Killing Crazy Horse

by Bill O'Reilly

  Or so they think.

  * * *

  The U.S. Army is relentless. The combined forces of Crook and Miles do not remain in their forts through the heavy snows and subzero temperatures. Instead, they ruthlessly seek out Indian encampments, using reservation warriors from the Oglala, Arapaho, and Cheyenne bands as scouts. Sitting Bull has now fled to the safety of Canada, where Indians are left alone. That allows Miles and Crook to focus their attention on Crazy Horse. The war chief is weary. Game is scarce as winter comes early, and ammunition stores are low after a long summer of warfare. Many of his warriors now talk of leaving for the reservation in order that their families might be fed. On November 19, 1876, a small band of Sioux does just that. Crazy Horse feels betrayed but does not try to stop them.

  Almost a week later, General Crook strikes a savage blow. He and his men stumble upon the Cheyenne encampment of Chief Dull Knife in their search for Crazy Horse. The village is burned to the ground, depriving the Cheyenne of food and warmth. Forty Indians die. Seven hundred ponies are captured. But for the survivors, the worst is yet to come. After the soldiers ride away, Dull Knife and his people march through the snow in search of Crazy Horse’s village, which represents their only hope of survival. The cold is so intense that ponies are disemboweled each night, so that infants might be stuffed inside the body cavities for warmth. Elderly tribe members then place their feet and hands in the entrails to avoid frostbite. By the time the Cheyenne finally find Crazy Horse eleven days later, frostbite has turned many of their fingers, toes, and noses black. Others have frozen to death. Crazy Horse welcomes Dull Knife and his people, offering them food and warm tepees in which to sleep after so many nights in the open. But the new arrivals place a strain on the war chief’s food supplies and are in no condition to move at a moment’s notice. With General Crook searching for him from the south, and Colonel Miles approaching from the north, Crazy Horse knows he may have to abandon a campsite instantly.

  Sensing but not understanding Crazy Horse’s stern demeanor, some Cheyenne privately complain the war chief cares little for their welfare. Other Indians, even those of his own Oglala band, complain Crazy Horse has become paranoid.

  It is the hardest time Crazy Horse has ever known. It is too late to go north to Canada, and crossing the Rocky Mountains to the west in winter is impossible. The Sioux know that the Nez Percé tribe is on the other side of the Rockies and remains a potent fighting force. But linking up with them is a fantasy.

  * * *

  Sometime in mid-December, Crazy Horse’s concerns for his starving band lead him to a bad decision. Crazy Horse rides with a small group of fellow chiefs and warriors to a hilltop overlooking the newly built Fort Keogh. He has chosen not to go onto the reservation but will allow those who wish to leave to do so. As Crazy Horse observes from the overlook, eight chiefs and warriors trot their horses down to the fort. The contingent flies a white flag of truce atop a battle lance.

  The gates to Fort Keogh are pulled open. The Sioux halt their ponies and await the arrival of “Bear Coat” so they might parlay. But Colonel Nelson Miles does not appear.

  He remains safely inside the fort because his looking glass shows no sign of Crazy Horse, the man Miles wishes to capture more than any other. So instead of riding forth himself, the colonel allows his Crow scouts to confront the Sioux. These warriors still remember Crazy Horse’s raid on their village six weeks ago, and without warning they attack the Indians who are flying the white flag.

  They kill five of the surrendering Sioux, sending the other three riding hard to escape.

  Returning to camp, Crazy Horse orders the immediate movement of the village. It is only a matter of time before the Crow lead the bluecoats to their location. The tribe does as they are told, but wearily. The constant winter movement is grinding on Crazy Horse’s band. This is not the peaceful winter of years past but a prolonged series of flights to escape the relentless American pursuit. And even as the Indians endure frostbite and starvation, the Americans return to the hearths and hot meals of their fort between engagements.

  On December 25, Christmas Day, thirteen Sioux warriors and their families slip away from Crazy Horse’s band, headed to the reservation. But this time, Crazy Horse hunts them down and forces them to return. This change in policy is enacted to maintain some semblance of tribal unity. As punishment for the act of foolishness, Crazy Horse shoots their horses and takes their guns, shattering what little morale his people have left. The following morning, some warriors revolt against the leadership of Crazy Horse. But once again, the war chief deploys warriors loyal to him to end the rebellion.

  Crazy Horse knows this cannot continue. The pressure is becoming unbearable. So the war chief turns to his only solution: attack.

  * * *

  The Wolf Mountains are well known to Crazy Horse. Six months ago, in the days before killing Custer, he rode through here as part of the massive Indian caravan headed to camp on the Little Bighorn. These are the mountains in which Custer’s scouts first spied the massive Indian village on the morning of that great battle. And it is here, on January 8, 1877, that Colonel Nelson Miles and his combined cavalry and infantry force spend the night, in yet another attempt to find Crazy Horse.

  At 7:00 a.m., the pale light of a winter dawn finally limning the morning sky, Crazy Horse and a combined band of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors open fire on the troops. But the attack is not a surprise. Army scouts noticed the Cheyenne moving into position thirty minutes ago. So, Colonel Miles has had time to arrange his men and cannon into defensive positions. The American soldiers wear heavy buffalo robes to protect them from the cold, and they move clumsily through the rocky terrain.

  Crazy Horse commands the heights, giving him tactical advantage. He sends warriors galloping into the army camp, firing their Winchesters at full ride. Miles responds by opening fire with his cannon, sending shrapnel into warriors and ponies. Crazy Horse himself is not shot, but his horse dies under him, and the great war chief must fight on foot. After a few minutes, he pulls back from the battlefield, joining a group of warriors taking aim on the soldiers from the ridgeline. Snow begins falling. Were it not for the cannon, an Indian victory would be assured. But as things stand four hours into the fight, Crazy Horse and his warriors clearly have the advantage. When the Americans race up the hillside to assault Crazy Horse’s position, he leads a counterattack on foot, personally running into the soldiers and fighting hand to hand. Swirling snow envelops the battle, making it hard for either side to see.

  By noon the fight ends in a draw. Crazy Horse and his men ride away. Colonel Miles and his troops remain in the mountains for two days, then return to Fort Keogh, confident that they will soon capture the fugitive Sioux leader.

  That is paramount, because Miles may soon have another battle farther to the west. The U.S. government is targeting a tribe known as the Nez Percé for submission. The Indians are led by Chief Joseph and at this point are about three hundred miles away. But Miles cannot do anything until the Sioux are pacified.

  One week later, on January 15, Sitting Bull and his band ride into the camp of Crazy Horse. The two have been apart for six weeks, and the sight of a thousand assembled warriors is cause for massive celebration among the depleted Sioux.

  Now age forty-four, Sitting Bull is the supreme leader of all the Sioux bands. He knows the thirty-five-year-old Crazy Horse is not an inspiring leader off the battlefield. Sitting Bull also knows there is not enough food to support more than a thousand Indians during these winter months. And he cannot attack the whites, for his ammunition is almost nonexistent. After resting and consultation Sitting Bull decides to return to Canada with the majority of the Sioux tribe.

  Crazy Horse decides to stay west of the Black Hills and try to elude capture. His own mother and father are among the elderly tribe members for whom he is responsible. Making matters even worse, his wife, Black Shawl, endures spells of violent coughing that cause her to spit up blood.

  On April 27,
1877, Chief Red Cloud, now a longtime citizen of the reservation, is sent by the Americans to meet with Crazy Horse. The war chief is promised a reservation of his own in the Powder River country, as long as he surrenders his weapons and ponies.

  Knowing he cannot hold out against the U.S. government much longer, Crazy Horse finally surrenders the Oglala Sioux band at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

  * * *

  It is late August and the Sioux are mostly pacified, although Sitting Bull remains at large. The U.S. Army turns its attention to the Nez Percé tribe under the charismatic leader Chief Joseph. At the time, there are rumors on the Red Cloud reservation that Crazy Horse is already weary of such a restricted lifestyle. The Sioux war chief is also angry that the army has rescinded an offer to allow Indians to hunt outside the reservation. Instead, army officers ask Crazy Horse if he would be willing to fight with them against Chief Joseph.

  At first, Crazy Horse is reluctant. But after reflection, he attempts to strike a deal: if his warriors are allowed to hunt, he will fight until “all the Nez Percé are killed.”

  But there is a problem. Lieutenant William P. Clark is dependent on an interpreter, a longtime Indian scout named Frank Grouard. Apparently holding a grudge against Crazy Horse, Grouard lies and tells Clark that the war chief is vowing to “fight until not a white man is left.”

  Clark immediately wires his superiors, telling them Crazy Horse is on the verge of leading his warriors off the reservation, in order to go on the war path.

  An alarmed General Crook quickly offers a reward of $300 for any man who kills Crazy Horse. Also, Crook orders two columns of U.S. Cavalry to ride toward the Sioux reservation in order to arrest the war chief. But Crazy Horse is already gone, galloping off to see friends on another reservation with his wife, whose tuberculosis is worsening.

  The following day, Crazy Horse returns to Fort Robinson. He does not know soldiers are seeking to arrest him. As he dismounts, he is seized by Indians working for the army. He is then taken to a stockade. Crazy Horse is unsure of where he is going, but at the sight of barred windows, warriors in leg irons, and shackles hanging on the wall, he refuses to enter the jail.

  “I won’t go in there.”

  The guards cock their rifles, but Crazy Horse is quicker than they are. Using a wooden doorjamb as leverage, he propels his body backward into his captors. Then he pulls a small knife, but he is overcome by the guards. His arms are pulled tightly behind his back and he is subdued.

  “Let me go,” shouts the war chief. “Let me go.”

  As Crazy Horse is being led inside the stockade, he once again breaks free of his captors and runs toward the fort’s parade ground.

  “Kill the son of a bitch,” yells one American officer.

  A single jailhouse sentry stands between Crazy Horse and open ground. Private William Gentles, a forty-seven-year-old soldier born in County Tyrone, Ireland, levels his bayonet toward the war chief. His first jab catches on Crazy Horse’s shirt, forcing the Indian to spin. Gentles thrusts again, this time into Crazy Horse’s back, the blade slicing downward into the bowels and groin. A third jab pierces the war chief’s right lung. Crazy Horse falls to the ground.

  “Let me go,” cries Crazy Horse. “You have got me hurt now.”

  But it is all over. Within hours, the great war chief is dead.

  * * *

  Sitting Bull alone remains at large. But four years from now, in July 1881, his band just as famished and depleted as that of Crazy Horse, the supreme chief will finally agree to live on the reservation. Distrusting Sitting Bull, and fearing he will incite unrest, the U.S. Army sends him down the Missouri River by steamboat and holds him in a military garrison for twenty months as a prisoner of war. Sitting Bull is then allowed to return to the Standing Rock Agency in the Dakota Territory in May 1883.

  There he will stay until an incredible thing happens: Sitting Bull is recruited by the show-business entrepreneur William Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, to tour the country in a western show. The five-foot-tall sharpshooter Annie Oakley is also on that tour, and becomes so friendly with the supreme chief that he gives her the nickname “Little Sure Shot,” which she will use the rest of her career.

  By all accounts, Sitting Bull enjoys entertaining the white man, earning $50 per week for his efforts.2 After four months of touring, the supreme war chief finally arrives back at Standing Rock Agency in 1885. But tension almost immediately develops between Sitting Bull and the white reservation agent, a forty-three-year-old Canadian-American named James McLaughlin, who chafes at the authority Sioux bands still give Sitting Bull.

  This tension will soon lead to violence.

  * * *

  Farther west, in a land the Indians call the Wallowa Valley, where buffalo and game still roam, and where the white man is just beginning to settle, the last free Indian tribe is on the run.

  The U.S. Government is attempting to force the Nez Percé band under their leader, Chief Joseph, to give up their tribal lands and relocate to a reservation hundreds of miles away. Once again, the United States is violating a long-standing treaty with a Native American tribe by coercing the Nez Percé to give up their freedom.

  So it is that just one month after the murder of Crazy Horse, the blue coats are chasing Chief Joseph and his band—who must now face the might of the U.S. Army all by themselves.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  JUNE 17, 1877

  WHITE BIRD CANYON, IDAHO TERRITORY

  DAWN

  The tribal lands are calm, but not for much longer.

  Chief Joseph, the thirty-seven-year-old leader of the Nez Percé tribe, looks down on five of his warriors riding forth to meet a detachment of U.S. soldiers under the white flag of truce. But Joseph knows not to trust the white man, and so he is hiding in the rocks of the canyon along with seventy-five of his warriors.

  Joseph’s instincts are correct. Without warning, a civilian riding with the soldiers opens fire on the warriors. It is a fatal mistake. Lead and arrows rain down on the Americans. The Battle of White Bird Canyon is over quickly—with thirty-four soldiers lying dead. Not a single Nez Percé is killed.

  * * *

  Chief Joseph knows he is in trouble. His entire band numbers fewer than eight hundred—some of whom are undisciplined killers. Just three days ago, without Joseph’s approval, a group of young Nez Percé warriors slaughtered eighteen white settlers who had recently begun homesteading. The defenseless settlers were mutilated in a particularly gruesome way because the Indians were furious that they had been ordered to leave their lands. The atrocity gave the white power structure all the credibility it needed to destroy the Nez Percé.

  Chief Joseph’s tribe is predominantly peaceful, experts at breeding spotted Appaloosa horses, fond of roaming the grasslands and mountains they call home. The Nez Percé first encountered Americans back in 1805, when the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled through their homeland. They actually welcomed the famished explorers, treating them to a feast of buffalo and salmon. It was French-Canadian fur trappers who labeled the band Nez Percé—“pierced nose”—for reasons that remain unclear. And while that is the name outsiders call the tribe, it still refers to itself as the Nimipu—“the real people.”

  Chief Joseph has been an effective leader of his tribe. Since the death of his father, Joseph the Elder, six years ago, he has been trying to negotiate with the whites to keep at least a portion of the Nez Percé ancestral lands. But after the massacre of the sixteen settlers, Joseph knew the army would soon come seeking revenge. In fact, his scouts soon reported that more than one hundred bluecoats were already approaching from the north.

  The chief knows he cannot fight the white man alone. His force is greatly outnumbered, burdened by the presence of many women and children. In addition, the Nez Percé have very few guns and even less ammunition and must fight mostly with bows and arrows. Desperately seeking peace, but also preparing for war, Chief Joseph hoped that the five warriors flying a white flag could negotiate.
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  He was wrong.

  * * *

  It was President Grant who signed an executive order in 1873 granting the Wallowa Valley to the Nez Percé for the “rest of their natural lives.” But Grant is now gone, replaced by Rutherford B. Hayes, a man with little sympathy for the Native Americans. President Hayes has allowed the whites to move into the Oregon and Idaho Territories and is forcing all Indians to live on reservations. In order to accomplish that, the army has appointed General O. O. Howard to subjugate Joseph and his tribe.

  It will not matter that Chief Joseph and his people sought peace today. Howard knows the Nez Percé have massacred homesteaders, and that cannot be allowed to stand. So Joseph has just one choice: he and his tribe must run.

  * * *

  “Joseph and his band … [are] continuing his retreat toward British Columbia,” writes General Oliver Otis Howard in a telegram to his superior officer, General William Tecumseh Sherman. Howard is a Civil War veteran and a staunch advocate that Native Americans must live on reservations, separate from white people.

  “We believe he is aiming at refuge with Sitting Bull. He is traveling with women and children and wounded at a rate of twenty-five miles per day.”

  Howard knows Chief Joseph well. The one-armed forty-six-year-old general is a man who has experienced failure. He was humbled by the Confederates at the Battle of Gettysburg, then spent the years following the Civil War trying to bring about racial equality in the South. Even though he was not successful, his efforts would lead to the founding of a university in Washington bearing his name. However, Howard continues on a mission. The evangelical Christian and married father of seven children now seeks redemption and success in the Northwest, trying to bring Chief Joseph’s tribe onto the reservation peacefully.