Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

by Dee Brown

of the sky he had the soldiers all mixed up in three separate fights. The Bluecoats were accustomed to forming skirmish lines

  and strong fronts, and when Crazy Horse prevented them from

  fighting like that they were thrown into confusion. By making

  many darting charges on their swift ponies, the Sioux kept the

  soldiers apart and always on the defensive. When the Bluecoats'

  fire grew too hot, the Sioux would draw away, tantalize a few

  soldiers into pursuit, and then turn on them with a fury.

  The Cheyennes also distinguished themselves that day, especially in the dangerous charges. Chief-Comes-in-Sight was the

  bravest of all, but as he was swinging his horse about after a

  charge into the soldiers' flank the animal was shot down in front

  of a Bluecoat infantry line. Suddenly another horse and rider

  galloped out from the Cheyennes' position and swerved to shield Chief-Comes-in-Sight from the soldiers' fire. In a moment Chief-Comes-in-Sight was up behind the rider. The rescuer

  was his sister Buffalo-Calf-Road-Woman, who had come along

  to help with the horse herds. That was why the Cheyennes always remembered this fight as the Battle Where the Girl Saved

  Her Brother. The white men called it the Battle of the Rosebud.

  When the sun went down, the fighting ended. The Indians knew they had given Three Stars a good fight, but they did not

  know until the next morning that they had whipped him.

  At

  first daylight, Sioux and Cheyenne scouts went out along the

  ridges, and they could see the Bluecoat column retreating far

  away to the south. General Crook was returning to his base camp on Goose Creek to await reinforcements or a message from Gibbon, Terry, or Custer. The Indians on the Rosebud were too strong for one column of soldiers.

  After the fight on the Rosebud, the chiefs decided to move west to the valley of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn). Scouts had come in with reports of great herds of antelope west of there, and they said grass for the horses was plentiful on the

  nearby benchlands. Soon the camp circles were spread along the

  west bank of the twisting Greasy Grass for almost three miles.

  No one knew for certain how many Indians were there, but the

  number could not have been smaller than ten thousand people,

  including three or four thousdnd warriors. "It was a very big village and you could hardly count the tepees," Black Elk said.18

  Farthest upstream toward the south was the Hunkpapa camp,

  with the Blackfoot Sioux nearby. The Hunkpapas always camped at the entrance, or at the head end of the circle, which

  was the meaning of their name. Below them were the Sans Arcs,

  Minueconjous, Oglalas, and Brul6s. At the north end were the

  Cheyennes.

  The time was early in the Nloon When the Chokecherries Are

  Ripe, with days hot enough for boys to swim in the melted snow

  water of the Greasy Grass. Hunting parties were coming and going in the direction of the Bighorns, where they had found

  a few buffalo as well as antelope. The women were digging wild

  turnips out on the prairies. Every night one or more of the tribal circles heid dances, and some nights the chiefs met in

  councils. "The chiefs of the different tribes met together as equals," Yooden Leg said. "There was only one who was considered as being above all the others. This was Sitting Bull.

  He

  was recognized as the one old man chief of all the camps combined." 1e

  Sitting Bull did not believe the victory on the Rosebud had fulfilled his prophecy of soldiers falling into the Indian camp.

  Since the retreat of Three Stars, however, no hunting parties had sighted any Bluecoats between the Powder and the Bighorn.

  They did not know until the morning of June 24 that Long Hair Custer was prowling along the Rosebud. Next mornirrg scouts reported that the soldiers had crossed the last high ridge

  between the Rosebud and the h-rdian camp and were marching

  toward the Little Bighorn.

  The news of Custer's approach came to the Indians in various

  ways:

  "I and four womer) were a short distance from the carnp dig-giug wild turnips," said Red Horse, one of the Sioux council chiefs. "Suddenly one of the women attracted my attention to

  a cloud of dust rising a short distance from camp. I soon saw

  that the soldiers were charging the camp. To the camp I and

  the women ran. When I arrived a person told me to hurry to the council lodge. The soldiers charged so quickly that we could

  not talk. We came out of the council lodge and talked in all directions. The Sioux mount horses, take guns, and go fight the

  soldiers. Women and children mount horses and go, meaning to

  get out of the way."'n

  Pte-San-Waste-Win. a cousin of Sitting Bull, was one of the young women digging turnips that morning. She said the sol-29l

  diers were six to eight miles distant when first sighted. "We eould see the flashing of their sabers and saw that there were

  very many soldiers in the party." The soldiers first seen by Pte-San-Waste-Win and other Indians in the middle of the camp

  were those in Custer's battalion. These Indians were not aware

  of Major Marcus Reno's surprise attack against the south end

  of camp until they heard rifle fire from the direction of the Blackfoot Sioux lodges. "Like that the soldiers were upon us.

  Through

  the tepee poles their bullets rattled. . . . The women and children cried, fearing they would be killed, but the men, the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet, the Oglala and Minneconjou, mounted their

  horses and raced to the Blackfoot tepees. We could still see the

  soldiers of Long Hair marching along in the distance, and our

  men, taken by surprise, and from a point whence they had not

  expected to be attacked, went singing the song of battle into the fight behind the Blackfoot village." 2'

  Black Elk, a thirteen-year-old Oglala boy, was swimming with

  his companions in the Little Bighorn. The sun was straight above

  and was getting very hot when he heard a crier shouting in the

  Hunkpapa camp: "The chargers are coming! They are charging!

  The chargers are coming !" The warning was repeated by an Oglala crier, and Black Elk could hear the cry going from camp

  to camp northward to the Cheyennes.z

  Low Dog, an Oglala chief, heard this same warning cry. "I did not believe it. I thought it was a false alarm. I did not think

  it possible that any white man would attack us, so strong as we

  were. . . Although I did not believe it was a true alarm, I lost no time getting ready. When I got my gun and came out of

  my lodge the attack had begun at the end of the camp where

  Sitting BuII and the Hunkpapas were."

  Iron Thunder was in the Minneconjou camp. "I did not know

  anything about Reno's attack until his men were so close that

  the bullets went through the camp, and everything was in confusion. The horses were so frightened we could not catch them."

  Crow King, who was in the Hunkpapa camp, said that Reno's

  pony soldiers commenced firing at about four hundred yards'

  distance. The Hunkpapas and Blackfoot Sioux retreated slowly

  on foot to give the women and children time to go to a place

  of safety. "Other Indians got our horses. By that time we had warriors enough to turn upon the whites." 23

  Near the Cheyenne camp, three miles to the north, Two Moon

  was watering his horses. "I washed them off with cool water,

  then took a swim myself. I came back to the camp afoot.

  When I

  got near my lodge, I looked
up the Little Bighorn toward Sitting

  Bull's camp. I saw a great dust rising. It looked like a whirlwind.

  Soon a Sioux horseman came rushing into camp shouting:

  ,Sol-

  diers come ! Plenty white soldiers !' "

  Two Moon ordered the Cheyenne warriors to get their horses,

  and then told the women to take cover away from the tepee village. "I rode swiftly toward Sitting Bull's camp. Then I saw the white soldiers fighting in a line [Reno's men]. Indians covered the flat. They began to drive the soldiers all mixed up

  -Sioux, then soldiers, then more Sioux, and all shooting. The air was full of smoke and dust. I saw the soldiers fall back and

  drop into the riverbed like buffalo fleeing." 2, The war chief who rallied the Indians and turned back Reno's

  attack was a muscular, full-chested, thirty-six-year-old Hunkpapa named Pizi, or Gall. Gall had grown up in the tribe as an

  orphan. While still a young man he distinguished himself as a

  hunter and warrior, and Sitting Bull adopted him as a younger

  brother. Some years before, while the commissioners were attempting to persuade the Sioux to take up farming as a part of the treaty of 1868, GaII went to Fort Rice to speak for the Hunkpapas. "We were born naked," he said, "and have been taught to hunt and live on the game. You teII us that we must

  learn to farm, live in one house, and take on your ways.

  Sup-

  pose the people living beyond the great sea should come and

  tell you that you must stop farming and kill your cattle, and take your houses and lands, what would you do? Would you

  not fight them?" 2; In the decade following that speech, nothing

  changed Gall's opinion of the white man's self-righteous arrogance, and by the summer of 1876 he was generally accepted

  by the Hunkpapas as Sitting Bull's lieutenant, the war chief of the tribe.

  Reno's first onrush caught several women and children in the

  open, and the cavalry's flying bullets virtually wiped out Gall,s

  293

  Bury My Heart atWounded, Knee

  family. "lt made ury heart bad," he told a newspapermalt some

  years later. "After that I killed all my enemies with the hatchet."

  His description of .the tactics used to block Reno was equally

  terse: "Sitting BulI and I were at the point where Reno attacked. Sitting Bull was big medicine. The women and children were hastily moved downstream. . . . The women and children caught the horses for the bucks to mount them; the

  bucks mounted and charged back Reno and checked him, and

  drove him into the timber." 26

  In military terms, Gall turned Reuo's flank and forced him into the woods. He then frightened Reno into making a hasty

  retreat which the Indians quickly turned into a rout. The result made it possible for Gall to divert hundreds of warriors for a frontal attack against Custer's column, while Crazy Horse

  and Two Moon struck the flank and rear.

  Meanwhile Pte-San-Waste-Win and the other women had been

  anxiously watching the Long Hair's soldiers across the river.

  "I

  could hear the music of the bugle and could see the column of

  soldiers turn to the left to march down to the river where the

  attack was to be made. Soon I saw a number of Cheyennes ride into the river, then some young men of my band, then others, until there were hundreds of warriors in the river and

  running up into the ravine. When some hundreds had passed the

  river and gone into the ravine, the others who were left, still a

  very great number, moved back from the river and waited for

  the attack. And I knew that the fighting men of the Sioux, many

  hundreds in number, were hidden in the ravine behind the hill

  upon which Long Hair was ma,rching, and he would be attacked

  from both sides." 27

  Kill Eagle, a Blackfoot Sioux chief, later said that the movement of Indians toward Custer's column was "1ike a hurricane

  . . . like bees swarming out of a hive." Hump, the Minneconjou comrade of Gall and Crazy Horse during the old Powder River days, said the first massive charge by the Indians caused

  the long-haired chief and his men to become confused.

  "The

  first dash the Indians made my horse was shot from under me and

  I was wounded-shot above the knee, and the ball came out at

  the hip, and I fell and lay right there." Crow King, who was with

  the Hunkpapas, said: "The greater portion of our warriors PHOTOS PAGE 295

  came together in their front and we rushed our horses on them.

  At the same time warriors rode out on each side of them and

  circled around them until they were surrounded., 28

  Thirteen-

  year-old Black Elk, watching from across the river, could see a

  big dust whirling on the hill, and then horses began coming out

  of it with empty saddles.

  "The smoke of the shooting and the dust of the horses shut out the hill," Pte-San-Waste-Win said, , and the soldiers fired many shots, but the Sioux shot straight and the soldiers fell dead. The women crossed the river after the men of our village,

  and when we came to the hill there were no soldiers living and

  Long Hair lay dead among the rest. . . . The blood of the people was hot and their hearts bad, and they took no prisoners that

  day-" ze

  Crow King said that all the soldiers dismounted when the Indians surrounded them. "They tried to hold on to their horses,

  but as we pressed eloser they let go their horses. We crowded

  them toward our main camp and killed them all. They kept in

  order and fought like brave warriors as long as they had a man

  left." 30

  According to Red Horse, toward the end of the fighting with Custer, "these soldiers became foolish, many throwing away

  their guns and raising their hands, saying,'Sioux, pity us; take

  us prisoners.' The Sioux did not take a single soldier prisoner,

  but killed all of them; none were alive for even a few minutes." 31

  Long after the battle, White BulI of the Minneconjous drew four pictographs showing himself grappling with and killing

  a soldier identified as Custer. Among others who claimed to have

  killed Custer were Rain-in-the-Face, Flat Hip, and Brave Bear.

  Red Horse said that an unidentified Santee warrior killed Custer. Most Indians who told of the battle said they never saw Custer and did not know who killed him. , We did not know

  till the fight was over that he was the white chief, , Low Dog said.32

  fn an interview given in Canada a year after the battle, Sitting Bull said that he never saw Custer, but that other Indians

  had seen and recognized him just before he was killed. , Ife did

  not wear his long hair as he used to wear it,', Sitting Bull said.

  "It was short, but it was the color of the grass when the frost comes. . Where the last stand was made, the Long Hair stood like a sheaf of corn with all the ears fallen around him.,, sB

  But Sitting Bull did not say who killed Custer.

  An Arapaho warrior who was riding with the Cheyennes said

  that Custer was killed by several Indians. , He was dressed in

  buckskin, coat and pants, and was on his hands and knees.

  He

  had been shot through the side, and there was blood coming

  from his mouth. He seemed to be watching the Indians moving

  around him. Four soldiers were sitting up around him, but they

  were all badly wounded. All the other soldiers were down.

  Then

  the Indians closed in around him, and I did not see any morb.,, Ba

  Regardless of who had killed him, the Long Hai
r who made the Thieves' Road into the Black Hills was dead with all his men. Reno's soldiers, however, reinforced by those of Major Frederick Benteen, were dug in on a hill farther down the river.

  The Indians surrounded the hill completely and watched the

  soldiers through the night, and next morning started fighting

  them again. During the day, scouts sent out by the chiefs came

  back with warnings of many more soldiers marching in the direction of the Little Bighorn.

  After a council it was decided to break camp. The warriors had

  expended most of their ammunition, and they knew it would be

  foolish to try to fight so many soldiers with bows and arrows.

  The women were told to begin packing, and before sunset they

  started up the valley toward the Bighorn Mountains, the tribes

  separating along the way and taking different directions.

  When the white men in the East heard of the Long Hair,s defeat, they called it a massacre and went crazy with anger.

  They

  wanted to punish all the Indians in the West. Because they could not punish Sitting Bull and the war chiefs, the Great Council in Washington decided to punish the Indians they could

  find-those who remained on the reservations and had taken no

  part in the fighting.

  On July 22 the Great Warrior Sherman received authority to assume military control of all reservations in the Sioux country

  and to treat the Indians there as prisoners of war. On August lb

  the Great Council made a new law requiring the Indians to give

  up all rights to the Powder River country and the Black Hills.

  TieV did this without regard to the treaty of 1868, maintaining

  that the Indians had violated the treaty by going to war with the IJnited states. This was difficult for the reservation Indians

  to understand, because they had not attacked united states soldiers, nor had Sitting Bull's followers attacked them until Custer sent Reno charging through the Sioux villages'