CRAZY HORSE
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50. Omaha Weekly Bee, Oct. 13, 1875.
51. Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 48–49. Bordeaux’s chronology is scrambled, with the vision quest placed anywhere in the frame August 1875–April 1876. Nevertheless, the presence of Touch the Clouds is significant because sections of Bordeaux’s uneven book that feature the Miniconjou leader seem more reliable than other sections. I have therefore accepted the story and placed it in what seems the best chronological context.
52. For Lone Horn’s role in the Black Hills negotiations, see especially Black Elk, Standing Bear, and Iron Hawk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 169,171–72; also Singing Bear, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:605–607, 611–13. Awkwardly caught between the Cheyenne River Agency consensus to sell the hills and the Northern Nation determination to keep its land, Lone Horn was torn by the pressure of competing claims. During the winter of 1875–76, the great Miniconjou chief, who had so skillfully steered the middle course between Lakota factions, died after twelve months of intense diplomatic activity.
53. Saville to CoIA, Oct. 11, 1875, RCA, LR, OIA; Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 164–66,169–70 (quotation on 170).
54. For the growth of Black Hills settlement, see Parker, Gold in the Black Hills.
55. The closest reading of the White House summit and the Watkins report (printed in Senate Executive Documents, 44th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 52, 3ff), sardonically critical of government chicanery but adducing extensive off-the-record newspaper coverage, is Gray, Centennial Campaign, chap. 3. More sympathetic interpretations are provided by Hedren, Fort Laramie in 1876, 17–18; Utley Frontier Regulars, 246–48.
56. Hastings to CoIA, Jan. 28, 1876, RCA, LR, OIA, outlines the response from Crazy Horse and Black Twin. Village movements are analyzed in Gray, Centennial Campaign, 321–22.
57. John Burke to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1875, ARCoIA 1875; Manypenny Our Indian Wards, 305–308.
58. Preparations for the spring campaign are concisely presented in Utley, Frontier Regulars, 248–49. See also Gray, Centennial Campaign, 47ff
59. The date of Black Twin’s death is most clearly indicated by He Dog interview, July 13, 1910, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 208: “Black Twins not in [Custer] fight. Died in 1875.” He Dog probably expressed this date as the winter before the Custer battle. Agent Hastings’ contemporary report establishes that Black Twin was still alive in January 1876, but his complete absence from the voluminous Lakota accounts of the war of 1876 suggests a death in February. Hyde’s contention (Red Cloud’s Folk, 306) that “Black Twin died in the Crazy Horse camp, after its surrender in 1877,” is not borne out by the record.
60. He Dog to Helen Blish, 1930, in (a) John Colhoff to Joseph Balmer, Apr. 7, 1952 (transcript in author’s collection); (b) Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 391–92; Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 35. General background on band movements is brilliantly presented by Gray, Centennial Campaign, 321–25.
61. Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 35. Cheyenne sources are synthesized in Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:937ff, 1361.
62. Lt. W P. Clark to AG, Dept. of the Platte, Sept. 14, 1877, SW File. This crucial synthesis of accounts given Clark by Lakota scouts and surrendering warriors has been published with valuable contextual material in Buecker, “Lt. William Philo Clark’s Sioux War Report,” 16.
63. Victor Douville, Lakota Studies Department, Sinte Gleska University, conversation with the author, Sept. 26, 2001.
CHAPTER 16
1. On the Reynolds fight and its aftermath, see Marquis, Wooden Leg, 159–74 (quotation at 170). This classic Cheyenne account is amplified by those presented in Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:937–46. See also Vaughn, Reynolds Campaign on Powder River; Utley Frontier Regulars, 249–51;Bourke, On the Border with Crook, chaps. 15–16; Greene, Battles and Skirmishes, chap. 1; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 54–58. I have used Gray’s groundbreaking analysis of Indian numbers and movements in the spring of 1876 (chap. 27) as a basis for my own account throughout this chapter.
2. Lakota accounts of the Reynolds battle: He Dog to Helen Blish, 1930, in (a) John Colhoff to Joseph Balmer, Apr. 7, 1952 (transcript in author’s collection); (b) Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 391–92; Short Bull statements, in (a) Colhoff to Balmer, Feb. 9, 1949 (transcript in author’s collection); (b) Riley “Oglala Sources,” 35; Iron Hawk, interview by Eli S. Ricker, May 12, 1907, tablet 25, Ricker Papers. According to Colhoff, He Dog stated, “We were very much peeved at Frank Grouard.”
3. Two Moons, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 132–33; Crazy Horse quotation in Two Moons, interview by Hamlin Garland, 1898, in Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 100.
4. Marquis, Wooden Leg, 170–72; Vestal, Sitting Bull, 140–41, and Warpath, 182–83. For assessment of Sitting Bull’s role, Utley, Lance and the Shield, 132ff
5. He Dog, in Colhoff to Balmer, Apr. 7, 1952.
6. Vestal, Warpath, 182 (first quotation). My reconstruction of the Metz party killings is based on a letter datelined “Spotted Tail Agency, May 8, 1876” and published under the headline “Crazy Horse’s Revenge” in Omaha Daily Bee, May 15, 1876 (second quotation). This letter was based on intelligence received from agency Oglalas returning from the north. The killings, well known in Black Hills folklore, have also been ascribed to outlaws, but this earliest of accounts merits respect. It meshes with He Dog’s guarded statement to Mari Sandoz, June 30, 1931: “White men say C[razy] H[orse] killed negro and his wife [sic] in Black Hills. . . Maybe CH killed him [sic]. Don’t know.” Folder 16, part 2, box 31, Sandoz Papers. Black Hills historian Robert H. Lee states (letter to the author, Feb. 29, 2000) that the only black fatality in the early settlement of the region, known to him, was Rachel Briggs, the Metz family maid.
7. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 325–28; “The Surrender,” Waggoner Papers (includes quotation).
8. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 141.
9. For Gibbon’s activities, see Gray, Centennial Campaign, chap. 7; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 252; Stewart, March of the Montana Column. The role of the Crow scouts is brilliantly analyzed in Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, chaps. 12–14.
10. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 82–83, 329–30; on Sitting Bull’s vision, Utley, Lance and the Shield, 136.
11. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 283–89; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 92–94, 336. Little Big Man’s role in Red Cloud Agency defections—consistent with his shuttling between agency and hunting grounds, 1873–75—is indicated by Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 170.
12. Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 170–71.
13. For Crook’s preparations, see Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 289–91; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 110ff; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 253;Vaughn, With Crook at the Rosebud, chap. 1.
14. Terry and Custer’s preparations are outlined in Utley, Frontier Regulars, 252–53; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 86–90, 97ff
15. Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 171; Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:954; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 329–30, 336.
16. Good Weasel, in Buechel and Manhart, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:374–83.
17. Vestal, Sitting Bull, chap. 21 (quotation at 150–51); Utley, Lance and the Shield, 137–39.
18. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 296.
19. For Crook’s march from Fort Fetterman, see ibid., 291ff; Finerty War-Path and Bivouac, chaps. 5–8 Vaughn, With Crook at the Rosebud, chaps. 2–3; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 253; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 111ff. The action of June 9 is also covered in Greene, Battles and Skirmishes, chap. 2; idem, Lakota and Cheyenne, 21–23, contains Cheyenne recollections. Anonymous Lakota accounts are presented in Eastman, “Story of the Little Big Horn.”
20. Eastman, “Story of the Little Big Horn” ; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 115–16, 327, 331.
21. Cheyenne accounts are richest for the preamble to the Battle of the Rosebud. All are syn
thesized in Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:954–56; several are presented in original interview format in Greene, Lakota and Cheyenne, 21ff.
22. Marquis, Wooden Leg, 198.
23. Standing Bear, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 174. Besides the memoirs of Bourke and Finerty, Crook’s movements are best followed in Gray, Centennial Campaign, 120–21; Vaughn, With Crook at the Rosebud, chap. 4.
24. Eastman, “Story of the Little Big Horn” ; Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 37 (for Good Weasel’s presence with Crazy Horse). Sitting Bull’s debilitation, as observed by G. C. Anderson, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood, 90, kept him out of the battle, but Vestal’s interviews with White Bull and One Bull indicate that he accompanied the war party and exhorted the warriors to bravery. In assessing the warrior strength, I have accepted the low figure adduced by Gray, Centennial Campaign, 120.
25. For syntheses on the Battle of the Rosebud, see Vaughn, With Crook at the Rosebud; Mangum, Battle of the Rosebud; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 255–56; Gray, Centennial Campaign, 123–24. A talk by Neil Gilbert, “Did Crook Fail Custer?” delivered at Hastings Museum, Dec. 4, 1999, has also shaped my analysis. I am indebted to Neil for further advice on my treatment of the battle. These sources establish the essential framework of chronology and spatial correlations on a widely flung battlefield. Cheyenne recollections of the battle are richest (Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:954–56; Greene, Lakota and Cheyenne, 21ff), but Lakota perspectives are provided by Vestal, Warpath, chap. 19; and the interviews with Black Elk, Standing Bear, and Iron Hawk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 174–77. Speculation that Crazy Horse planned an ambush of Crook was rife as soon as the dust settled on the battle. Later historians have tended to dismiss the idea, but the fact—noted by Grinnell’s Cheyenne informant Young Two Moons (see Greene, Lakota and Cheyenne, 26)—that akicita “formed a line and would let [the warriors] go no farther,” is consistent with a projected decoy-ambush plan.
26. Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 311; Finerty, War-Path and Bivouac, 86.
27. Short Bull, July 13, 1930, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 37.
28. Vestal, Sitting Bull, 153 (first quotation); Miller, Ghost Dance, 289 (second quotation); Short Bull, July 13, 1930, Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 37 (third quotation).
29. Pourier quotation from Eddie Herman, “Noted Oglala Medicine Man Kept Crazy Horse’s Secret,” Rapid City Daily Journal, Feb. 11, 1951. Henry W Daly (civilian packer), quoted in Vaughn, With Crook at the Rosebud, 109, confirms Crazy Horse’s presence in this attack.
30. Iron Hawk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 176.
31. Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 52; Thunder Tail account of Crazy Horse, Sept. 1915, in Buechel and Paul, Lakota Tales and Texts, 2:625, 631.
32. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 333–34.
33. Hollow Horn Bear, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 177–79.
34. Gray, Centennial Campaign, 327,333,356. I have accepted the relative accuracy of Gray’s reconstructed lodge totals for the village as of June 24–25, 1876. Further research should yield still finer tuning, but there can be little doubt that Gray’s figures are substantially correct. On Oglala leadership, I have followed Vestal, Sitting Bull, 143, naming Crazy Horse, Low Dog, Big Road, and “Sweat” (a nickname for Iron Hawk) as Oglala leaders. By his own account, Iron Hawk was the Oglala herald (Iron Hawk interview, tablet 25, Ricker Papers), an honor typically accorded the senior akicita officer. He Dog’s status as akicita is confirmed by Gen. Hugh L. Scott’s identifying him as “Crazy Horse’s head soldier” in 1876 (Graham, Custer Myth, 98). Big Road, the Oyuhpe Shirt Wearer, was a Decider in 1877 and likely held the honor in 1876 too.
35. White Bull, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 109n. For background on Custer’s march up the Rosebud, and subsequent night march, June 24–25, see especially Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, chaps. 16–17.
36. Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:1006–1007; Utley, Lance and the Shield, 143–44. For Crazy Horse’s anxiety, see Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 53–55.
CHAPTER 17
1. George Close, in John Colhoff to Joseph Balmer, Dec. 3, 1951 (transcript in author’s collection). George Close (Kanye, died 1949) was Red Feather’s eldest son, born at dawn June 25, 1876.
2. For village activities, see especially Grinnell, Fighting Cheyennes, 348; Marquis, “She Watched Custer’s Last Battle,” 366; Red Horse, in Graham, Custer Myth, 57, 61; Black Bear, interview by Walter M. Camp, July 18, 1911, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 203–204; Miller, Custer’s Fall, 63, 75–76.
3. Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 180–81; Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 98–99. On Custer battle chronology, the analysis of Custer’s march in Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, provides a painstaking reconstruction figured to the half minute. Although skeptics have questioned the precision of Gray’s clocktime system, its strength lies in its all but incontrovertible reconstruction of relative time elapsed. Consequently, certain anchor points seem beyond reasonable question: e.g., significant action began at Reno’s skirmish line about 3:15–3:20 P. M and transferred to the Custer sector of the field one hour later, where serious resistance concluded by about 5:30. This framework forms the basis of my chronology of the battle. While Gray himself, the most fastidiously analytical of historians, would balk at back-projecting his timescale onto village events, where participants paid no heed to clock times, his achievement frees historians to impose time constraints on Indian eyewitness testimony notoriously impervious to chronology.
4. Feather Earring, in Graham, Custer Myth, 97; He Dog interview by Camp, July 13, 1910, Hammer, Custer in ’76, 206.
5. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 181; Red Horse, Graham, Custer Myth, 57, 61.
6. Emily Standing Bear, in Fox, “West River History,” 150. Horned Horse, in Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 416; Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 98–99; Iron Hawk interview, tablet 25, Ricker Papers. Historians have incorrectly assumed that Ricker’s informant is the same Iron Hawk as Neihardt’s 1931 interviewee. The latter was a Hunkpapa, like Black Elk, a youth in 1876; Ricker’s informant, in his mid-forties at the Little Bighorn, was by that time the regular herald in the northern Oglala village.
7. Red Feather, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 81ff
8. Ibid.
9. The literature on the Battle of the Little Bighorn continues to grow exponentially. Vital to any study is the 1879 testimony of officers, enlisted men, and civilian scouts, Graham, Reno Court of Inquiry. Many older reconstructions of the action retain historiographical interest but have been superseded in the last generation by advances in archaeology and belated serious analysis of the voluminous Indian testimony. Of older overviews, Stewart, Custer’s Luck, remains of value, but the benchmark syntheses of the last twenty-five years are Greene, Evidence and the Custer Enigma; Hardorff, Markers, Artifacts and Indian Testimony; Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign; Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle. Archaeological work since 1984 has been presented in Scott and Fox, Archaeological Insights into the Custer Battle, and Scott and Bleed, Good Walk Around the Boundary. A truly landmark publication of the Walter Camp interviews is Hammer, Custer in ’76. Particularly valuable compilations of Indian accounts include Hardorff, Lakota Recollections and Cheyenne Memories; Greene, Lakota and Cheyenne. Michno, Lakota Noon, is a synthesis of Indian testimony.
10. For Custer’s dispositions and chronology, I continue to rely on Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, chap. 19.
11. The sighting of the warrior force downstream from Custer is attested by Sergeant Daniel A. Kanipe, in (a) interview by Walter M. Camp, June 16–17, 1908, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 92–93, 97; (b) Graham, Custer Myth, 249.
12. Hardorff, Hokahey!, chap. 2.
13. Ibid., 42; Miller, Custer’s Fall, 95ff; He Dog, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 206 (first quotation); Red Feather, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 81 (second quotation); Black Elk, in DeMallie, Sixt
h Grandfather, 181–82; Iron Hawk interview, tablet 25, Ricker Papers.
14. Crazy Horse’s preparations are outlined by Standing Bear, interviewed by Camp, July 12, 1910, Hammer, Custer in ’76, 215 (includes quotation); Horn Chips interview, ca. July 11, 1910, Camp Papers, BYU; Masters, Shadows Fall Across the Little Horn, 41. His appearance in the Reno phase of the battle is probably accurately represented in Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 214, 216, 232.
15. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers (first quotation); Red Hawk, in Nicholas Ruleau, interview by Eli S. Ricker, Nov. 20, 1906, tablet 29, Ricker Papers (second quotation); Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 27ff
16. DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 182.
17. Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 217; Iron Hawk interview, tablet 25, Ricker Papers. Red Feather noted the concurrence of Reno’s flight and Crazy Horse’s charge: “Just then Crazy Horse came” —adding with Old Testament brio, “He came amongst the soldiers” (Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 83–84). For Kicking Bear’s killing of Bloody Knife, see Dewey Beard, in Eddie Herman to Joseph Balmer, Jan. 2, Apr. 5, 1955 (transcripts in author’s collection).
18. Roman Rutten, interview by Walter M. Camp, Hammer, Custer in ’76, 118–19 (first quotation); J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 325 (second quotation); Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 415.
19. Red Feather, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 84; Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 232. The Bad Heart Bull drawings graphically depict the “buffalo chase” of Reno’s command.
20. Eagle Elk statement on the Custer Fight, Nov. 14, 1944, Neihardt Papers.
21. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 27 (; Eagle Elk statement on the Custer Fight, Nov. 14, 1944, Neihardt Papers.