll take the remaining five troops myself.”
As the 7th moved out, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, another Hunkpapa chief named Gall, and Two Moons, the leader of the Cheyenne contingent, were kept apprised of the cavalry movements. They knew an attack was coming, but not where or when. The village was relatively calm, with most of the people, even the warriors, unaware of the impending battle. Children swam in the cool waters of the Little Bighorn, young men kept watch on the huge pony herd, and women were out gathering berries and wild turnips.
The advancing cavalry had split into three columns, with Captain Benteen on the left, Major Reno in the center, and Custer on the right. Behind
them came the ammunition train, with its single troop of defenders. At noon, Custer found a solitary lodge standing on a hilltop. He ducked inside and found a funeral scaffold with a single warrior laid to rest. He ordered the tipi burned, and pushed his men on harder, thinking that the Sioux were making a run for it.
One of the scouts spotted a great cloud of dust and when he reported his discovery to Custer, the colonel sent Benteen south, parallel to the Little Bighorn, to get in position to prevent the Sioux from escaping in that direction. Then he sent a courier to order Major Reno’s command to charge ahead, and attack the village, while he took his own units northward, keeping a line of bluffs between him and the village.
The Sioux had failed to spot Reno’s column, and when his three troops of cavalry appeared, they were taken by surprise. Crazy Horse had been keeping his warriors in check, waiting for Custer, because he knew exactly where Long-Hair was. But Reno, for some reason, despite having surprise on his side, failed to charge the village as ordered. Instead, he dismounted his command and had the men fire at long range, causing little damage, but succeeding in stirring up the opposition.
Many of the warriors wanted to charge Reno, but Crazy Horse sprang onto his pony and headed them off, riding back and forth across their line of advance and insisting that they hold fast. Reno started to fall back, and Short Bull, a noted warrior, called out to Crazy Horse, “You’re too late. You missed the fight!”
Crazy Horse laughed and pointed to the north.
“There’s another one coming, a big one. And I won’t miss that one,” he shouted.
From a hilltop at the northern end of the village, Custer could see Reno’s men. He planned to take advantage of the second surprise and push into the camp from the rear. When the Sioux realized their families were in jeopardy, their forces would be split and they would run for it, fighting defensively while the women and children tried to make their escape.
Calling to his trumpeter, Custer said, “Go to Captain Benteen. Tell him we found the Sioux and that it’s a big village. Tell him to come quick, and to bring the ammunition packs.”
Crazy Horse saw Custer and his men disappear behind the bluffs, and he pulled his men back, leaving just a few to harass Reno’s command, already falling back. The troopers with Reno were exhausted, and Crazy Horse saw that most of them could barely stand. Sitting Bull noticed it, too. “They are shaking like cypress limbs in a strong wind,” he said.
Crazy Horse nodded. “We can hold them off easily.” Then, pointing to the north, he said, “There is our real fight.” Realizing that Custer was trying to outflank him, he sprang back onto his pony and yelled, “Ho-ka hey! It is a good day to die! Strong hearts, brave hearts, to the front! Weak hearts and cowards to the rear!” Waving his rifle overhead, he kicked the pony and charged to the north. Behind him, more than a thousand warriors surged like flood waters, their shrieks and war whoops echoing off the hills. The thunder of their ponies’ hooves made the lodges tremble as the warriors charged out to meet Custer and his men.
As Crazy Horse rushed to outflank the advancing cavalry, Gall and fifteen hundred warriors blocked Custer’s approach, forcing him to turn to the right and head for high ground. At this point, he must have realized that he was in for the fight of his life. The sheer number of Indians confronting him was more than he expected, and he now realized that he had badly miscalculated.
Heading away from the village now, Gall right on his tail, he galloped toward a hill at the northern end of the bluffs. He hoped to dig in and hold off the Sioux hordes until Benteen could arrive with reinforcements. They were well on their way up the hill, and Custer knew that with more than two hundred men with repeating rifles, he could hold the hilltop indefinitely. But as the hilltop drew ever closer, Custer, charging at the head of his command, saw a lone warrior, Crazy Horse, suddenly break over the ridge and take command of the hilltop. Behind him swarmed another thousand warriors. Custer was trapped between two huge forces, and with the Sioux commanding the hilltop, he was completely cut off from a viable defensive position.
For a moment, the earth seemed to stop spinning. All sound vanished into a void. The swirling colors of the warbonnets, shields, painted ponies and, most of all, the thousand Sioux warriors, seemed to hang motionless in the air. A stiff breeze whipped the feathers wildly and then, in a single instant, Crazy Horse gave vent to a war cry, and the world exploded into bloody chaos.
Crazy Horse led his warriors over the crest of the ridge and down toward Custer. The thunder of gunfire
echoed from every direction. A cloud of gun-smoke gathered on the hillside then mingled with dust as two thousand Sioux and Cheyenne ponies charged around and around, slowly closing on the shrinking circle of cavalrymen. One by one the troopers fell, Custer running this way and that, rallying his troops until he stood alone, the last man to fall.
Then it was over, and peace descended once more, bringing with it silence that, like a funeral shroud, wrapped within it the bodies of two hundred and twenty-six officers and men of the 7th Cavalry.
T
HE BATTLE AT THE
L
ITTLE BIGHORN RIVER
was the single most impressive victory by the Plains Indians, indeed by
any
Indians in the long, bloody history of American westward expansion. But it was also the last hurrah of the Sioux. The smoke had barely cleared when the women began to break down the lodges and assemble all their possessions on the travois. The warriors were exultant, but their leaders were frightened.
When they became aware that General Terry was nearby, the Sioux and Cheyenne broke into smaller groups and headed south, away from Terry’s column, then doubled back, Sitting Bull leading his Hunkpapas in a great circle and heading for the Grandmother Country, Canada.
Crazy Horse led his people toward the Black Hills. Some Cheyenne lodges were part of his encampment, and he spent the rest of the summer and fall of 1876 harassing the miners beginning to disembowel his beloved Paha Sapa. He seemed to sense that the end had come, and still spent much of his time on solitary hunts and leading an occasional small war party against the whites, but he no
longer harbored hopes of a permanent victory over the bluecoats.
The uproar in the press over Custer’s defeat led to an uncharacteristic flurry of activity in the capital, and Congress acted to take control over Indian affairs away from the Indian Bureau and put the army in charge. The general officer corps was ecstatic at the change. It was something they had long argued for, and now that the opportunity had been presented to them, they were more than willing to take advantage of it.
There was just as much turmoil on the reservations. Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, both now adept at scheming and intrigue, anxious to acquire power and quite comfortable in wielding it, moved to consolidate their authority at their respective agencies.
The army, knowing that Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were on the run, and knowing, too, that there was little food for their people and no place for them to hide, enlisted the aid of the two agency chiefs. Each sent runners out to the various fugitive bands of hostiles, but the runners were rebuffed.
A military engagement at Slim Buttes, which saw the last significant war leadership of Crazy Horse, ended with more defections from the hostile camps. Crazy Horse was adamant that he would not surrender, but changes in the laws now made it illegal for the Sioux to be anywhere but on the reservations. Unable to persuade the Sioux to sell the Black Hills, the government simply took them.
Still Crazy Horse would not surrender.
When winter came, it was brutal, worse than anyone could remember. The buffalo were all but gone from the Black Hills region, and the bitter
cold and deep snow made it all but impossible for the Oglala band to get to the last buffalo hunting grounds in the Powder River country.
In early 1877, He Dog, convinced that there was no point in continuing to resist, tried to convince his friend to accept the inevitable.
“This winter is too hard on the people,” he said.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Crazy Horse barked. “I have seen the starving children, the women who are wasting away. I know how hard it is. But you saw what happened when you tried to surrender—they shot at you. They will shoot us all, if we give them the chance. I can’t let that happen.”
“Have you thought about the Grandmother Country? We could go to Sitting Bull.”
“It is even colder there. There is little food and we would be worse off. Besides, the women and children could not make such a long march in the bitter cold. There is little to eat as it is, and if we march north we will need strength. Without enough food we would never make it.”
The argument continued off and on for months. One small group of defectors tried to leave the Crazy Horse camp, but he caught up with them shortly after their departure, ordered their horses shot, and brought them back. He was afraid for them, and thought they would be punished by the whites if they surrendered.
The Cheyenne under Dull Knife and Little Wolf had surrendered and were taken to the desert of the Indian Territory, where there was no food and little water. They were starving, because the white man delivered promises by the wagon load, but nothing
else. Tall Eagle, a Cheyenne warrior who had been at Little Bighorn, had sneaked away from the reservation and headed north to rejoin the hostile Sioux. He made it quite clear that the white man was in no mood to dispense mercy.
But the winter took its toll, and it was a heavy one. More than a dozen babies froze to death in their mothers’ arms. Others died of starvation. Women, too, were crushed under the weight of the winter. Some warriors slipped away from the camp and made their way south, but few were willing to make the trip alone, and many of those who did never made it to the agencies.
Things improved a bit with the beginning of the spring thaw, but everyone knew that the days of roaming where they would across the plains were over. And the thought of another winter like the one just ending was more than Crazy Horse could bear. He couldn’t watch another child die, hear another mother grieve for a dead infant, see another warrior crazy with grief as his family slipped away into death.
So, when runners came from Three Stars, he listened. He knew better than to trust everything he heard, but the people came first, and he had to decide what was best for them. Runners also came from the agencies, dispatched by Lt. William Clark, the officer the Sioux called White Hat.
Then Col. Nelson Miles sent runners of his own. It seemed that every officer in the bluecoat army wanted to be the one to accept the surrender of Crazy Horse. They were making promises they could not fulfill, but that didn’t seem to matter to any of them. As long as they could get Crazy
Horse to come in, their careers would be enhanced and what happened to the Sioux was of no importance.
Crazy Horse was skeptical of each and every promise. They were just words, after all, and words were as nothing to the whites. Even when written on the treaty paper, they were brushed aside like grains of sand from a sleeve, and when they were gone, it was as if they had never been there at all.
And still the words came. Always words and more words. But there was nowhere to turn. So when Spotted Tail and a contingent of his Brule found the Crazy Horse camp in late March, Worm told the chief that although Crazy Horse was not there at the moment, he had left word that he would come in to surrender as soon as the weather permitted his people to travel. Spotted Tail brought assurances from Three Stars that the people would be well cared for.
But when White Hat heard that Crazy Horse had agreed to surrender to Crook, he sent another committee, this one headed by Red Cloud, to negotiate different surrender terms. Red Cloud had brought large supplies of rations with him, and distributed them to the hungry Sioux.
Crazy Horse talked with Red Cloud in his lodge.
“It is a long time since we have ridden together to fight the bluecoats,” Red Cloud began.
Crazy Horse smiled sadly. “Perhaps if you had not given up so early, we might be riding against them still. Perhaps we could have won the war against them.”
Red Cloud shook his head. “No, we could not have won. It would have taken longer for us to lose, but that would only have meant more suffering for the people, and it is of them that we must think now.”
“I have never stopped thinking of the people. You know that. The people, and the old ways. These white men take what they want from us and give us nothing in return. They say the Paha Sapa will belong forever to the Sioux, and then they change their minds. When they ask us to sell and we say no, as it is our right to do, they take them anyway.”
“It is true. And I tried very hard to get something for the people in exchange. But I have been to Washington to see the Great Father. I have been to Omaha, and to Chicago and to New York. You have no idea how many white people there are. The Sioux could not resist them. They would have overwhelmed us, killed us all.”
“Have you yet met a white leader who told you the truth? Who made promises to you and then kept them? And is the slow death of the reservation better than dying in battle to protect what is ours?”
Red Cloud made no answer. There was none to make, and both men knew it. But Red Cloud made the promises White Hat had told him to make, and Crazy Horse, because he could do nothing else, agreed.
On May 6, Lieutenant Clark and a military escort met the advancing caravan of Crazy Horse’s people two miles north of Fort Robinson, the army post adjacent to the Red Cloud Agency. The leaders of
the Sioux band dismounted and sat in a row on the ground, then gestured for Clark to come forward. One by one, the leaders shook hands with White Hat, Crazy Horse last. He took Clark’s extended hand with his left, and said, “Friend, I shake with this hand because my heart is on this side; the right hand does all manner of wickedness; I want this peace to last forever.”
It was Sioux custom to surrender a warbonnet to a victorious commander, but since Crazy Horse had never had one, He Dog offered his own, placing it on Clark’s head, tugging it into place, then offered his shirt and pipe in token of capitulation.
It was time for the march to Fort Robinson and the two-mile-long column was led by Crazy Horse and his chiefs, painted for war and riding at the head of the long, straggling caravan. As the buildings of the fort came into sight, the chiefs began to sing. The chant was picked up by the warriors, then the women, and finally the children.
One of the officers, standing in awe, said, “By God, this is not a surrender. It’s a goddamned triumphal march!”
Red Cloud, looking on, knew that Crazy Horse might have surrendered but that he had not been broken.
Crazy Horse settled into agency life with dignity, but the magnetism of his personality, which captivated not only the Sioux but even the army officers, was a source of concern for the scheming Red Cloud, who wanted to be the leader of all the Sioux in captivity the way he had never been when they had been free.
Rumors that Crazy Horse was planning to head
north again as soon as his people recovered their strength began to circulate through the camp. Spies were everywhere, spies for Clark, spies for Crook, spies for Spotted Tail, and spies for Red Cloud.
The army men began to frequent Crazy Horse’s lodge, where they talked about hunting and the battles they had shared. He showed great dignity and generosity, and a sly sense of humor, although he talked little. He drew close to Clark, and invited him to several feasts at his camp. And the growing respect with which Crazy Horse was regarded was a burr under Red Cloud’s saddle.
And already, Washington was reneging on some of its promises. Crazy Horse had been told that he could have his own agency, in the Powder River country, where his people would be able to live the old way. But there was no real intention to honor that pledge. In fact, General Crook was making plans to send Crazy Horse to prison at Dry Tortuga, off the coast of Florida. Experience should have made the politicians realize that so abrupt a change in climate would be unendurable and probably prove fatal, but they were unlikely to worry about Crazy Horse in any case.
If Crazy Horse was aware of the intrigue swirling around him, he made no attempt to escape. He even had the post surgeon, Valentine McGillicuddy, begin treating Black Shawl, who was seriously ill. Rebuked for using the white man’s medicine, Crazy Horse pointed out that the Sioux medicine men had been unable to help his wife, and he would do whatever it took to see her well again.
He seemed to like McGillicuddy, and in one conversation summed up his feelings regarding the cultural clash between the Sioux and the white man.
“We did not ask you white men to come here,” he told McGillicuddy. “The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on and buffalo, deer, antelope, and other game; but you have come here; you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live. Now you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say, why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization. We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them.”
It was an argument that was hard to counter, and McGillicuddy didn’t even try. Instead, he said, “You should go to Washington like the soldier chiefs say. You can tell this to the Great Father.”
“I do not want to go to Washington. Red Cloud went to Washington, and all he did was learn to sell what belonged to the people for nothing of value. I do not need to learn that. Red Cloud already knows. He has already given away everything the Sioux own.”
McGillicuddy tried again to persuade him, but Crazy Horse was insistent. McGillicuddy did not know that Red Cloud was spreading stories, all variations on the theme that if Crazy Horse went to Washington, he would be clapped in chains and
thrown in prison. And, of course, the stories were based on truth. Crook still planned to ship the Oglala leader to Dry Tortuga.
Many of the Sioux, at both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, were getting restless. They missed the open plains and the freedom to ride where they wanted. When Crook asked for volunteers to ride as scouts in his hunt for the Nez Percé, who had fled their Wallowa Valley en route to Canada to join Sitting Bull, many signed on. They were issued new repeating rifles and bluecoat uniforms. Crook hoped to get Crazy Horse to join him, but was rebuffed. Crazy Horse would not lift a finger to help the white man enslave other Indians, and he secretly believed that Crook’s real intention was to push on north and capture his friend Sitting Bull.
All of the intrigue and scheming crystallized in early September. Anxious to get away from the backstabbing and slander, Crazy Horse rode off to the Spotted Tail Agency, but when he arrived, he was arrested. Spotted Tail had him thrown into the guardhouse at the agency. When the news spread, the wild Sioux were on the verge of erupting, and Spotted Tail had Touch the Clouds, one of Crazy Horse’s staunchest allies, lead the great chief out onto the parade ground, where hostile and agency Sioux had squared off, to show that no harm had come to him.