CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  30. Plattsmouth Herald, May 5, 1870. The relevant dispatch, one of a series penned by Fort Laramie chaplain Alpha Wright, is reprinted in Paul,” An Early Reference to Crazy Horse.”

  31. Plattsmouth Herald, May 5, 1870. Chambers to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, May 6, 1870, states that Crazy Horse’s party, having engaged in hostilities in the Sweetwater region in early April, had shifted operations to attack “the Railroad, and ranches below Laramie.”

  32. Maj. Alexander Chambers to AAG, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram), DPR; Gen. C. C Augur to Gen. P. H. Sheridan, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram); Sheridan to Gen. WT Sherman, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram); Sherman to Sheridan, Apr. 29, 1870 (telegram); Governor J. A. Campbell to CoIA, Apr. 29, 1870(telegram), all UPA, LR, OIA; Sherman to Sheridan, May 4, 1870 (telegram), DPR.

  33. Chambers to AAG, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram); Augur to Sheridan, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram); Sheridan to Sherman, Apr. 28, 1870 (telegram); Sherman to Sheridan, Apr. 29, 1870 (telegram); Campbell to CoIA, Apr. 29, 1870 (telegram); Sherman to Sheridan, May 4, 1870 (telegram); Chambers to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, May 6, 1870 (telegram), UPA, LR, OIA. Details of the Fort Fetterman negotiations, including the warrior society escort, are in Adams, “Journal of Ada A. Vogdes,” 11–12.

  34. Captain D. S. Gordon to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, May 6, 1870; Chambers to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, May 6, 1870 (telegram), both UPA, LROIA. Chambers states that, within the previous day or two, Crazy Horse had “been seen and talked with by a Sioux who lives here [at Fort Fetterman].”

  35. Governor J. A. Campbell to CoIA, May 12, 1870 (telegram), UPA, LR, OIA. Campbell transmits Maj. Chambers’ May 11 dispatch from Fort Fetterman, which remarks: “messenger just in from man afraid-of his horses and Red Cloud returning seven horses and mules taken from Chug Water by Oyakopee Sioux and his party whipped” (my emphasis). In light of Chambers’ earlier telegram (May 6), this means the party of “Crazy-horse Leading,” implying that Crazy Horse himself was beaten.

  36. Thunder Tail statement about Crazy Horse, Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2: speech at 624 (Lakota), and 629 (English). Although the chronology is scrambled, the context best fits the Oglala delegation to Washington of 1870. Since both Crazy Horse’s and Sitting Bull’s speeches dwell on the term iwastela, it is plain that this was the idiom of the day following the treaty of 1868.

  37. Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations,” 23–25 (quotation on 24); He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 13; Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 112.

  38. Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 314–80, vividly illustrates the battle; additional details, including Crazy Horse’s activities, are taken from the Thunder Tail account, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:624–25, 630–31. On dating: Crazy Horse was engaged in the war parties against the Americans from late March through the first week of May 1870. The tight sequence of events, covered in chapter 13, was completed by late June, according to He Dog’s chronology. Since the Fight When They Chased Them Back to Camp is presented as the starting point of the sequence, it best fits mid-May, precisely contemporaneous with preparations for the Red Cloud delegation—and a likely context for its delayed start.

  39. Thunder Tail account, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:624–25, 630–31 (with amended translation).

  40. The most detailed secondary account of the delegation is Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, chap. 7. Nevertheless, minor errors occur in Olson’s chronology. Contemporary documentation shows the Oglala party arriving at Fort Fetterman probably late on May 16. After five more days of talks, Man Afraid of His Horse pleaded sickness, and the delegation departed without him on May 22, arriving at Fort Laramie on the 24th. Accompanied by Col. John E. Smith, the party departed that post on May 26 and boarded the Union Pacific at Pine Bluffs on the following afternoon.

  41. He Dog statement, in H. Scudder Mekeel to George E. Hyde, Aug. 26, 1931 (précis in author’s collection): “R[ed] C[loud] gave [He Dog] his shirt to wear during his trip to Washington].” On American Horse’s diplomacy, see Gen. F. F. Flint to AAG, June 19, 1870 (telegram), DPR.

  CHAPTER 13

  1. The fundamental sources for details on the elopement of Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman are the Hinman interviews with He Dog, July 7 and 13, 1930, and He Dog’s undated statement to John Colhoff, all in Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 13–14,15–19. These form the core of my account. Additional details are from Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, 13, Neihardt Papers; Horn Chips interview, tablet 18, Ricker Papers. Spurious dates and details spoil the traditional account presented in Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 41–43, but I have used details of the role played by Touch the Clouds. I restrict footnoting to quotations and controversial points.

  2. “Lone Eagle Gives Museum Biography of Crazy Horse,” transcript in Hyde Papers, author’s collection. This undated [ca. 1950] piece summarizes a talk given by Lone Eagle to the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum. Most of its information is derived from the then unpublished Hinman interviews, but it includes a few independent details, including the assertion that Bad Heart Bull’s pistol was a Derringer. There is no verification of this in the primary sources, but Lone Eagle’s account is notable for its restraint, and the detail merits remark. Lone Eagle states: “An attractive young Oglala woman, Black Buffalo Woman, wife of No Water, left her man and went to live with Crazy Horse in the old Ft. Laramie (Wyo.) area about 1870.”

  A note on dating: if No Water had been part of the delegation escort to Fort Fetterman, he would have been able to leave the post for home on May 22, when Red Cloud’s party departed for the railroad. This would place the elopement and shooting of Crazy Horse within the frame May 21–25—unverifiable in detail, but consistent with the internal logic of He Dog’s chronology.

  3. He Dog, July 13, 1930, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 17.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid. The Miniconjou headmen Bull Head, Ashes, and Spotted Crow were brothers of Crazy Horse’s stepmothers.

  8. Ibid., 17–18.

  9. Ibid., 19. Man Afraid of His Horse almost certainly presided over the divesting of Crazy Horse. Col. Franklin F. Flint, noting the delegation’s arrival at Fort Laramie, observed that “man afraid of his horses [was] left sick at Fort Fetterman.” Flint to AAG, May 24, 1870 (telegram), DPR. Pourier interview, tablet 15, Ricker Papers, states that Man Afraid of His Horse “backed out” of the delegation, strongly suggesting that his was a diplomatic illness.

  10. Garnett interview, tablet 1, Ricker Papers.

  11. King, in Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle, 126.

  12. In the following account of a generic Lakota wedding, I have depended on Hassrick, The Sioux, 129–30; Walker, Lakota Society, 51ff; M. N. Powers, Oglala Women, 81–82; Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 108–12.

  13. Two direct statements date Crazy Horse’s marriage to Black Shawl: Red Feather (in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 30) states, “Crazy Horse married my sister six years before he was killed,” i.e., ca. 1871. An 1870 dating is suggested by He Dog (in Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 14): “Shortly after [the Black Buffalo Woman elopement, Crazy Horse] married Red Feather’s sister” (my emphasis). Moreover, a statement by Moses Flying Hawk—an Oyuhpe relative and close associate of Crazy Horse’s—asserts that Crazy Horse “took his wife with him” when he went to bury the remains of Young Little Hawk (McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 21). From He Dog’s chronology, we know that this trip was in late June 1870. The marriage to Black Shawl therefore is to be fitted into the mid-June frame, after Crazy Horse’s recovery from the No Water shooting. The tight sequence clearly implies family intervention to stabilize the crisis in Crazy Horse’s personal life.

  On the death of Young Little Hawk: Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, Neihardt Papers; Flying Hawk, McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 21; He Dog, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 15; also He Dog to Sandoz, June
30, 1931, folder 16, part 2, box 31, Sandoz Papers. He Dog is once again our best guide to chronology. He states that Young Little Hawk was killed while Crazy Horse was recovering from the No Water shooting—broadly, early June 1870.

  14. Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, Neihardt Papers; Flying Hawk, McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 21; He Dog, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 15; He Dog to Sandoz, June 30, 1931; Worm statement, New York Sun, Sept. 14, 1877. Although Worm states that Shoshones killed his youngest son, Eagle Elk gives the enemy as Utes. He Dog and Flying Hawk agree that Young Little Hawk was killed by Americans, the latter stating they were civilian “settlers.” All sources indicate a location in south-central Wyoming except He Dog (to Sandoz), who places the killing “near Chimney Rock.” Given He Dog’s veracity and the unanimity of other sources, perhaps interpreter John Colhoff confused Chimney Rock with Independence Rock, another Oregon Trail landmark in the right district. An anonymous tradition set down in Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 91, states that soldiers killed Young Little Hawk, after a dash to stampede a post herd. Official records detail a number of skirmishes in the Sweetwater–Laramie plains country, spring 1870, but further research is needed to establish a definite context.

  15. Flying Hawk, McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 21. He Dog, Riley, “Oglala Sources,. ” 15, states that Crazy Horse “went south and found his brother’s body and buried it” before the Red Cloud delegation returned from Washington. This indicates late June for the burial trip, since the delegates returned to Fort Laramie on June 26.

  16. Webb, Chronological List of Engagements, 55; Gen. P. H. Sheridan to Gen. W.T. Sherman, June 29, 1870 (telegram); Sherman to Sheridan, June 30, 1870 (telegram); Sheridan to Sherman, July 1, 1870 (telegram), all UPA, LR, OIA. Sherman assumed the raiders to be Lakotas and northern Arapahos, consistent with the makeup of Young Little Hawk’s party.

  17. Flying Hawk, McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 21; Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, Neihardt Papers.

  18. Col. John E. Smith to CoIA, July 15, 1870, ARCoIA 1870, 324–26. In the following summary of the Oglala delegation to Washington, I have used Smith’s extensive report and the minuted proceedings of talks in Washington, UPA, LR, OIA. A full secondary account is Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, chap. 7; but see Utley’s insightful summary in Indian Frontier, 148–51. Still useful for insight and flavor is Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, 174–81.

  19. Poole to Burbank, Mar. 4, 1870, DS Field Office Records.

  20. The agreement on thirty-five years is unnoted in the minutes of talks in Washington but was clearly fundamental to Lakotas. Red Cloud’s role in winning the concession is attested by Little Big Man’s 1873 statement to the Oglala agent: J. W. Daniels to CoIA, Apr. 15, 1873, RCA, LR, OIA. Brule delegates also took credit for the agreement, e.g., Swift Bear speech, Apr. 10, 1872, Daniels to CoIA, Apr. 14, 1872, RCA, LR, OIA.

  21. Little Big Man, in Daniels to CoIA, Apr. 15, 1873.

  22. Red Cloud’s post-delegation diplomacy is detailed in the following documents in UPA, LR, OIA: Col. F. F. Flint to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, July 15, Aug. 1, 1870; Maj. Alexander Chambers to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, July 27, Aug. 2, 1870(telegrams); Chambers to CoIA, July 8, 14, 1870 (telegrams); Flint to CoIA, Aug. 6, 29, 1870 (telegrams). See also Adams,” Journal of Ada A. Vogdes,” 12–13.

  23. Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, Neihardt Papers.

  24. He Dog to Sandoz, June 30, 1931; Iron Horse, in Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 180–81; Red Feather, in Riley “Oglala Sources,” 30, 33. On Red Feather’s membership in the Crow Owners, ca. 1870, see Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations,” 66.

  25. For fall 1870 Oglala attitudes, see minuted speeches in William Fayet, clerk, “Journal of the United States Special Indian Commission, headed by F. R. Brunot and R. Campbell, to the Oglala Sioux, Aug.–Oct. 1870,” UPA, LR, OIA.

  26. He Dog, in Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 13;Thunder Tail, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:624, 629. For once, He Dog is unhelpful with the chronology, simply dating the investiture of Crazy Horse as tribal war chief as “early, a long, long time before the Custer fight.” Necessarily postdating the divesting of Crazy Horse’s Shirt Wearer status (early summer 1870), it took place at a gathering of the whole Oglala tribe; Thunder Tail adds that it was “in the north.” No such gathering postdated 1870, so the early September gathering at Bear Lodge Butte, detailed in “Journal of the United States Special Indian Commission,” looks to be the correct context.

  27. He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 13;Thunder Tail in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:624, 629; “Journal of the United States Special Indian Commission.” John Colhoff to Joseph Balmer, May 3, 1950 (transcript in author’s collection), indicates He Dog’s participation and adds that two Cheyennes and two Arapahos were similarly honored. Colhoff states that the ceremony took place just before Red Cloud’s Oglalas “left for Fort Laramie” to establish Red Cloud Agency on the North Platte River, i.e., the agency negotiations of fall 1870–June 1871. In 1877 Standing Bear (married to a cousin of Crazy Horse, the daughter of Worm’s sister Big Woman) depicted Crazy Horse in formal regalia, brandishing a knife club: pictograph reproduced in Ewers, “Military Art of the Plains Indians,” 24–37, fig. 17.

  28. Joseph Eagle Hawk, He Dog’s son, states that the Oglala tribe divided on the same day as the investiture (confused with the 1868 Shirt Wearer ceremonies), part going south, Crazy Horse and He Dog “go[ing] north with their bands” (Eagle Hawk MS, “History of Chief Crazy Horse,” Eddie Herman, Transcribed Letters, Spring Collection).

  By late 1870, the Oglala population totalled about 635 lodges (excluding Wazhazhas). Of these, 450 attended the October talks at Fort Laramie. Perhaps 140 Southern Oglala and Loafer lodges remained at Whetstone Agency, so a maximum of fifty lodges remained in the north with Crazy Horse.

  29. Sitting Bull speech, in Thunder Tail’s account, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:624, 629–30. For background on Sitting Bull’s changing relations with the United States in 1870, see Utley, Lance and the Shield, 90–92.

  30. Chasing Crow was the son of Red Cloud’s sister and trader David Adams. Good Weasel was one of the Strong Heart Society lance owners.

  31. John Colhoff, in W. K. Powers, Winter Count of the Oglala, 32.

  32. He Dog, in Riley “Oglala Sources,” 14–15.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Little Killer, in John Colhoff to Joseph Balmer, n. d. [ca. spring 1949] (transcript in author’s collection). Little Killer laughingly dismissed Frank Grouard’s claim that Crazy Horse rescued High Backbone’s body then charged the Shoshones alone armed only with his whip. “What they don’t know, won’t hurt them,” he told John Colhoff.

  Details on High Backbone’s last warpath are from Colhoff statement, 32; Little Killer, in Colhoff to Balmer; He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 14–15; Red Feather, ibid., 31. Details derived from Crazy Horse may be assumed in DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 181. The death of High Backbone is noted, interestingly, in several Oglala and Brule, but no Miniconjou, winter counts.

  36. Red Feather, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 31; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 181 (includes quotation).

  CHAPTER 14

  1. He Dog, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 18. Moccasin Top was a Bad Face, comrade to Good Weasel as a Strong Heart Society lance owner.

  2. Fayet, “Journal of the United States Special Indian Commission,” UPA, LR, OIA. Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, 130ff, deals in detail with negotiations leading to the establishment of Red Cloud Agency. For additional details, see John Wham to CoIA, Mar. 24, 1871, and Col. John E. Smith to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, Mar. 22, 1871, RCA, LR, OIA.

  3. Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, 131. On Sword Owner’s reversal of policy, cf his role in 1870 with reports from 1872—e.g., J. W Daniels to CoIA, Sept. 22 (telegram), Oct. 25, 1872; Daniels to Col. John E. Smith, Sept. 22, 1872, RCA, LROIA.

 
4. For comparisons of Man Afraid of His Horse’s band strength in March (seventy lodges) and December (thirty lodges, including Young Man Afraid of His Horse’s tiyospaye, hunting on the Republican), see Smith to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, Mar. 22, 1871, and Smith to CoIA, Dec. 14, 1871, RCA, LROIA. I have assumed that the balance, approximately forty lodges, went north with the departures in May and June. On Yellow Eagle III’s status in Hunkpatila: Colhoff to Balmer, Apr. 25, 1951, transcript in author’s collection.

  5. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 181.

  6. Utley, Lance and the Shield, 111. To understand the vital connection between the railroads and army control of the plains, see Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army; Athearn, William Tecumseh Sherman and “Firewagon Road.” For a brief overview of Lakota resistance to the Northern Pacific, see Utley, Frontier Regulars, 242–43.

  7. T. M. Koues to CoIA, Mar. 30, 1872, CRA, LROIA. The northern boundary of the unceded territory was not defined until the Black Hills Commission of 1875, offering to buy part of the region, tacitly equated it with the Yellowstone River east of the Crow reservation.

  8. Col. D. S. Stanley to CoIA, Apr. 7, 1872, CRA, LROIA. See also Utley, Lance and the Shield, 106–107.

  9. J. W. Daniels to CoIA, Feb. 29, Mar. 21, 25, Apr. 20 (includes tabulation of bands present at RCA on Apr. 1), 1872; Col. John E. Smith to U. S. AG, Mar. 21, 1872, all RCA, LROIA.

  10. John Colhoff stated that Yellow Eagle III “was the chief of the Hunkpatilas, before Crazy Horse took over the band” (to Balmer, Apr. 25, 1951). The men were allies, not rivals, indicated by Yellow Eagle’s remaining with Crazy Horse through the turbulent summer of 1877 and suggesting that Yellow Eagle voluntarily relinquished chieftainship. The 1872 climate of polarization seems a clear context for choosing a hardline leader like Crazy Horse.