CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

22. Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 290, establishes the chronology; idem, Centennial Campaign, 175–76, and chapter 24, analyzes casualties.

  23. Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 37. Michno, Lakota Noon, 108ff, first correlated Short Bull’s and other Indian sightings of Custer’s battalion, just as Reno’s men took up defenses atop what would later be named Reno Hill.

  24. Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 37.

  25. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 27ff; also Flying Hawk, interview by Eli S. Ricker, Mar. 8, 1907, tablet 13, Ricker Papers.

  26. Runs the Enemy, in Dixon, Vanishing Race, 174–75.

  27. Standing Bear interview, July 12, 1910, Hammer, Custer in ’76, 215; Horn Chips interview, ca. July 11, 1910, Camp Papers, BYU; Masters, Shadows Fall Across the Little Horn, 41; Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 214, 216, 232; Flying Hawk, McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 27ff; Flying Hawk interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers. For Joseph White Bull’s recollection of Crazy Horse’s appearance in the second phase of the battle, see Walter S. Campbell (Stanley Vestal) to the Editor/University of Oklahoma Press, July 16, 1948, in Hardorff, Surrender and Death of Crazy Horse, 269.

  28. John Martini testimony, in Graham, Reno Court of Inquiry, 129; Daniel A. Kanipe interview, Hammer, Custer in ’76, 93.

  29. Martini’s testimony and recollections are confused and irreconcilable for this crucial interlude, but Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 340ff, establishes the sequence of events during the lengthy hiatus between Custer’s first sighting the village and the advance into Medicine Tail Coulee.

  30. Ibid. Gray’s careful elucidation of the hitherto derided recollections of Crow scout Curley mapped onto his Reno fight chronology, once more outlines a causative sequence. The activities of Cheyenne skirmishers are indicated by John Stands in Timber, northern Cheyenne tribal historian, in Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories, 193, 197–98; Powell, People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:1007, 1018.

  31. The pivotal division of Custer’s battalion at Medicine Tail Coulee has evoked much speculation. Debate on wing composition itself has been heated, but I have accepted the reasoning of Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 141–42. What seems plain is that Custer had intended to support Reno with the whole battalion by advancing to the ford, but on learning of Reno’s collapse, Custer reassessed. Gray’s contention (Custer’s Last Campaign, 360–61) is that the Yates advance to the ford was a feint, to relieve the pressure on Reno and thus reunite the regiment. It seems to me that, given the intense debate witnessed, but not understood, by Curley (he saw Custer and guide Mitch Bouyer doing “a whole lot of talking” after word of the Reno debacle), the most flexible reading of tactics is warranted. I find Fox’s reading of the evidence (Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 312–18) to be the most persuasive.

  32. Michno, Lakota Noon, 121–24, 138–42, analyzes Indian testimony for action at the ford and Yates’s routes to and from it. Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 363–69, presents his analysis of Curley’s several recollections.

  33. Crazy Horse was the first eyewitness to ascribe Custer’s strategy to pursuit of noncombatants. See Crazy Horse-Horned Horse interview, May 24, 1877, Yankton Union and Press and Dakotaian, June 7, 1877. So large was the stream of fugitives, reasoned Crazy Horse, that Custer believed it to be “the main body of Indians retreating and abandoning their villages.” Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 315, plausibly interprets other Indian evidence.

  34. The Gray chronology posits the Reno-Benteen reunion—and entrenchment—to 4:20, five minutes before significant firing began from the Custer sector.

  35. Grinnell, Fighting Cheyennes, 350; Gall, in Burdick, David F Barry’s Indian Notes, 9–15. Eastman, “Story of the Little Big Horn,” though uneven, presents vital Lakota recollections of the battle. He suggests that Crazy Horse arrived at the village ford during the skirmishing with Yates, i.e., approximately 4:20–4:30. Given Short Bull’s meeting with Crazy Horse near Reno Hill about 4:15, this is impossible: Crazy Horse had to ride about three miles from the latter point, via the village, to the ford. Factoring in a short stopover at the Oglala circle, he must have arrived at the latter point as Yates withdrew up the coulee (4:33–4:46 according to the Gray chronology). This is consistent with the recollection of Flying Hawk, who fought at Crazy Horse’s side throughout the first phase of the battle. Stating that he “was with the leaders and could see [everything],” Flying Hawk observed Custer’s wing atop the eastern ridges (Gray: 4:32–4:38 P.M.), but his view of Yates’s retreat was obscured by warriors who had already “crossed the river” and advanced up the coulee. Flying Hawk interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers.

  36. Because Flying Hawk rode next to Crazy Horse, his perceptions are especially significant. He reasoned that Custer’s wing, seeing the coulee full of warriors pursuing Yates, determined against a descent to the village. Instead, they “came down off the second [eastern] ridge [Gray: 4:38 P.M.] and went up onto Calhoun Hill” [to reunite with Yates at 4:46]. Flying Hawk interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers.

  37. Crazy Horse-Horned Horse interview, May 24, 1877; Gall, in Burdick, David F. Barry’s Indian Notes, 9–15. Gall must have arrived late at the ford—but not as late as in Michno’s reconstruction (Lakota Noon, 167–68), since Red Hawk witnessed harangues by both Gall and Crazy Horse.

  38. Red Hawk, in Ruleau interview, tablet 29, Ricker Papers; Short Bull, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 37; Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 28; Gall in Burdick, David F. . Barry’s Indian Notes, 9–15; Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull, in McLaughlin, My Friend the Indian, 45–46. Crazy Horse’s route onto the Custer battlefield has been the subject of much controversy. Older secondary accounts, crediting an enormous village stretching for miles along the river, had him ride to a point below its downstream end, then cross the Little Bighorn to envelop from the north what would be called Last Stand Hill, just as Gall’s force closed from the south. This view has been invalidated by the closer reading of Indian testimony and the realization that the village extended only a short distance north from the village ford. See Michno, “Crazy Horse, Custer, and the Sweep” ; also Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 298ff Michno argues that Crazy Horse crossed at the village ford with the main body and followed up Deep Coulee. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull’s recollection could be adduced to support this route, but Gall (consistently derogated by Michno) insists that Crow King followed one deeply cut gully, just upstream of the lower end of the village (i.e., Deep Coulee), while Crazy Horse followed “another very deep ravine” farther downstream (Deep Ravine proper). Crazy Horse was then “very close to the soldiers [united along Calhoun Ridge] on their north side. Crow King was on the South side.” Note that north and south correlate respectively with downstream and upstream. Although I disagree with the contention that Crazy Horse arrived late—a point directly contradicted by Flying Hawk and Short Bull, both eyewitnesses—I concur that Crazy Horse accessed the battlefield via Deep Ravine. Interestingly, Private George Glenn referred to a gully that must be Deep Ravine as “Crazy Horse gully” : Glenn, interview by Walter M. Camp, Jan. 22, 1914, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 136.

  39. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 28–29.

  40. For battalion reunion and Curley’s accounts, see Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 369ff

  41. Curley, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 158–59, 162–63, 167–68. On Custer’s defensive priorities, see Taunton, “Yellowstone Interlude,” 87–88.

  42. Curley, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 158–59, 162–63,167–68.

  43. Ibid. For Custer’s dispositions, see Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 318.

  44. Curley, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 159.

  45. Gall was closely involved in this action: for his 1886 statement set down by Gen. Godfrey, see Graham, Custer Myth, 94–95.

  46. For accounts of t
he first charge on the Calhoun position, see Runs the Enemy, Dixon, Vanishing Race, 175; Hump, Graham, Custer Myth, 78; White Bull (Miniconjou), Vestal, “Man Who Killed Custer” ; Red Feather, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 85, 87;Two Moons, Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 102; Little Hawk, Young Two Moons, ibid., 62, 66.

  47. Two Moons, Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 102; White Shield (ibid., 53) recalled these maneuvers: “Of the other companies, some left the river, and some went toward it” (my italics).

  48. Curley, in Graham, Custer Myth, 11; Flying Hawk interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers. For an assessment of the left wing’s approach to the river, see Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 173ff; Scott and Bleed, Good Walk Around the Boundary, 41–44.

  49. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories, 199.

  50. Runs the Enemy (Dixon, Vanishing Race, 175–76) was among the warriors who attacked the left wing from the ridge. Crazy Horse was in the draws of Calhoun Coulee in the frame 4:45–4:55, but soon after 5:00, White Bull (Vestal, “Man Who Killed Custer,” 7) noted him across the hogback in the minutes prior to the Calhoun position collapse.

  51. For White Bull, see Vestal, “Man Who Killed Custer,” 7, and War-path, 195. Vestal’s original 1930 and 1932 interview notes with White Bull have been published in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 107–26.

  52. Runs the Enemy, Dixon, Vanishing Race, 176; He Dog, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 75; Two Moons, Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 109; Marquis, Wooden Leg, 231; Kate Big Head, Marquis, “She Watched Custer’s Last Battle,” 369. For analysis of the unit deployment down Calhoun Coulee, see Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 148ff

  53. Moving Robe Woman (Mary Crawler), in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 95. At least four authentic grave markers were placed in this sector to honor fallen soldiers. The literature on the evidence of grave markers for troop dispositions is itself extensive and contentious. A cogent reading of the evidence is Taunton, Custer’s Field. For approximations of troop fatalities per battle sector, I have drawn chiefly on Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, and Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, Fig. 7, 388.

  54. Hollow Horn Bear, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 182; Little Hawk and Young Two Moons, in idem, Cheyenne Memories, 62, 66; Runs the Enemy, Dixon, Vanishing Race, 176; Gall, Graham, Custer Myth, 95; Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 157–61.

  55. Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles, 1:287–88. The statements of Miles s informants, like the Horned Horse-Crazy Horse interview, belie assertions that Indian witnesses could not assess strategic patterns. Camp’s interview with Foolish Elk (Sept. 22, 1908, Hammer, Custer in ’76,199); the Ricker interviews with Nicholas Ruleau (tablet 29), Flying Hawk (tablet 13), and Iron Hawk (tablet 25); and those with Respects Nothing (Nov. 9, 1906, tablet 29) and Standing Bear (Mar. 12, 1907, tablet 13) also evince a strong grasp of the battle’s overall shape. They confirm that the trend of the battle’s final phase was a rapid unraveling along the hogback ridge to Last Stand Hill, where right-wing survivors consolidated with the two left-wing companies. I favor a short climactic phase—perhaps twenty minutes from the overrunning of Calhoun Hill to mopping up on Last Stand Hill and Deep Ravine.

  56. White Bull, Vestal, “Man Who Killed Custer,” 7.

  57. Ibid.; Red Feather, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 86; Gall, Graham, Custer Myth, 91. Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 264–68, vividly depicts right-wing collapse.

  58. White Bull, in Vestal, “Man Who Killed Custer,” 7, and Warpath, 196–97;White Bull, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 113; He Dog, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 207.

  59. Waterman, in Graham, Custer Myth, 110; He Dog, in Hammer, Custer in ’76, 207; He Dog, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 75; Lone Bear, in ibid., 158. White Bull’s testimony on Crazy Horse’s charge is badly garbled by his pride, the vagaries of translation, and Vestal’s hurried writing-up of his notes. In his 1932 interview, White Bull affirmed that, after counting second coup on the trooper White Bull had jerked from his mount, “Crazy Horse ran through infantry,” i.e., Keogh’s dismounted I Company. In his 1930 interview, White Bull asserts that Crazy Horse “backed out” of following White Bull in a brave run. See Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 113n, 115 and n. Close reading of the interviews suggests that two separate incidents are involved, the latter involving E Company’s approach to Last Stand Hill.

  60. For He Dog quotations, see, respectively, He Dog, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 75; He Dog, Hammer, in Custer in ’76, 207; Runs the Enemy quotation, Dixon, The Vanishing Race, 176. Dispensing with erroneous preconceptions about Crazy Horse’s route to the battlefield, and the mythical onslaught from the north, enables assessment of his true tactical significance in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse’s charge on the Keogh position, and the breaking of the right-wing retreat, emerge as his critical contribution to Custer’s defeat. For my assessment of Crazy Horse’s overall role in the victory, see chapter 18.

  61. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 29; Rain in the Face, in Eastman, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 146–48.

  62. Gall, Graham, Custer Myth, 91. Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 162–72, presents archaeological evidence for action in the Keogh sector. His reading of total tactical collapse seems an accurate assessment of the right-wing disaster, but the evidence of bodies, markers, and Indian testimony all point to a doomed but determined rally by Keogh’s I Company.

  63. White Bull, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 113. Perhaps the single greatest gap in our knowledge of the Custer battle is the synchronization of wing movements. White Bull’s testimony is vital in this regard. He establishes that, as action was climaxing in the Keogh sector, the two left-wing companies were deployed in (a) the north branch draw of Deep Ravine; and (b) a point nearer Last Stand Hill. Custer had therefore moved his units in response to the accelerating action along Calhoun Ridge and Calhoun Hill. This movement may be the “charge” reported by Red Horse (Graham, Custer Myth, 62). White Bull evidently believed that the left wing intended to consolidate with the right wing along the hogback, hence his remark that the former “don’t go any farther” than the draw. Cheyenne tradition, derived from eyewitnesses like Wolf Tooth, states that from “the basin” (= White Bull’s “draw” ), E Company led its horses back toward Last Stand Hill. (Powell, Sweet Medicine, 1:116.)

  64. Graham, Custer Myth, 62; Powell, Sweet Medicine, 1:116; White Bull, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 113, 115. For evidence of a skirmish line next to the modern visitors’ center, consistent with the E Company deployment reconstructed here, see Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 182–83, 353n44. White Bull witnessed E Company’s movement: soldiers “start[ed] to run toward the hill. Most of them don’t get to the top, and they lay down and start shooting.”

  65. Standing Bear, in DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 185–86.

  66. Young Two Moons and White Shield, in Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 55, 66. This heavy fire killed Lame White Man, unhorsing the Cheyenne war leader as he raced along the west side of the ridge in pursuit of the soldiers.

  67. For the role of the Suicide Boys, see Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories, 200–201; Powell, Sweet Medicine, 1:116–117, and People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:1027–28; and Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 189–92.

  68. Standing Bear, DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 186.

  69. Stands in Timber and Liberty, Cheyenne Memories, 200–201; Powell, Sweet Medicine, 1:116–117, and People of the Sacred Mountain, 2:1027–28; Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 189–92. A discrete cluster of soldier markers is grouped east of the hogback, midway between the Company I position and Last Stand Hill. These may represent the troopers cut off by the Suicide Boys and driven over the ridge.

  70. White Bull, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 113–15; Vestal,
Warpath, 197; Powell, Sweet Medicine, 1:117.

  71. White Bull, Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 115; Soldier Wolf and Tall Bull, in Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 43,47.

  72. Foolish Elk, interview by Walter M. Camp, Sept. 22, 1908, Hammer, Custer in ’76,199; Young Two Moons, in Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 66–67.

  73. Young Two Moons, in Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 67; Big Beaver, in ibid., 149; Red Feather, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 87.

  74. Yellow Nose, in “Yellow Nose Tells” ; Standing Bear, DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 186.

  75. Standing Bear, DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 186; Black Elk, ibid., 193; Iron Hawk, ibid., 191. For analysis of action in Deep Ravine, see Fox, Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, 203–21.

  76. Red Feather, in Hardorff, Lakota Recollections, 87–88; Standing Bear, DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 186. Hardorff conflates the overrunning of Last Stand Hill with Crazy Horse’s charge at the Keogh position, but Red Feather’s account clearly refers to the topography of the former locale (“The soldiers were on one side of the hill and the Indians on the other. . . . The Indians. . . charged right over the hill” : my emphasis). Although annihilation was now a certainty for Custer’s men, Red Feather establishes that Crazy Horse once more shaped a defining moment in the battle.

  77. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 29; Big Beaver, Hardorff, Cheyenne Memories, 150.

  78. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 29. Amos Bad Heart Bull drew a symbolic depiction of Crazy Horse clubbing Custer at the end of the battle (Bad Heart Bull and Blish, Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 269). The picture may reflect knowledge of the incident Flying Hawk reports.

  79. Flying Hawk, in McCreight, Chief Flying Hawk’s Tales, 29.

  80. Standing Bear, DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 187. The mutilations are graphically detailed in Taunton, Custer’s Field.

  81. For timing of the “Weir advance” from Reno Hill, see Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign, 319–26. Late phases of the Battle of the Little Bighorn have been understandably neglected after the climax of action on the Custer field. A good overview is Stewart, Custer’s Luck, chap. 17.