Beyond the destruction of the village, Reynolds had not hurt the Indians too badly. He had inflicted few casualties and had let them take back their ponies. His own losses were four killed and six wounded. Crook and Reynolds rejoined, and, amid warm disputation and continued bitterly cold weather, the command limped back to Fort Fetterman. On the day of his arrival, Crook brought charges against Reynolds for mismanaging the Battle of Powder River. The implication was that his failure led to the failure of the campaign and the return to Fort Fetterman.34 Actually, even Sheridan, the leading exponent of winter campaigns, recognized the true cause in “the severity of the weather.”35 As the disconsolate Reynolds complained to Sherman: “General, these winter campaigns in these latitudes should be prohibited…. The month of March has told on me more than any five years of my life.”36
Defeating Crook and paralyzing Terry, winter had frustrated Sheridan’s plan of forcing the hunting bands out of the unceded territory before spring. Thus winter had also made certain a summer campaign, for as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs correctly warned, “Nothing now could be so damaging as a failure to carry out the military threat thus made to them.”37 Actually, despite their statements for public consumption, Crook, Terry, and even Sheridan perceived from the first that more than a quick midwinter thrust would prove necessary. As early as February, all three foresaw a summer campaign.38
The strategy of the summer campaign evolved easily from the plans and movements already made. Crook would refit and again push northward. Once Custer’s preparations were completed at Fort Abraham Lincoln, he would march westward. And Col. John Gibbon would move eastward from Fort Ellis, Montana. Since the Indians were mobile and their location indefinite, these columns would act independently, each searching for and, if possible, engaging the enemy. Although no concert of action was planned, hopefully Custer would sweep the hostiles westward toward the Bighorn River and Crook would drive them back on Custer. Gibbon, patrolling the north bank of the Yellowstone, would intercept any that tried to flee northward toward the Missouri. Thus the Sioux campaign of 1876 was modeled after the successful Red River campaign of 1874–75—converging columns harassing and tiring the Indians and striving to bring some to battle. Also paralleling the Red River strategy, Sheridan proposed to place the agency Indians under military control and to build two forts in the hostile country, one at the mouth of the Tongue and the other at the mouth of the Bighorn.39
Gibbon was first in the field. Late in February Terry had instructed him to organize a command and march eastward to head off any Indians Crook might drive northward. Crook’s withdrawal after the action of March 17 lessened the urgency. Even so, the “Montana Column” pushed off from Fort Ellis on March 30 and plowed through deep snow in the Bozeman Pass to the Yellowstone. The column consisted of six companies of the Seventh Infantry and four troops of the Second Cavalry—about 450 men in all. Maj. James Brisbin—“Grasshopper Jim”—commanded the cavalry despite crippling rheumatism. Pausing at the Crow Agency to enlist twenty-five Crow Indian scouts, Gibbon began fulfilling his assignment to patrol the north bank of the Yellowstone.40
Not until May 17 was the expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln ready to march. Terry, not Custer, commanded. The flamboyant, yellow-haired cavalryman had allowed himself to be drawn into partisan political strife stirred up by the Belknap scandal. He had testified indiscreetly before a congressional committee hostile to the administration and had angered President Grant. For a time it seemed tht Custer would endure the humiliation of being left behind. But at last Grant yielded to his supplications and allowed him to go, but only as commander of his regiment.41 The “Dakota Column” consisted of all twelve troops of the Seventh Cavalry under Custer, two companies of the Seventeenth Infantry and one of the Sixth to guard the supply train, a detachment of the Twentieth Infantry serving three Gatling guns, and about forty Arikara Indian scouts. Altogether the command numbered about 925 officers and enlisted men, of whom the Seventh Cavalry accounted for some 700. Provisions were hauled in 150 wagons and also were forwarded by steamer up the Missouri and the Yellowstone to the mouth of Glendive Creek, where three companies of the Sixth Infantry from Fort Buford converted “Stanley’s Stockade,” a relic of the Northern Pacific survey of 1873, into a supply base. Also, even though pack transportation had never been attempted in the Department of Dakota, the wagons carried 250 pack saddles that could be used on the wagon mules should the occasion arise. Throughout late May and early June the column made its sodden way across the rain-soaked prairies of western Dakota and eastern Montana.42
For the second time, on May 29, Crook cast off from Fort Fetterman and marched up the old Bozeman Trail, his command now composed of ten troops of the Third Cavalry and five of the Second, two companies of the Fourth Infantry and three of the Ninth—in all 47 officers and 1,000 enlisted men. Lt. Col. William B. Royall commanded the cavalry, Maj. Alexander Chambers the infantry. One hundred and twenty wagons and 1,000 pack mules carried supplies. On Goose Creek, an affluent of the Tongue where Sheridan, Wyoming, now stands, Crook established a base camp, and here, on June 14, he was joined by 176 Crow and 86 Shoshoni Indian auxiliaries.43
By June 1876, the area on which the three columns converged held many more Sioux and Cheyennes than in the winter. The Black Hills issue, worsening conditions at the agencies, and the government’s attempt to take away the freedom to roam the unceded territory set off an unusually large spring migration of agency Indians to the camps of the hunting bands. How many can only be guessed, for both the Indian Bureau and the army had strong motives for playing a numbers game. It seems likely, however, that 500 lodges in March grew to as many as 2,000 in June.
Later the army, professing ignorance of the increase in enemy strength, blamed the failure of the campaign on the Indian Bureau’s negligence in reporting the defections from the agencies. Pointing out that each of the converging columns was alone strong enough to cope with the 500 to 800 warriors the Indian Bureau had estimated to be absent from the reservation, General Sherman implied that knowledge of their true numbers would have altered military plans and dispositions and averted disaster.44 All past experience, however, showed that agency Indians swelled the hunting bands every spring. Moreover, as early as April 27 the army knew that the young men of the Standing Rock Agency were heading west in large numbers,45 and on May 30 Sheridan telegraphed Sherman that “information from Crook indicates that all the agency Indians capable of taking the field are now or soon will be on the warpath.”46 The truth is that the generals worried much less about the enemy’s strength than about his traditional reluctance to stand and fight. Campaigns usually failed because the Indians could not be caught and engaged in battle. Besides, chances of encountering any significant portion of the warrior strength at one time were remote. Grass and game could not long support large gatherings of Indians.
But this year the Indians did travel together, and this year they proved not averse to standing and fighting. After the Reynolds battle, the destitute Cheyennes fled down Powder River and found succor with Crazy Horse’s Oglalas. With them they moved northeast and united with the Hunkpapas of Sitting Bull, Black Moon, and Gall and the Miniconjous under Lame Deer and Hump. Incensed by the soldiers’ attack on the Cheyennes, the chiefs resolved to stay together for common defense. Westward they turned, to the Powder, the Tongue, and finally the Rosebud. Two other Sioux tribal circles, Sans Arc and Blackfoot, formed. The Cheyenne contingent grew with the accession of parties under Lame White Man, Dirty Moccasins, and Charcoal Bear. Scatterings of Brulés, Yanktonais, Northern Arapahoes, and Santees (Ikpaduta’s Minnesota refugees) attached themselves to the larger bodies. Throughout April and May warriors and families, singly and in groups, straggled in from the agencies to swell the village further. Organized in six separate tribal circles, five of Sioux and one of Cheyenne, ultimately it may have held as many as 15,000 people, 3,000 to 4,000 warriors. Or accepting more conservative evidence, it may have numbered less than 10,000 with as few
as 1,500 fighting men. Even the lower figure, however, represented an unusually large aggregation of Indians to stay together for so long. Every few days, seeking fresh grass for the vast pony herd, the chiefs moved camp. Hunters ranged far in all directions to keep the camp kettles filled with meat.47
In mid-June, on the Rosebud, the Hunkpapas held a sun dance. Sitting Bull experienced a vision of many soldiers “falling right into our camp.” All these dead soldiers, he said, would be gifts of God. Immediately after the sun dance, the Indians moved across the Wolf Mountains and laid out their camps on a stream flowing into the Little Bighorn. Here, on June 16, hunters brought word of many soldiers on the upper reaches of the Rosebud. Eager to fulfill Sitting Bull’s vision, warriors from all the camp circles assembled that night and rode back to the Rosebud.
On this same day, June 16, General Crook cut loose from his wagon train and crossed from the Tongue to the Rosebud. The next morning, as the column paused for coffee, the Sioux attacked. The Indian auxiliaries held the assailants at bay for twenty minutes until the troops got organized. After the initial confusion the soldiers acquitted themselves well. Cavalry charges cleared the critical heights commanding the valley on the north. Other units occupied the bluffs south of the valley. Fierce fighting raged as attack and counterattack rippled up and down a disjointed battle line some three miles in length. The broken terrain, a jumble of hills, ridges, and ravines, fragmented the action and prevented effective central direction.
Crook mistakenly thought Crazy Horse’s village lay just to the north, beyond a gorge through which the Rosebud made its way after turning in that direction from an eastward sweep. He sent Capt. Anson Mills’ squadron of the Third Cavalry to seize the village and began to disengage the rest of the command to follow in support. All portions of the line instantly came under heavy pressure. Attempting to withdraw from the extreme left, Lieutenant Colonel Royall and three troops of the Third were badly mauled and almost cut off before Crook sent two companies of the Ninth Infantry to their aid. During this action a bullet smashed Capt. Guy V. Henry’s jaw and knocked him from his horse. Disconcerted, his troopers gave way. Sioux swarmed toward the fallen captain. Crows and Shoshonis raced to the rescue and in a hand-to-hand fight saved the wounded officer. Royall’s experience persuaded Crook that he could not give Mills the promised support, and he dispatched an aide to cancel the offensive movement. Instead of marching back up the valley, Mills veered west and returned to the battlefield cross-country. This placed him opportunely behind the Sioux and Cheyennes. Thus pressed from the rear, they broke off the fight and abandoned the battlefield.
The engagement had lasted six hours and featured some of the hardest fighting of the Indian wars. Crook had been caught in unfavorable terrain. Although not outnumbered, he never gained the initiative. His one attempt to seize it, based on erroneous information, came close to disaster. Moreover, the Crows and Shoshonis had performed embarrassingly well and more than once had saved the troops from being overrun. In Crook’s defense, it should be noted that the Sioux and Cheyennes fought with a wholly unexpected unity and tenacity. Together with unusually large numbers and a topography hostile to the soldiers, they enjoyed a combination of advantages extremely rare in Indian warfare. Custer encountered the same combination a week later, with consequences far more serious than Crook suffered.
Because he was left in possession of the battlefield, Crook ever after claimed the Battle of the Rosebud as a victory. In truth, he had been badly worsted. Controversy has clouded the casualty count, but it seems probable that Chief Scout Frank Grouard’s statement of twenty-eight killed and fifty-six wounded is closer to the truth than Crook’s officially reported ten and twenty-one.48 And although he may have felled as many Sioux and Cheyennes as the thirty-six killed and sixty-three wounded later acknowledged by Crazy Horse, he limped back to his supply base on Goose Creek and refused to venture forth again until reinforced. In this retreat, rather than the casualties, lay the full measure of the defeat, for it neutralized him at the most critical juncture of the campaign.
Meanwhile, ignorant of the repulse of Crook and the combativeness of the Sioux, Terry prepared his offensive. He and Gibbon had met on June 9 aboard the supply steamer Far West on the Yellowstone and had agreed that the findings of Gibbon’s Crow scouts made it unlikely that any Sioux would be found east of the Rosebud. Even so, Terry wanted to confirm this conclusion, and on June 10 he sent Maj. Marcus A. Reno and six troops of the Seventh Cavalry to scout the Powder and Tongue valleys. During Reno’s absence, Gibbon concentrated his command on the Yellowstone opposite the mouth of the Rosebud, and Terry moved his supply base from Glendive Creek to the mouth of the Powder. The infantry and all the wagons stayed at this base while Custer, relying solely on pack transportation, advanced the other six troops of the Seventh to the mouth of the Tongue to await Reno’s return.
Exceeding his instructions, Reno led his troops on westward from the Tongue to the Rosebud and there found the trail of Sitting Bull’s village. On June 17, while Crook clashed with Crazy Horse near the head of the Rosebud, Reno’s men were examining abandoned campsites forty miles downstream. Reno turned about here and descended the Rosebud to the Yellowstone. His unauthorized movement angered Terry when he learned about it by courier on the evening of June 19, for it added little to what he already knew and could have alerted the Sioux to his approach. A plan already formed in his mind, Terry moved at once to unite his cavalry at the mouth of the Rosebud and to start Gibbon’s infantry back up the north side of the Yellowstone.
On the evening of June 21 Terry, Gibbon, Custer, and Brisbin gathered around a big map in the cabin of the Far West to work out final details of Terry’s strategy. It focused not on how to defeat the enemy but on how to catch him. Its object, recalled Gibbon, was “to prevent the escape of the Indians, which was the idea pervading the minds of all of us.”49 Since the Crow scouts had discovered smoke in the direction of the Little Bighorn, the Sioux were assumed to be camped there. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry would march up the Rosebud and drive down the Little Bighorn from the south. Gibbon, after being ferried across the Yellowstone, would ascend the Bighorn and enter the Little Bighorn Valley from the north. Custer was expected to strike the blow, but not before Gibbon had moved into a position to block flight to the north. Since June 26 was the earliest Gibbon judged he could reach the mouth of the Little Bighorn, Custer’s more mobile cavalry column was to ascend the Rosebud as far as its head, beyond the point where the Indian trail diverged westward, before crossing to the Little Bighorn. This would not only militate against premature contact but also relieve Terry’s apprehension that the Sioux might escape to the south before his pincers closed from the north.
Terry’s adjutant general reduced the understandings of the Far West conference to written orders handed Custer the next morning. This document explicitly stated Terry’s intent that Custer and Gibbon so maneuver as to bottle up the Indians in the Little Bighorn Valley, his expectation that Custer not follow the Indian trail west from the Rosebud but continue to the head of this stream before turning to the Little Bighorn, and his anxiety that Custer constantly watch to his left so that the Indians might not slip off to the south. The orders were also, however, framed in courteous language reflecting Terry’s feeling for his subordinate’s injured pride and his awareness that unforeseen circumstances might require some other course of action. In thus connecting the explicit with the permissive, Terry laid the basis for endless controversy over whether Custer had disobeyed orders.
After staging an impressive review for Terry and Gibbon, the buckskin-bedecked Custer led the Seventh Cavalry up the Rosebud at noon on June 22. The regiment numbered between 600 and 700 horsemen. Among the scouts, since the Arikaras did not know the country, were six of Gibbon’s Crows. Pack mules carried extra ammunition as well as rations and forage for fifteen days. Contrasting with the smart appearance of the cavalry, the train testified to the inexperience of its managers; Crook would have pronounced
it disreputable. Not part of the column were Brisbin’s four troops of the Second Cavalry or the Gatling gun platoon. Custer had declined Terry’s offer of both—the Gatlings because they would hamper his mobility, the additional troops because they would not enable him to defeat any enemy that the Seventh could not handle alone.
Late on June 24 the Seventh Cavalry reached the point where the Indian trail diverged to the west. Terry’s plan called for continuing up the Rosebud. Instead, Custer turned west on the trail. He would follow it to the divide between the Rosebud and Little Bighorn, he informed his officers, pass June 25 resting the men and reconnoitering the country beyond for the enemy village, then attack early on June 26, the day appointed for Gibbon to reach the mouth of the Little Bighorn. A night march of ten miles, in addition to the day’s thirty, brought the regiment, exhausted and scattered, to within ten miles of the summit of the divide. At dawn, from a mountaintop to the front dubbed the “Crow’s Nest,” the scouts made out the Sioux village about fifteen miles in the distance. Custer ordered the regiment to the crest of the divide and went to the Crow’s Nest himself. Although he could not see the village, he received reports of Indians observing his movements. Convinced that the Sioux had discovered him, and spurred by visions of escaping Indians, he made his fateful decision to move at once to the attack, even though his regiment was worn out and the location and strength of the village remained to be definitely fixed.
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