CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  On numbers: Red Cloud stated that as few as “ten or fifteen lodges of that band” had refused to come to the agency (Red Cloud speech, May 27, 1872, “Report of Councils held with ‘Red Cloud’s’ band of Ogallalla Sioux by the President of the United States and Secretary of the Interior. May 27th, 28th and 29th 1872,” entry 663, item 34, Special Files, ID). Agent Daniels concluded that the right figure was about thirty lodges (J. W. Daniels to CoIA, Sept. 15, 1872, ARCoIA 1872, 267), and this fits well with what we know of Hunkpatila population. In his annual report for 1873, Daniels noted the presence of Little Big Man in the camp and an increase to forty lodges: Daniels to CoIA, Aug. 18, 1873, ARCoIA 1873.

  11. Smith to AG, United States, Mar. 21, 1872, notes the crucial fact of Little Hawk’s involvement in the raids near Fort Fetterman. See also Brig. Gen. E. O. C. Ord to AAG, HQ Military Division of the Missouri, Apr. 14, 1872, RCA, LR, OIA.

  12. J. W. Daniels to CoIA, July 6, 1872, RCA, LR, OIA. The relative status of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, asserted in Hunkpapa recollections, is graphically confirmed by Oglala artist Amos Bad Heart Bull. Cf. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 94, and Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 216.

  13. Vestal, New Sources of Plains Indian History, 169; Daniels to CoIA, Sept. 4, 1872, RCA, LROIA.

  14. For accounts of the Baker fight, see Vestal, Sitting Bull, chap. 18 (quotation at 126), New Sources of Plains Indian History, 169, and Warpath, 137–44; Utley, Lance and the Shield, 107–109; M. H. Brown, Plainsmen of the Yellowstone, 200–201. In the account that follows, I have restricted footnoting to quotations.

  15. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 129.

  16. Vestal, Warpath, 143.

  17. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 130–31.

  18. Ibid., 131; Daniels to CoIA, Sept. 4, 1872. For Sitting Bull’s actions against a second survey party, see Utley, Lance and the Shield, 110–11.

  19. Quotation from Linderman, Plenty-Coups, 257. The major Lakota source for the Battle of Pryor Creek is pictorial, but besides graphic depictions of action, it includes the recollections of eyewitnesses such as He Dog and Left-Hand Heron: Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 34, 383–90. For Crow recollections, see Marquis, Memoirs of a White Crow Indian, 84–96; Linderman, Plenty-Coups, chap. 16. Blackfoot (Sits in the Middle of the Land), the principal Crow chief, gave a valuable contemporary report, ARCoIA 1873, 123–25. With painstaking detail, Gray synthesizes contemporary reports and newspapers to contextualize and precisely date the battle: Custer’s Last Campaign, 97–99.

  20. He Dog, in Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 34.

  21. Marquis, Memoirs of a White Crow Indian, 93.

  22. For details of the rescue of Crazy Horse, see Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 389, and especially Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 33–34.

  23. Participation of Crazy Horse in the first action against Custer is noted by Cheyenne informants of Marquis: see Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:825–26, 1346–47.

  24. The writings of Utley are indispensable to following the railroad surveys of 1873: see Frontier Regulars, 242–43; Lance and the Shield, 111–15; Cavalier in Buckskin, 111–27. Sherman quotation in Utley, “War Houses in the Sioux Country,” 260.

  25. No figure in frontier military history has attracted more controversy, sycophantic praise, and hysterical criticism than George Armstrong Custer. The unbiased reader now has a sympathetic but critical guide in Utley’s Cavalier in Buckskin.

  26. Besides Utley’s secondary accounts, the August 4 action was memorialized by Custer himself, “Battling with the Sioux on the Yellowstone,” and by Second Lt. Charles W. Larned, Howe, “Expedition to the Yellowstone River.” For Walter M. Camp’s interview with an enlisted veteran, see Liddic and Harbaugh, Custer and Company, 37ff. See also the Cheyenne account to Marquis, in Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:825–26,1346–47; M. H. Brown, Plainsmen of the Yellowstone, 203–206; Frost, Custer’s 7th Cav and the Campaign of 1873;Taunton, “Yellowstone Interlude.”

  27. Custer, “Battling with the Sioux on the Yellowstone,” 209.

  28. Lt. Larned, in Howe, “Expedition to the Yellowstone River,” 195.

  29. For the Battle of the Yellowstone, consult Custer, “Battling with the Sioux on the Yellowstone” ; Howe, “Expedition to the Yellowstone River” ; Liddic and Harbaugh, Custer and Company, 37ff; Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:825–26,1346–47; M. H. Brown, Plainsmen of the Yellowstone, 203–206; Frost, Custer’s 7th Cav and the Campaign of 1873; Taunton, “Yellowstone Interlude” ; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 52–53.

  30. For the failure of the Northern Pacific amid the financial Panic of 1873, see Utley, Cavalier in Buckskin, 124–25, and the national context outlined in Ambrose, Crazy Horse and Custer, 371–74.

  31. Neihardt, When the Tree Flowered, 137.

  32. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 53–54; Gray, “Frank Grouard,” offers a sympathetic portrait with indefatigable detective work on Grouard’s background, for which see also Utley, Lance and the Shield, 352. The DeBarthe biography must be read with an eye to journalistic embroidery, the more galling because Grouard’s observations on Lakota life and culture are generally sound and instructive. The John Colhoff correspondence with Joseph Balmer also throws light on Grouard’s eighteen months with the northern Oglalas, including He Dog’s assertion that Grouard lived in his tipi: Colhoff to Balmer, Oct. 5, 1951, transcript in author’s collection.

  33. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 54.

  34. Ibid., 181–82; Red Feather, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 30; and He Dog, in ibid., 14. He Dog and Red Feather say, respectively, that the little girl was “about 2 years old,” and “about three years old,” when she died. The proposed birthdate of spring 1871 gives an age of approximately two-and-a-half at death—midway between the estimates, and a comfortable nine months after the wedding of Crazy Horse and Black Shawl. Grouard dates the death to 1873, plainly in the fall months after he joined the Oglalas. The dating is consistent with reconstructible northern Oglala village movements. The village was in the district between the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn again in spring 1874 but was farther south and east throughout the period June 1874–spring 1875, When Grouard permanently left Crazy Horse’s people. Fall 1873 therefore looks definite for the death of Crazy Horse’s and Black Shawl’s daughter.

  35. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 181–82.

  CHAPTER 15

  1. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 182.

  2. Miller, Custer’s Fall, 231; Leo Combing testimony, Aug. 13, 1920, Clown family heirship files; conversations between the author, Jack Meister, and Cheyenne River Reservation informants, 2001–03. Shell Blanket Woman married Stands Straddle ca. 1871, was divorced, then died in 1874. Stands Straddle was still alive in 1920.

  3. Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 203.

  4. Pourier interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers.

  5. Frank White Buffalo Man, in Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle, 150.

  6. On Long Turd, see the vivid recollection of Bone, 1915, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:452–63. Long Turd performed protective rites before Crazy Horse rode into the Battle of the Little Bighorn (see chapter 17). The literature on yuwipi and its variants, still widespread among traditional Lakota communities, is truly vast. For orientation and bibliography, see W. K. Powers, Yuwipi; Feraca, Wakinyan.

  7. “Taking a Sweatbath,” Brave Dog, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:464–67.

  8. Lt. Col. J. W. Forsyth to AG, HQ Division of the Missouri, Mar. 27, 1874, LR, AGO, contains rationing lists for both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies.

  9. A good summary of the agency economy is provided by Buecker and Paul, Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger, introduction.

  10. Agent Saville’s monthly reports and supporting documents, printed in Red Cloud Investigation, 434–53, supplemented by unprinted reports in RCA, LROIA, are the best
way to trace the crisis at Red Cloud Agency during the winter of 1873–74.

  11. “Mourning,” Brave Dog, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:572–73. No Flesh, tracking stolen agency stock, reported on the location and leadership of the northern Miniconjou village in Joseph Bissonnette to D. R. Risley Dec. 26, 1873, WA, LR, OIA. Top Hair and Foolish Bear (Sans Arc?) were the two junior Deciders in the village.

  12. Besides Saville’s monthly reports in Red Cloud Investigation, 434–53, and the supplemental unprinted reports in RCA, LR, OIA, several significant secondary accounts trace the gathering crisis: Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, 207ff; idem, Spotted Tail’s Folk, 209–12; Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, 159ff; Buecker, Fort Robinson, 4ff. Kicking Bear’s role in the Appleton killing is flatly asserted by several Lakota and iyeska statements.

  13. The situation in the northern villages on Powder River is reconstructible in bare outline from the following primary sources: J. W. Dear to Col. J. E. Smith, Feb. 19, 1874, LR, AGO; J. J. Saville to CoIA, Feb. 16, 17, 20, 1874 (telegrams); Feb. 16 (includes quotation), Feb. 23 (two reports), 1874, RCA, LROIA.

  14. Saville to CoIA, Feb. 20, 1874 (telegram); Saville to Col. J. E. Smith, Feb. 20, 1874, RCA, LROIA.

  15. Dear to Smith, Feb. 19, 1874; Saville to Smith, Feb. 20, 1874 (includes quotation). For bills and vouchers tracing the emergence of Oglala men’s society consensus to protect their agency, see Saville to CoIA, Mar. 31, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA.

  16. Forsyth to AG, HQ Division of the Missouri, Mar. 27, 1874; Buecker, Fort Robinson, 12ff; Grange, “Fort Robinson,” 196–200.

  17. Omaha Society as beef ration akicita: J. J. Saville to CoIA, Jan. 31, 1874, in Red Cloud Investigation, 448–49. For background on the society, see Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations,” 48–52; Kit Fox Society as annuity akicita: Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 146. White Packstrap Society background: Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations,” 34–36; Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 105. Role as Red Cloud Agency police under Agent Saville, Amos Appleton to Mrs. A. R. Appleton, Oct. 26, 1874, Appleton Family Papers; J. J. Saville to CoIA, Dec. 29, 1873, Red Cloud Investigation, 435–36; same to same, May 4, Aug. 7, Sept. 28, Nov. 13, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA.

  18. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 96, 209. He Dog stated, “I was on reservation before [war of] 1876 on the Platte” : He Dog, interview by Walter M. Camp, July 13, 1910, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 205.

  19. Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, 9, Neihardt Papers. A mid-1870s dating suits the status of Eagle Elk (born 1852) as a charter member of the society, and the 1874 drive to reunite the northern Oglalas around a nontreaty ideology seems the best immediate context.

  20. Ibid. Hardorff, Oglala Lakota Crazy Horse, 34, reconstructs likely membership from war party associations with Crazy Horse and bodyguard status. From a critical examination of the sources, I have extended Hardorff’s list of likely candidates.

  21. Crazy Horse and Black Twin as 1874 Deciders: see J. J. Saville to CoIA, July 20, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA. For Hump’s and Crazy Horse’s bands hunting together, spring 1874, see Utley, Lance and the Shield, 118. One Miniconjou informant stated that Hump was made a chief or head warrior by Crazy Horse himself (Chris Ravenshead, conversation with the author, Oct. 20, 1994), bearing out Nelson Miles’s contention that Hump was an Oglala head warrior, Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles, 1:243.

  22. Utley, Lance and the Shield, 118–19; Quivey, “Yellowstone Expedition of 1874” ; Hutchins, “Poison in the Pemmican” ;M. H. Brown, Plainsmen of the Yellowstone, 216–19.

  23. Utley, Lance and the Shield, 118–19; Quivey, “Yellowstone Expedition of 1874” ; Hutchins, “Poison in the Pemmican” ; M. H. Brown, Plainsmen of the Yellowstone, 216–19. Utley’s account utilizes valuable Lakota interview material that enables us to understand band movements and interactions.

  24. White Bull, in Vestal, New Sources of Plains Indian History, 162.

  25. The Bates Battle is covered in Fowler, Arapahoe Politics, 50–52;Trenholm, Arapahoes, Our People, 249–52.

  26. J. J. Saville to CoIA, July 20, 1874. Saville summarized the game shortage: “The past year there have been very few buffalo south of the Yellow Stone. Consequently all the northern bands started for the Agencies.” Saville to C. C. Cox, Dec. 16, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA.

  27. The 1874 Black Hills Expedition is treated briefly in Utley, Frontier Regulars, 243–44, and at greater length in idem, Cavalier in Buckskin, 128–41; and in Jackson, Custer’s Gold. Contemporary reports and newspaper coverage are collected in Krause and Olson, Prelude to Glory. Lakota sources relevant to my account are Slow Bull and Long Bear (both eyewitness) statements of Custer’s seizure of Stabber, in J. J. Saville to CoIA, Aug. 3, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA; Black Elk, May 1931, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 158–60.

  28. Parker, Gold in the Black Hills, contains a valuable account of the gathering crisis over the Black Hills.

  29. John Burke to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1875,ARCoIA 1875; Saville to C. C. Cox, Dec. 16, 1874; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 84. Grouard’s movements are also indicated in statements by He Dog and Alex Salway, in Colhoff to Balmer, Oct. 5, 1951 (transcript in author’s collection). Agent Saville’s incremental census, though massively inflated, traces the northern influx to Red Cloud through September: Saville to CoIA, Aug. 3, 31, Oct. 5, 1874, RCA, LR, OIA.

  30. Denver Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 11, 1874 (first quotation), further characterized Crazy Horse as “a disagreeable and ‘rambunctious’ Ogallalla” ; Saville to CoIA, Oct. 19, 1874 (telegram), RCA, LR, OIA (second quotation).

  31. Saville to Cox, Dec. 16, 1874; Captain W. H. Jordan to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, Oct. 23, 1874; Saville to CoIA, Jan. 8, 1875 [misdated 1874 in original], RCA, LR, OIA. The New York Times, May 21, 1875, covering the Lakota delegation to Washington, reported, “Crazy Horse, one of the bravest and most skillful soldiers of the Ogallalas, [originally] purposed accompanying the present visitors,” which is not confirmed in other sources, but is consistent with the trend of events through fall 1874. For Grouard, Burke to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1875,ARCoIA 1875; Saville to Cox, Dec. 16, 1874; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 84. He Dog and Alex Salway, in Colhoff to Balmer, Oct. 5, 1951 (transcript in author’s collection).

  32. The flagpole incident is covered in Buecker, Fort Robinson, 36–38; Amos Appleton to Mrs. Appleton, Oct. 26, 1874, identifies the role of the White Packstrap Society. Saville to CoIA, Nov. 30, 1874, Red Cloud Investigation, 451–53.

  33. John S. Collins to President U. S. Grant, Apr. 4, STA, LR, OIA;J. J. Saville to CoIA, Mar. 29, Apr. 8, 1875, RCA, LR, OIA. For background on the looming Black Hills crisis, see Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, chap. 10.

  34. Saville to CoIA, Apr. 8, 24 (telegram; includes first quotation), 1875, RCA, LR, OIA; New York Times, May 21, 1875 (second quotation); for Grouard, Burke to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1875, ARCoIA 1875; Saville to Cox, Dec. 16, 1874; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 84. He Dog and Alex Salway, in Colhoff to Balmer, Oct. 5, 1951 (transcript in author’s collection). A dispatch to the Omaha Weekly Bee, May 5, 1875, indicates that, besides Black Twin and Crazy Horse, Lame Deer was on Agent Saville’s invite list.

  35. Joseph Eagle Hawk narrative, “History of Crazy Horse,” in Hardorff, Surrender and Death of Crazy Horse, 133–34.

  36. Martin Gibbons (Acting Red Cloud Agent) to CoIA, May 24, 1875, RCA, LR, OIA; Henry A. Bingham to CoIA, July 1, 1875, CRA, LR, OIA. Decider appointments: see the otherwise unexplained entry for June 6, 1875: “Black Twin/Little Big Man/Crazy Horse/Little Hawk,” in Kime, Black Hills Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, 65. My reading is consistent with the key role each of these men played in the councils preparatory to the Black Hills summit. For background on the Cheyenne River Agency delegation to Washington, see H. H. Anderson, “A History of the Cheyenne River Indian Agency,” 444–47.

  37. The Red River War of 1874–75 is summarized in Utley Frontier Regulars, chap. 13. One of the most controversial actio
ns of the Plains wars, the clash on Sappa Creek has recently received two objective studies: Chalfant, Cheyennes at Dark Water Creek; and Monnett, Massacre at Cheyenne Hole. Martin Gibbons to CoIA, May 19, 24,1875, RCA, LR, OIA, notes the arrival of Cheyenne refugees in the Lakota territory.

  38. Eagle Elk, Nov. 27, 1944, 1–8 (quotation on 1), Neihardt Papers.

  39. Ibid., 3.

  40. Ibid., 4.

  41. For White Bull’s (Cheyenne) vivid recollection to George Bird Grinnell of Sitting Bull’s role in the 1875 Sun Dance, see Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:928–29 (includes quotations). For cogent assessment of Sitting Bull’s role, see G. C. Anderson, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood, 88; Utley, Lance and the Shield, 122–23.

  42. Saville to CoIA, Aug. 16, 1875, RCA, LR, OIA; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 85. On Painted Rocks, see Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 198.

  43. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 163–64 (Standing Bear), 171–72 (Iron Hawk).

  44. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 85–86 (quotation on 85). This and subsequent quotations on the Tongue River council are, unless otherwise noted, from Grouard. For additional details, see Saville to CoIA, Aug. 16, 1875; Short Bull, in Riley “Oglala Sources,” 35.

  45. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 245.

  46. Sitting Bull of the South speech, Aug. 11, 1875, in Red Cloud Investigation, 303.

  47. Saville to CoIA, Aug. 16, 1875. For the agency fact-finding deputations in the Black Hills, see Kime, Black Hills Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, 145–46, 165–66; Red Cloud Investigation, 300.

  48. Gilbert, “Big Bat” Pourier, 43.

  49. The official report of the Black Hills Commission is printed in Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1875, 1:686–703. Significant details in my account are derived from Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; Charles Turning Hawk, interview by Eli S. Ricker, Feb. 19, 1907, tablet 18, Ricker Papers; Black Elk and Standing Bear, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 162–63, 168–70, 172. In addition to a large body of as yet untapped newspaper coverage of the councils, valuable secondary accounts are provided by Olson, Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem, chap. 11; Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, 241ff; Larson, Red Cloud, 187–95.