Bradley also wired Fort Laramie to request cavalry reinforcements. He intended to surround both Crazy Horse’s and Touch the Clouds’s villages and prevent any departure, but his stripped-down garrisons were unequal to the task. Bradley was able to secure the reconcentration of elements of the Third Cavalry. Early on September 1, Major Julius W. Mason started a forced march from Fort Laramie, commanding Companies E and G. Messages were hurried through to Company F at Hat Creek Station, and to Company’s D and L, scouting the Black Hills Trail, ordering them to march immediately to headquarters.36
Meanwhile Crazy Horse too was making his dispositions. At the northern village, a council was hurriedly arranged. Crazy Horse and Touch the Clouds reviewed the morning’s events. Explaining their refusal to aid the military, they asserted that Major Hart’s battalion on Tongue River was not really bound against the Nez Perces: instead, Hart was marching to intercept Sitting Bull and prevent his return to the Powder River country. All cooperation must be withdrawn from the army, both chiefs argued.37
Throughout the morning, Crazy Horse’s envoys had continued their dialogue with the agency bands, but the abortive talk with Clark changed the whole tenor of the situation. After hearing Three Bears’ account of the furious duel of words in Clark’s office, those scouts who had given support to Crazy Horse rapidly rethought their plans. In the Oglala tribal village a final council, of all 864 adult males, was being held “to take the sense of our people” on the critical issues facing their nation. At the close of talks heralds announced that the Oglala people “want no more fighting and from this out we will live in peace.”
As well as agreement on agency relocation within the White River valley, there were pledges to control the Crazy Horse village by force. Oglala chiefs had sought to conciliate Crazy Horse and bring him “into a better state of feeling—but we can do nothing with him.” Now, if necessary, Oglala akicita would be deployed against Crazy Horse if he attempted to leave or made any warlike demonstration within a twenty-two mile radius. Beyond that line, the council conceded, the army could take over in pursuit of fugitives.38
That evening Oglala chiefs reported their decision to Irwin, spokesman American Horse assuring the agent “that they would see that ‘Crazy Horse’ did nothing about the Agency that would hurt my feelings.”39
As evening deepened, tensions grew. Clark had continued working with the scouts, hoping once more to ensure a daytime departure. Although some seemed disgruntled, and others who had performed active service during the summer complained of the poor condition of their stock, by dusk a contingent of 150 scouts awaited Clark’s final orders. In addition to the Company A and B scouts already agreed to go, the promised fifty scouts, drawn from both Spotted Tail Agency companies, had arrived. One hundred volunteer warriors were ready to leave, after Sheridan wired approval to loan them army-issue firearms. Even some of Crazy Horse’s own Company C scouts, still anticipating the departure their war chief had approved before the final row with Clark, were among the contingent that by evening was forming near the agency.40
Night was drawing on when akicita appeared from Crazy Horse. Proclaiming the war chief’s assertion that the Nez Perce campaign was a front for action against Sitting Bull, they announced that Crazy Horse and Touch the Clouds forbade any cooperation with the army: all scouts must go home. In a clear echo of the Oglala tribal edict placing deadlines around the agency, Crazy Horse ordered that any scout departure would be opposed by the full force of the Northern Nation. Reflecting his long duel with Clark, Crazy Horse’s order asserted his unmediated control over all scouts. Contested that control might have been, but the scouts decamped. From the perspective of the White River agencies, the Nez Perce campaign was in a shambles.41
Through the night, the exchange of military telegrams grew more heated. General Crook, on board the Union Pacific to Camp Brown, picked up Bradley’s warning that the scouts were reluctant to depart and advised Bradley and Clark not to force the issue. Crook was confident that he could enlist Shoshone scouts, more familiar with the country west of the Bighorns. An angry Sheridan wired Crook to countermand this advice, then telegraphed Bradley of the imperative need for the scouts to march immediately.42
Bradley fired back a lengthy wire that revealed the new complexities of the situation, concluding ominously, “There is a good chance for trouble here and there is plenty of bad blood. I think the departure of the scouts will bring on a collision here.” Bradley followed up with a request that Crook come to Camp Robinson.43
Sensing the limits of the situation, Crook wired Sheridan from Grand Island to request that all orders to mobilize the scouts be countermanded. At 1:00 A.M. on September 1, Sheridan, aware that the Nez Perce campaign was a minor operation compared to the threat of a new Sioux war, requested Crook to leave the railroad at Sidney and proceed immediately to Camp Robinson. He conceded that all scout mobilization would be held pending Crook’s arrival. Crook detrained at Sidney, acknowledged Sheridan’s dispatch, and waited for the morning stage.44
As morning of September 1 rose on the upper White River valley, Bradley and Clark prepared messages for the chiefs and their scout companies: “[N]otice was. . . given,” reported Billy Garnett, “that the scouts would not be required” for the Nez Perce campaign.45 If Crazy Horse persisted in leading the northern villages onto the hunting grounds, it would now most certainly be construed as an act of war. The stage had been set for an endgame on White River.
26
MOVING ACROSS THE CREEK
September 1 was a day of anticlimax in Crazy Horse’s village. Clark’s latest message, suspending all scout movements, deflated the mood of tense expectation. Supporters of Crazy Horse and of Little Big Man were aware that the new order undercut the war chief’s position: he could no longer legitimize departure for the north by scout participation in the Nez Perce campaign. This, and related developments, quickly began to pick at the stitching of village consensus. Other critical factors weighed in the balance of northern Lakota opinion. Already rumors were circulating about troop movements, impending arrests, and confiscation of arms and ponies.
Also crucial in northern village debate was the growing impatience with Crazy Horse evinced by the agency Oglalas. Leaders like Red Cloud and American Horse had for almost three months argued against conciliating the war chief. In the past two weeks, Crazy Horse’s intransigence had alienated his last allies in the agency hierarchy, Young Man Afraid of His Horse and Yellow Bear. Over the next thirty-six hours, rhetoric would intensify, with the tribal council ultimately issuing an order that any northern departure would result in the breakdown of all friendly relations: a state of war would exist between agency and northern villages.1
A third issue weighed in the balance. Clark’s trusties reported that Crazy Horse had received messengers from Sitting Bull in the last few days. If so—and an envoy from the Hunkpapa chief probably did visit the northern village early in September—their message could only dampen enthusiasm for a breakout: Sitting Bull was not preparing to leave his sanctuary in Grandmother’s Land. Flight would commit the breakaways to a month-long retreat into the British possessions, or else to a new war on the hunting grounds. Only the truly intractable would face a third winter campaign. Inevitably, more people sided with Little Big Man.2
Crazy Horse was also in communication with the Fast Bull holdouts. Their fifty lodges were moving indecisively along the western edge of the Badlands, within fifty miles of Red Cloud Agency. During late August a nervous consensus had emerged favoring surrender at Spotted Tail Agency. On August 27, twenty-two people surrendered and were dispersed among the Brule bands. However, the Hunkpapa contingent in Fast Bull’s camp continued to argue for flight to Sitting Bull. Certainly, the surrender process stalled for several days corresponding to the formation of the war council in Crazy Horse’s village. Dialogue with the Oglala war chief seems likely, perhaps through key aides Kicking Bear and Shell Boy. Yet by the first days of September, a second party of fifteen lodges,
including Crazy Horse’s comrade Low Dog, was preparing to surrender; it was confidently expected that the rest would follow within a few days.3
All these factors contributed to the new mood of insecurity in Crazy Horse’s village. Against increasingly vocal objections, Crazy Horse continued to press for an imminent start throughout the first. Aware that an order to strike the tipis in daylight would precipitate a crisis, he argued for a nighttime departure.
Supported tentatively by Big Road and Iron Crow, Little Big Man began rebuilding the moderate consensus. The war council could field no speaker as persuasive as Little Big Man. Thrown back on the support of young war leaders with little debating power, Crazy Horse heard support ebb away. By the afternoon of September 2, more than one hundred lodges were prepared to break with Crazy Horse.4
First to rethink matters had been Touch the Clouds. The Miniconjou chief had been tugged in Crazy Horse’s wake through the meeting with Clark, but the latest developments convinced him of the need to be on hand for his own people. Moreover, when he left for Spotted Tail Agency, eight lodges of Miniconjous living in Crazy Horse’s village accompanied him. Led by Low Bear, they first traveled to the Red Cloud stockade, where Agent Irwin tallied the sixty-two people, issued them rations, and authorized their transfer, doubtless relieved at even the smallest defection from Crazy Horse.5
No open break attended the striking of Low Bear’s tipis—Crazy Horse could not risk a quarrel with Touch the Clouds—but their departure augured poorly for the uniting of the two northern villages. The defectors included the family of Crazy Horse’s war comrade Red Hawk. Moreover, the Miniconjou contingent in Crazy Horse’s hoop, about forty-five lodges until September 1, had been conspicuously loyal to his leadership. The loss of Low Bear’s tiyospaye must have dismayed the war chief.6
Touch the Clouds’s return to Spotted Tail led to alarm and reassessment of the evidence by the military hierarchy at Camp Sheridan. He was preceded by two dispatches from Clark, the first claiming that the Miniconjou chief was behind yesterday’s conflict with Crazy Horse; the second, carried by Frank Grouard, advising of the imminent surround of Crazy Horse’s village, to be synchronized with that of the northern village at Spotted Tail. That evening Touch the Clouds convinced the officers that he did not intend to depart for the north, and in a heated exchange with Frank Grouard, accused him of lying and mistranslation, accusations backed up by the agency interpreter, Louis Bordeaux.7
Agent Lee and Camp Sheridan commander Captain Daniel W. Burke were satisfied with the loyalty of the Miniconjous and Sans Arcs. Moreover, with negotiations well advanced for the surrender of Fast Bull’s camp, any round-up operation might trigger a panicked flight. Determined to plead the cause of his northern contingent, Lee started for Camp Robinson early on the morning of September 2. Lucy W. Lee, who taught a small class of Lakota children at the agency school, accompanied her husband.8
Meanwhile, Camp Robinson continued to hum with activity. Following a forced march from Fort Laramie, Major Mason’s two companies arrived at the post on the second. After a wearing eighty-mile journey from the railroad at Sidney, General Crook and his aide, Lieutenant John G. Bourke, arrived at headquarters early that morning. After assessing reports, Crook asked Clark for the opinion of the agency Indians. Clark assured him that their chiefs all agreed that “the safety of all demanded the deposition of ‘Crazy Horse’ and the dismemberment of his band.”9
Confident that all reinforcements would be in place before night, Crook ordered Bradley to supervise the simultaneous surrounds of the northern villages early the following morning. Bradley was to command operations at Crazy Horse’s village. Expanding for the first time on his intentions, Crook added that the warriors were to be totally disarmed. Reflecting the wishes of Red Cloud and the agency chiefs, Crook advised that the villages be broken up, enrolling individual families with relatives in the agency bands.10
Keenly aware of Indian sensitivities, Crook issued an order for all loyal Oglalas to raise a united village at a point on White Clay Creek two miles southeast of the agency. Crook arranged to meet the Oglalas in full council there the following afternoon, September 3. Nothing was publicly said of the intended surround of the northern villages, but Crook envisaged keeping the operation secret until night, when Red Cloud and the other chiefs could be involved in last-minute consultations. A private message was sent to Spotted Tail, inviting the Brule head chief to confidential talks with Clark at Red Cloud Agency.11
The Oglala council agreed to a statement that would meet with approval from Crook: “[T]he Indians had been a powerful people, but were now reduced to their present small numbers by fighting the whites, upon whom they were now dependent” ; therefore, they unanimously “resolved they were now in favor of peace.” Any departure for the north would be treated as grounds for war. Tightening the peace zone they had defined two days previously, they asserted that all Lakotas remaining north of White River would be treated as enemies by the Oglala Nation. Ratcheting up the pressure, No Water, at a meeting of scouts, declared he would kill Crazy Horse.12
Matching ultimatum with conciliation, however, the council decided to send Crazy Horse a final deputation. He Dog was chosen to make the keynote speech. Attired in their finest war clothing, mixing Lakota gear with the blue uniforms of the scouts, the envoys made a colorful parade around the Oglala village before turning their horses toward White River.13
At Camp Robinson, the situation continued to change by the hour. Agent Lee arrived from Spotted Tail early in the afternoon. Lee made his views known to Bradley, insisting that he “was certain [Touch the Clouds] had no intention of going north for war.” He assured Crook of the complete loyalty of all Indians at Spotted Tail. Crook and Bradley were given pause. They told Lee he should talk to Clark about the business, and the lieutenant was called in.
Priding himself as the man of action, intuitively in tune with his Indian allies, Clark reacted angrily when Lee called into question his reading of Indian affairs. Crook weighed his subordinates’ accounts and slowly began to shift his ground. Gravely, Crook told Lee he was glad he had come. “Mr. Lee,” he continued, “I don’t want to make any mistake, for it would, to the Indians, be the basest treachery to make a mistake in this matter.” Turning to Bradley and Clark, he told them that the surround of Touch the Clouds’ village should be suspended. The next day’s operations would be confined to Crazy Horse’s village.14
While Lee and Clark sparred, the northern village council prepared to welcome Red Cloud’s embassy. The war chief would not be present to receive the envoys. After the heated debate of the first, Crazy Horse had withdrawn into himself again. Sensing the swing in consensus toward accommodation, still finding no rest in sleep, he had talked into the night with Nellie. She continued to advise her husband of the talk around the agency, now focused on rumors that the army was planning his imminent arrest. Concerned for his safety, Nellie began to advise that he seek refuge at Spotted Tail Agency.15
Early in the afternoon, two unknown wasicu had appeared in the village. Dressed in civilian clothing, without an interpreter, they made it known that they wished to speak to Crazy Horse. Shown to his tipi, they managed to tell Crazy Horse that they were army officers and were inviting the war chief to attend the big council with Crook to be held the following day on White Clay Creek. The two men shook hands with Crazy Horse. Then, fumbling for a goodwill present, they pooled two cigars and a penknife, its blade unclasped and bare. With awkward farewells, the two men left Crazy Horse’s tipi and presumably rode back toward Camp Robinson.16
The visit, only known through Crazy Horse’s conversation with He Dog later that afternoon, remains as mysterious and unsettling as it seemed to the war chief. The identities of the two men are uncertain. One, according to He Dog, was “the soldier chief from Fort Laramie.” Perhaps he meant Major Mason, commanding the newly arrived reinforcements. The badly orchestrated social call, minus interpreter, demonstrates that Lieutenant Clark was not involved. Ne
vertheless, both Crazy Horse and He Dog believed the men to be officers. It may be that Crook, more disturbed by Lee’s protestations than he showed, asked Mason or his lieutenants to pay an off-the-record visit to Crazy Horse and, in a spirit of fairness, give him an opportunity to return quietly to the fold. That would be consistent with Crook’s actions later in the evening. Or perhaps Mason, an old Camp Robinson hand, simply fancied his abilities as mediator and paid an off-duty courtesy call on the war chief.17
Either way, the visit backfired. Continuing to sit by his sleeping place at the back of the tipi, Crazy Horse stared gloomily at the penknife, trying to divine the intention behind the gift. Uneasy at the meeting, his judgment impaired from sleep loss, that naked blade seemed to mean “trouble was coming,” the announcement of weapons being unsheathed for war. At length, troubled and in need of solitude, he stuffed the knife and the two cigars under the blankets of his bed and left the tipi. Although his whereabouts for the next hour or two are unknown, he likely sought a quiet place outside the village where he could try through prayer, direct communication with Wakan Tanka, to resolve the tensions besetting him.18
About midafternoon the deputation from the Oglala council rode into the northern village. Once seated in the council tipi, the envoys faced the arc of elders, headmen, and warriors who had hurried to attend. With unease He Dog’s party registered that Crazy Horse was absent, Little Big Man and the other Deciders occupying the honor place. The envoys concentrated on a single theme: Crazy Horse’s intransigence could lead only to disaster. Even now, Three Stars Crook was at Camp Robinson coordinating a major military operation. At the very least, Crook envisaged arrests and confiscations of both arms and stock. Such an operation might easily lead to bloodshed. Moreover, the Oglala tribe took seriously its promises of peace to the Great Father’s people and had committed itself to aiding the troops in controlling hostile relatives.
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