CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  Iron Shield’s insinuations were not without foundation. Although Crook prevented arrests in his department, Sheridan and Mackenzie favored punitive measures once surrenders were complete. According to Thunder Tail, images of pursuit and arrest were deliberately deployed to provoke Crazy Horse. Asked if his people would resist if scouts and soldiers came to arrest him, the war chief tried to defuse the dangerous turn in the conversation: “Hiya, No,” he insisted. Frankly, he acknowledged his priorities: “I live with the Northern Nation, and I cherish the land.”34

  These were not the only misgivings broached. On the march, Crazy Horse would have been able to confer about Young Man Afraid of His Horse’s plan for an agency on Tongue River. Now American Horse could tell the northern leaders that the proposal had been quashed by the army high command, driving home just how problematic was Crook’s northern reservation. The agency chiefs renewed their appeal for the northern Oglalas to join with them in a concerted bid to win a just peace in Washington.35

  Most disturbing of all, however, was news that Crook and Mackenzie had already exerted pressure on the Cheyennes to accept relocation to the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation in Indian Territory. Briefly the council considered boycotting the Oglala agency and surrendering at Spotted Tail. In the village at large, however, the mood remained buoyant. People were happy at the prospect of regular rations, a distribution of annuity goods, and reunion with Oglala relatives. Still, Crazy Horse remained deeply disturbed. He quizzed Iron Shield closely about Lame Deer’s movements.36

  When the march resumed on May 3, the war chief and He Dog remained on the deserted campground. The friends shared a pipe. At last the war chief’s patience snapped. “I am going back to Lame Deer,” he exclaimed. He Dog soothed the war chief, invoking their pledge of peace, but the comical fact that their ponies had strayed deflated the situation. The friends were forced to walk all the way to the next campsite, and by the time they reached home, Crazy Horse’s anger had burned itself out.37

  Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies and environs, 1877

  As the village neared the agency, nerves wore thin. It made only eight miles on May 4; scarcely four or five on the fifth. As the villagers approached the high white-clay bluffs of Pine Ridge, a sudden fusillade of shots ahead of the column panicked the whole village. Women and children galloped for the bluffs, and quiet was restored only after it was understood that some warriors had happened upon a herd of antelope. After another downpour, the evening of the fifth found the village camped high up a creek feeding out of the bluffs, within eight miles of the agency.38

  The sun dawned on a momentous day, Sunday, May 6, and in the gray light, Lieutenant Rosenquest got his wagons moving, escorted by American Horse’s scouts. Soon after daylight, the Deciders ordered the march, and the column threaded up onto the pine-capped bluffs. Crazy Horse mounted a white pony and rode to the head of the column. By midmorning the trail topped the Pine Ridge, then intersected with the south-flowing Soldier Creek. Scouts sighted the quadrangle of buildings grouped around the Camp Robinson parade ground; and beyond, along White River, the tipi camps clustered around the Red Cloud Agency stockade. Winding up the creek rode a company of twenty blue-coated Oglala scouts, led by a single officer wearing a jaunty white hat.39

  At 10:00 A.M., five miles out from the agency, Lieutenant Clark’s party drew rein. Down the defile approached a row of ten chiefs and headmen. Several yards in the lead rode Crazy Horse. All was silent as he drew up and ordered a stop. One hundred yards behind the leaders, six companies of warriors halted, each “formed regularly in single rank” behind a headman.40 Along the low bluffs above the creek, hundreds of women, children, and elders watched Crazy Horse dismount and sit deliberately on the ground. Red Cloud rode forward, asking Clark to approach alone. The lieutenant sat facing the war chief, a few yards apart. Five minutes of silence passed. Then Clark rose and offered his hand. Through Red Cloud, Crazy Horse made it known that he wished to shake hands while seated, “because that was the sign that the peace made was to last through life and forever.”41

  Clark sat again, and Crazy Horse held out his left hand. “Kola,” he began, “I shake with this hand because my heart is on this side; I want this peace to last forever.”42 Gingerly, the two men shook. Then Rosenquest, several of Clark’s scout escort, and a Chicago Times correspondent each offered his hand to the war chief. Clark and the others walked to greet the warriors—a few offered nervous fingers, but most “gave a good hearty grip, and seemed to mean it,” intoning the “hou, kola” of informal greeting.43 Clark’s party turned back and reseated themselves before Crazy Horse. Little Hawk and He Dog had joined the war chief. At a signal from Crazy Horse, the other Deciders came forward. Each shook hands warmly with Clark, then joined the circle of seated men.

  Crazy Horse observed that now was the “best time for smoking the pipe of peace.” He spoke in an undertone to Red Cloud, who remarked that Crazy Horse would not speak again, but would now smoke and “invoke the Great Spirit to make [the peace] eternal.” After the pipe was lighted and passed around the circle, He Dog arose. “I have come to make peace,” he declared, “to those that I like and have confidence in. I give these.” Just as Crazy Horse had conceded primacy to Red Cloud, now He Dog indicated his submission to General Crook’s representative. After gesturing Clark to stand, he pulled off his magnificent war shirt and drew it over Clark’s shoulders. Then he removed his headdress and placed it on Clark’s head. Holding up the pipe to the sun, He Dog placed it and a finely beaded pipe bag in the lieutenant’s hands, endowing him with honorary Decider status. Finally, the akicita leader presented Clark with his own war pony. From the saddle, He Dog removed a fine buffalo robe and spread it at the honor place on Crazy Horse’s left.44

  Clark sat, then made the keynote speech. “We have come to make a lasting peace, never to be broken,” he began. “We had a rain last night that has washed out all bad feelings. . . . The sun is now shining brightly. All shows the Great Spirit is pleased with our actions.” He stated that all arms and ponies must be given up, after camp was made on the site chosen by General Mackenzie. The people would have to be counted, “so as to provide them with rations.” Their names would be sent to the Great Father in Washington. There, Clark assured them, General Crook was “looking out for your interests.”

  The Deciders sat in awkward silence. Crazy Horse observed, “I have given all I have to Red Cloud.” After consultation, Red Cloud advised Clark to go easy. “Crazy Horse is a sensible man. He knows it is useless to fight longer against the whites, and is now willing to give himself up.” But, continued Red Cloud, Crazy Horse did not consider himself defeated, deeming “it best as a matter of policy to surrender.” The northern leaders asked that they be allowed to give up their arms voluntarily, without the indignity of force. Each man would advance, lay down his gun, and give his name. Clark approved the proposal, and the talk wound up on a positive note: “[A]ll bad feeling of the past,” Clark asserted, “must be buried.”45

  Clark and his entourage remounted at noon on a brilliant spring day. The lieutenant still wore He Dog’s headdress. To many of the Indians, remembered Shave Elk, “he looked so comical that. . . we. . . laughed.”46 The relaxation of tension was palpable as Crazy Horse signaled the village to resume its march. Early in the afternoon, the procession hove in sight of Camp Robinson. At the head rode Clark and Rosenquest, with Red Cloud and the scouts and envoys forming a stolid column behind. After a quarter-mile gap rode a row of six men—Crazy Horse, the Deciders, and He Dog—ahead of the warriors. The men spread across the widening valley of Soldier Creek, but as the post buildings appeared, warrior societies grouped in five regular companies, each of forty men.

  On cue, a voice struck up a song, soon taken up along the two-mile length of the column. Curious officers at the post, come to witness a surrender, observed instead a march of victory as the northern Oglalas descended, to the stately measure of their great “Song of Peace,” into the White Rive
r valley. Behind the warriors strode the elders, leading the throng of women, children, and pack animals. Boys raced their ponies back and forth. Toddlers squalled from seats on the travois. Youths flanked the loose stock, brood mares trailing nervy colts in the cloud of dust. A screen of pickets brought up the rear.

  At 2:00 P.M. the head of the procession approached the agency, one mile beyond the post. Immediately north of the agency compound, the ground fell away steeply to a narrow arc of bottomland in a curve of White River. Riding across the stream, Crazy Horse and the Deciders drew up on the flat. The order to halt was called, and immediately the singers fell silent. Lieutenant Clark turned to Crazy Horse and told him, “You want to take up all the guns and ponies.”47 Women immediately set to work pitching camp, and in short order the circle of tipis stood on the campground.

  While the women worked, the ponies were surrendered. The weeks of careful husbanding had paid off, and the herd seemed in “very good order,” many animals being captured U.S. mules and cavalry mounts. Thomas Moore, Crook’s chief packer, kept a tally until he reached seventeen hundred, then let through the rest, at least five hundred head more. Behind him, Oglala scouts waited to drive the herd away. Red Cloud harangued to forestall trouble, assuring Crazy Horse’s people that their horses would be returned to them. He was pledged a personal gift of seven hundred head in recognition of his efforts for peace. Subverting Sheridan’s rationale, the Oglalas would be free to dispose of the ponies as they pleased. Beginning the following morning, in scenes of orchestrated largesse, most would be redistributed among the northern villagers.48

  The pony surrender went ahead smoothly. Clark turned to the twin issues of counting and disarming people. Asked that all scouts and wasicu spectators withdraw, the lieutenant humored the Lakotas. Only Clark, Lieutenant Rosenquest, Lieutenant Charles A. Johnson, and interpreters Garnett and Leon Palladay remained. At 4:00 P.M. the warriors gathered on the campground, and Crazy Horse led off the disarming, laying down a rifle on the grass. Throughout the surrender, observed Crook’s aide Lieutenant John G. Bourke, Crazy Horse “behaved with stolidity, like a man who saw he had to give in to fate, but would do so as doggedly as possible.” The Deciders and He Dog followed suit, then some fifty warriors. With just seventy-six guns turned in, Clark waited, then addressed Crazy Horse firmly: “[T]hat wouldn’t do.” From American Horse, the lieutenant had precise reports of the northern arms. Clark repeated that every piece must be “turned in at once, and that now was their time to show a genuine desire for peace.”49

  Crazy Horse sat in stoical silence, but other headmen offered flimsy excuses. Clark told the warriors they could take their arms to their lodges, but he would search every tipi until all were surrendered. As the campground emptied, Clark sent for a wagon and several scouts. Frank Grouard was on hand to assist and interpret. Agency commissary clerk Charles P. Jordan was charged with counting the Indians. Each attended by an interpreter, Clark and Jordan started around the camp circle. At each tipi, Jordan took down the names of all adult males, then counted the occupants. His enumeration tallied 145 lodges, housing 217 men, 312 women, 186 boys, and 184 girls, for a total of 899 people.50

  Everyone remained surprisingly cool, won over by Clark’s “firmness and fine judgment.”51 Occupants sat calmly while Clark gathered up every gun and had them placed in the wagon. Holdouts were approached by scouts and instructed to give up specified weapons. From Crazy Horse’s lodge, they removed three Winchesters; next door, Little Hawk surrendered two. The process took upwards of three hours, and it was 8:00 before the lieutenant was satisfied to return to post. Some 114 weapons were surrendered, comprising forty-six breechloaders, thirty-five muzzleloaders, and thirty-three revolvers.

  With Clark’s departure, the village relaxed into everyday routines. At dusk women served up the evening meal. A few visitors from the agency bands paid social calls and were offered food and coffee. Some brought gifts of meat and clothing. Here and there, reunions were made in the heightened pitch of tears. Crazy Horse had invited Frank Grouard to supper, and Crook’s favorite guide walked to the tipi with Lieutenant Bourke. As they approached, Bourke observed Crazy Horse, a man lithe and sinewy, seeming scarcely thirty years old for all his careworn appearance. During the day, the war chief had seemed “sullen and gloomy” in the unwelcome glare of center stage. In repose, his face remained “quiet, rather morose, dogged, tenacious, and resolute. His expression is rather melancholic.” Yet, when Frank called his name, Tasunke Witko, Crazy Horse’s features “lit up with genuine pleasure.” Frank explained that Bourke was akicita to Three Stars Crook, and Crazy Horse, still seated, favored the lieutenant with a friendly glance, then gave him “a hearty grasp of the hand.”52

  Night fell on one of the defining days of Crazy Horse’s life. He had acquitted himself well. If officers like Mackenzie balked at the war chief’s “proud and almost contemptuous behavior,” that pride was rooted in a national esprit.53 Unlike earlier surrenders, people dragging into the agencies in demoralized poverty or in charges of sham bravado, the Oglala capitulation was a well-judged dignified performance. The people reclaimed their place within the Oglala tribe, believing that the strengthened hoop could win from the wasicu a just peace. To this optimism Crazy Horse clung. His misgivings were obvious, but his bright welcome for Grouard hinted at the human warmth behind the facade of sullen pride. “I came here for peace,” he would repeatedly state through the coming summer. And now it was time to seize the prizes of peace.

  This iconic image depicts Crazy Horse as the Thunder dreamer, his body paint vivid with lightning and hail—the destructive powers of the storm—in the greatest victory of his life, the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Drawing by Amos Bad Heart Bull, reprinted, from A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, by Amos Bad Heart Bull, text by Helen H. Blish (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967).

  Red Cloud, 1872. During the warfare of the 1860s, Crazy Horse acted as a tactical war leader, implementing the strategic vision of Red Cloud. The relationship soured after Red Cloud decided to shape a new accommodation with the United States and became terminally embittered after Crazy Horse’s 1877 surrender at Red Cloud Agency. The older chief sought to protect his primacy by plotting against Crazy Horse. Courtesy National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (NAA INV 01 601 305).

  Spotted Tail, 1870. Young Crazy Horse revered his warrior uncle until Spotted Tail’s conversion to an accommodation strategy alienated his nephew. The men remained suspicious of each other through the tragic sequence resulting in Crazy Horse’s death. Courtesy Denver Public Library (X-32002

  Young Man Afraid of His Horse, 1877. As peers and comrades, Young Man Afraid of His Horse and Crazy Horse retained a mutual respect after the former’s move to the reservation. Young Man Afraid remained committed to integrating Crazy Horse’s followers into the smooth running of agency life and stayed apart from the intrigues that resulted in the war chief’s death. From John Gregory Bourke Diaries, courtesy U.S. Military Academy, West Point.

  He Dog, 1877. Crazy Horse’s friendship with his lifelong kola (pledged comrade) He Dog was frequently invoked to smooth tensions between the Hunkpatila and Bad Face bands. As Red Cloud’s nephew, He Dog left the Crazy Horse village in the tense weeks before the latter’s death, but he remained loyal to the war chief in friendship and memory. Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society (NSHS-B7747).

  Little Big Man, 1877. Former comrade turned political rival in the months after surrender, Little Big Man posed the greatest challenge to Crazy Horse’s leadership at Red Cloud Agency. His role in the war chief’s death alienated many followers, terminating his political ambitions. Courtesy National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (NAA INV 06530900).

  Hunts the Enemy (George Sword), 1877. Nephew of Red Cloud and later captain of the Pine Ridge Reservation police, Hunts the Enemy’s diplomacy was crucial in effecting the surrender of Crazy Horse’s followers. Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society (NSHS-13
92: 39-4).

  Little Hawk and Lieutenant W. P. Clark, 1877. Half-brother of Crazy Horse’s father, Little Hawk was a forceful supporter of Crazy Horse within the council of chiefs and elders. Lt. Clark commanded the scout troops in which Crazy Horse enlisted after surrender. His disillusion in the war chief was sudden, total, and critical in the events leading to Crazy Horse’s arrest and death. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (SPC BAE 4605 01600909).

  General George Crook. As commander of the Department of the Platte, Crook faced Crazy Horse in war and in diplomacy. Bested at the Rosebud, Crook repulsed Crazy Horse at Slim Buttes—but it was his offer of an agency in the hunting grounds that netted the war chief’s surrender and the end of the Great Sioux War. Courtesy Library of Congress (LC-BH826-2600).

  Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Civil War hero Custer first clashed with Crazy Horse in 1873. At the Little Bighorn three years later, Custer obsessively sought to contain the “scatteration” of his foe, his regiment paying the ultimate price against a supremely flexible warrior force led by an inspirational Crazy Horse. Courtesy Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-63838).

  Colonel Nelson A. Miles. The army’s supreme self-publicist, Miles clashed with Crazy Horse at Wolf Mountains in January 1877. After a tactical standoff, Miles returned to base. Winter privations and agency diplomacy orchestrated by Miles’s rival Crook secured mass surrenders the following spring. Courtesy Library of Congress (LC-B813-2044).