The Battle of the Rosebud ended in a draw. Crazy Horse retreated with the loss of a few dozen warriors. General Crook’s casualties were roughly the same. And although the general claimed victory, he soon turned and marched his bloodied army one hundred miles back toward their home fort in Wyoming. The garrison is named for the late Captain William Fetterman.
Crazy Horse knows this was just the beginning. More whites are coming. Scouts rode into camp earlier this afternoon, telling of a large armed force approaching from the east. The whites were last seen at the site where Sitting Bull performed his Sun Dance before an audience of thousands two weeks ago. The soldiers’ march will inevitably lead them right into the encampment where Crazy Horse currently sits.
The Indian tepees number more than one thousand, stretched along a two-mile plain. The Little Bighorn River provides water for eight thousand Indians and twenty thousand ponies. Finding the tribes will be easy, for the bands have taken no precaution about concealing their whereabouts. In the morning, the cook fires from so many campsites will give them away, choking the blue sky with smoke, pointing precisely to their location. Crazy Horse is certain that if the whites ride hard through the night, they will own the element of surprise at dawn.
So the legendary warrior goes tepee to tepee, speaking with the leaders of each band, warning that the whites are coming. Yet great fighters like Gall, Crow King, Fast Eagle, and Little Horse do not share his concern. The whites will not come tomorrow, they assure Crazy Horse, but the day after. Now is the time for feasting and long talks before the campfire.
Horses wading in the Little Bighorn River, next to a Crow encampment, circa 1908
Savoring a bite of the freshly cooked antelope, Crazy Horse hears the revelry taking place in the various tribal circles, with singing and dancing so loud that the whites might possibly hear the tribes long before they can see them. It has been years since these tribes have felt so free and independent. Crazy Horse well knows that many young warriors will be up all night and in no condition to fight come morning.
At the age of fourteen, Crazy Horse had a vision that told him he must always take care of his people. In return, no bullet or arrow would ever pierce his flesh. Never before has that prophecy informed the behavior of Crazy Horse as it does tonight. The precise moment when the whites will arrive is unknown, but Crazy Horse knows they are coming.
So it is that Crazy Horse descends deep into thought. He needs to know what the Americans are doing. Avoiding all revelry, he orders scouts to ride out into the night to find the soldiers.
* * *
General George Custer is his usual confident self.
Almost twenty miles away from the Indian camp, he gives the order to move out. The general is dressed in a blue flannel shirt, buckskin jacket, and pants tucked into knee-high Wellington boots made of soft calfskin leather.1 His wide-brimmed slouch hat is pale white. A hunting knife is strapped to his hip, along with his two pistols.
The hour is 12:30 a.m. There is no moon, and the band does not sound the traditional “Boots and Saddles” because the general has left the band at home. Custer’s exhausted men marched twenty-seven miles yesterday and only made camp four hours ago. Many still have whiskey on their breath from imbibing after getting off the trail, but there can be no delay in Custer’s pursuit of the Indians. A night march is dangerous, particularly in total blackness: “You cannot define any particular object, not even your horse’s head. You hear the steady, perpetual tramp, tramp, tramp of the iron-hoofed cavalry,” Chicago Times correspondent John Finerty writes, describing a night ride with General Crook just one month ago. “The jingle of carbines and sling-belts, and the snorting of the horses as they grope their way through the eternal dust [are the only sounds heard].”
Custer believes the danger is necessary. The location of the Sioux encampment is still unknown, but Custer’s Crow Indian scouts tell him it is definitely near. Just before dusk they found tracks of hoofprints and footsteps a mile wide leading toward the Little Bighorn River.
Such a large trail suggests the Indian encampment is well populated, but Custer is sure his Seventh Cavalry matches up well with the enemy. He has claimed on more than one occasion that his men could whip any tribe in battle. The general’s force now numbers twenty-seven officers, nearly six hundred enlisted men, forty-three Indian scouts, and various civilian contractors. The mule train carrying ammunition and fifteen days of supplies numbers 175 animals. Mixed-race Lakota-French scout Mitch Boyer leads the scout caravan. He is considered one of the best scouts in the territory—so good that Sitting Bull has allegedly offered a reward of one hundred horses for his capture.
Custer’s brothers Tom and Boston are among the group, as is his nephew, Harry Armstrong Reed. The eighteen-year-old works in the pack train as a herder, and not only shares the same middle name as his uncle but also goes by the nickname “Autie.”
In addition to leaving behind the regimental band, Custer has not brought along his beloved dogs. The general knows that such a big procession of men and horses will leave a large and dusty trail, and he wants to avoid unnecessary noise such as music or barking that will inform the Indians of their location. In addition, the general has banned all campfires and the use of lanterns at night during the manhunt.
Custer and his men have been aggressively chasing the Indians for the last two days, often stopping for hours at deserted campsites so his scouts can assess the trail. It is the general’s great fear that these tribes will disperse into small bands rather than stay together long enough for him to annihilate them. Custer does not wish to wage war in several skirmishes but to defeat the hostiles in one great battle.
It is 3:00 a.m. when the general orders a halt. His troopers gratefully fall out of the saddle. There is little grass to feed the animals, and a small creek is too alkaline to drink. So, clutching the reins of their horses, the men stretch out on the ground to catch what sleep they can. Meanwhile, the general’s Indian scouts press on, still tracking the Sioux band. Custer uses the time to discuss strategy with his commanders. He does not sleep.
Dawn comes at 4:45. Shortly afterward, the Crow scouts send word to Custer that they can see campfire smoke in the distance. Custer is skeptical. The scouts take him to an overlook in the Wolf Mountains known as the Crow’s Nest. The general squints into the west, the rising sun at his back. He claims not to see anything. Borrowing a cheap spyglass, Custer looks once more. A slight breeze blows across the prairie and the morning is overcast.
Custer still cannot see the Indian camp. Smoke from the campfires conceals the tribes. The scouts ask him to look once again, this time specifically seeking out “worms” in the grass. By this, the scouts mean the twenty thousand–strong herd of ponies grazing on a bluff overlooking the encampment.
Custer remains doubtful but knows he must trust his scouts. Soon, fresh pony tracks are found near the cavalry’s bivouac area. And Tom Custer reports to his brother that a group of Indians was fired upon while ransacking goods from the mule train.
Returning to the campsite, Custer informs his officers: “The largest Indian camp on the North American continent is ahead and I am going to attack it.”
Shortly after that, Mitch Boyer, the scout so feared by Sitting Bull, warns Custer: “General, I have been with these Indians for thirty years and this is the largest village I have ever heard of.”
Custer’s favorite scout, a Hunkpapa Sioux named Bloody Knife who accompanied the general on his two previous trips into Indian land, also warns the general in sign language that there are enough Indians in the village to fight for two to three days.
Custer, however, seems unconcerned. The reports given to him by his superiors about Indian strength in this region suggest he has little to fear. Custer’s strategy is to focus on capturing the women and children to use as hostages, then take possession of the Indian ponies. In this way, the warriors will lose their mobility and have no choice but to capitulate.
Custer gives the order to saddle u
p. It is mid-morning by now, and excitement sweeps through the ranks as the men sense battle. The long line of horsemen ride four abreast, kicking up a large cloud of dust as they descend into the valley through which the Little Bighorn River runs.
It is shortly after noon when Custer calls a halt. The cool morning has given way to an uncomfortably hot afternoon. He removes his buckskin jacket and ties it to his saddle. The men water their horses in a small creek.
Surveying the landscape, Custer decides to split his force into three separate columns. The general will lead 215 men from Companies C, E, F, I, and L. He will soon bear right, riding onto a low line of hills.
Captain Frederick Benteen will command H, D, and K Companies. He will travel south in search of tribes camped in that direction, then turn back and rejoin Custer. Benteen’s force comprises 125 men. Custer and Benteen are longtime adversaries, and it chafes the captain that his commanding officer is five years younger than himself.
Frederick Benteen is a forty-two-year-old Virginian who attended military school before joining the Union army in 1861, over the vehement objections of his secessionist father. Benteen fought in eight major Civil War battles, rising from the rank of lieutenant to that of lieutenant colonel. Remaining in the army after the war, he was demoted in rank, like many other officers, due to a reduction in the size of America’s fighting force. Benteen served with Custer at the Washita battle in which the Cheyenne under Black Kettle were massacred. As part of the fracas, a cavalry officer who foolishly chased a group of Cheyenne after the battle was later found dead and mutilated. Benteen blamed Custer for the officer’s death and wrote a critical account of the general’s behavior to a friend. The missive was passed on to the St. Louis Democrat, where it was published without Benteen’s name. Custer suspected Benteen as the author but chose to let the matter pass. However, despite their nine years of service together, the impasse was never quite settled. The wavy-haired Benteen, whose eyes have the appearance of bulging out of his skull, believes Custer to be reckless.
The other commander, Major Marcus Reno, will take 150 officers and enlisted men of Companies A, G, and M straight into the valley, attacking the heart of the Indian encampment. Bloody Knife, Custer’s favorite scout, will travel at Reno’s side to show the way. Marcus Reno is a bitter man, having recently lost his wife to illness. The thickset, black-haired Reno often takes to drink and is not popular among the other officers or with General Custer. But Reno is not as defiant as Benteen, who now openly challenges Custer’s strategy: “Hadn’t we better keep the regiment together, General?”
Colonel Frederick Benteen, American military officer during the Civil War and the Black Hills War
Custer coolly looks at his subordinate and arrogantly replies, “You have your orders.”
These are the last words the two officers will ever speak to each other.
Custer then orders Major Reno to take the lead and charge into the Indian camp.
The time is 2:43 p.m.
At 2:53 p.m., Major Reno crosses with his men to the left bank of the Little Bighorn River. There they water their horses and cinch saddle girth straps tighter. But before they can do anything else, they are startled to see Sioux warriors bearing down hard on them.
Almost immediately, Reno orders a courier to gallop to Custer and deliver a simple message: the Indians are in front of Reno’s position “in full force.”
At 3:03 p.m., Major Reno orders his men to increase their horses’ pace from a slow trot to an all-out gallop. Riding hard at more than twenty miles per hour, rifles drawn, the soldiers of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry charge forth to meet the hostiles.
Not once in the entire history of the United States has the sight of 140 heavily armed U.S. soldiers and their horses bearing down on an Indian village ever failed to make Native Americans cut and run for their lives.
But not this time.
Seven hundred yards from the village, Major Reno is astonished to see hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. They are not running away. Instead, they gallop their horses directly toward his men. Quickly realizing that his troopers are outnumbered by at least five to one, Reno cries an alarmed “Halt!” Above the thunder of hooves, he orders his soldiers to dismount. One in every four men is tasked with the role of horse holder, grabbing reins and pulling equines off the battlefield to be used later when needed. The other ninety men kneel or lie down. Utilizing the mounds of dirt comprising a prairie dog town for cover, Reno’s forces anchor their line on the right in a stand of cottonwoods. They are armed with Colt revolver pistols and big-bore, breech-loading Springfield Model 1873 carbines. Each .45/55 caliber copper cartridge round is almost two inches long, but the Springfield trapdoor carbine can only fire one shot at a time before the need to reload.
In the months leading up to the cavalry’s search for the “hostile” bands, Major Reno has been in charge of training these men. Yet he has not scheduled a single target practice to improve basic accuracy with firearms or to learn the most optimal method of loading the Springfield, thus ensuring the firing of a maximum number of shots per minute.
What’s done is done.
The soldiers open fire.
* * *
Crazy Horse’s intuition was wrong.
The whites did not attack at first light. Indeed, it is hours past noon and there is no sign of them near the village. Thus, warriors, women, and children go about their day without a care: young boys and girls swim naked in the cold but shallow river, women gather prairie turnips, and, as Crazy Horse predicted, some warriors are still sleeping off their night of revelry. The primary movement in the Indian camp is herds of ponies walking across the valley to secure a cool drink in the river on this stifling hot afternoon. Nevertheless, Crazy Horse remains vigilant.
Shortly before the middle of the afternoon, riders gallop into camp, yelling that the whites are coming. The entire village descends into chaos. Women frantically search for their children as warriors race to find their ponies. Some warriors hastily saddle whatever pony is available and immediately gallop toward the intruders. Sitting Bull defiantly directs the action, ordering the fighting men to race toward the soldiers. Cowards, he says pointedly, should remain in the rear. Teenage boys who have not yet reached warrior status tie sage to the tails of their ponies and gallop back and forth on the edge of the village to create a dust cloud that will hide the tribes from enemy sharpshooters.
Crazy Horse steps into his tepee to grab his bridle and Winchester rifle. Gunshots can now be heard coming from the far side of camp, near the tribal circle of Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa Sioux. As warriors from other bands gallop out to confront the soldiers, the whites are waiting. The soldiers lie prone in the swale created by the dirt mounds, separated from one another by five-yard intervals in what is known as “skirmish formation,” then open fire as the warriors swarm their position. They shoot in volley fashion, having to reload after every round.
In what will become a tense afternoon of fighting, Privates George Smith and James Turley soon become the battle’s first U.S. casualties. Unable to halt their panicked horses and dismount, the out-of-control troopers gallop helplessly into the Indian campsite. Warriors shoot the men dead, pull them to the ground, and then slice their heads from their bodies. Tribal women will soon mount those heads on poles for all to see.
In the cottonwood trees along the river, Custer’s Indian scouts extract their own bloody casualties, surprising a group of women and children, then shooting them dead. The Sioux warrior Gall loses both his wives and all three of his children.
Meanwhile, Crazy Horse cannot find his pony. “Take any horse,” snaps his brother-in-law, Red Feather. Hundreds of Oglala warriors look on, waiting for Crazy Horse’s commands. The snap of gunshots and war whoops just a few hundred yards away tells them that the battle is growing more intense. The youngest of the braves struggle to contain their impatience as the chance for taking scalps slips away. But no warrior dares contradict the war chief.
Crazy Ho
rse is not in a hurry. Despite the urgent pleas of the young warriors gathered at his tepee, the war chief waits for his horses to be brought to him. Crazy Horse knows that his band is not needed right now and that the Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux are already attacking the American soldiers in force. So he uses the time to prepare properly for what promises to be a major battle. Dressed in just a breechcloth and moccasins, Crazy Horse paints his face and body yellow. White dots are then painted on his skin. The warrior buckles a cartridge belt around his waist and adds a stone war club to his arsenal. He smokes a pipe. Finally, his horses are brought to him. Crazy Horse thinks carefully before choosing a white-faced pinto from among his personal herd. The pony is also painted for battle, with lines drawn down his flanks. Crazy Horse slips the bridle over its head, then leaps onto the animal’s bare back.
As the warriors also mount their ponies, Crazy Horse calmly gives last-minute instructions. Cradling his rifle in his left hand, he reminds the fighters to be patient and to follow his lead. “Do your best, and let us kill them all off today, that they may not trouble us anymore,” Crazy Horse admonishes. His tone is calm and direct.
“Hoka-he! It’s a good day to die,” he concludes.
* * *
Major Marcus Reno is in trouble.
Reno’s charge into the village failed. Not only did the Indians not run away but they have counterattacked in force. The major has never seen so many warriors in battle, nor has he ever seen a charge of such ferocity. Unlike the Americans, the Indians are trained not to listen to a single commander once the battle has begun. Their lifetime of tactical training and discipline allows the warriors not only to follow orders but also to think for themselves. In this way, the American soldiers’ belief that the Indians are an inferior fighting force of lazy savages is quickly dispelled. They ride better, shoot better, and now outnumber the U.S. Cavalry.
Killing Crazy Horse Page 20