CRAZY HORSE

by Kingsley M Bray

  22. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; W. P. Clark, “Sun-Dance,” Indian Sign Language; Bradley private journal, June 26 and 29, 1877, box 1, Bradley Papers. Dana Long Wolf recalled that “the dance was actually in charge of Chief Fool Heart and three other assistants whose names he does not now recall” : W. O. Roberts, Supt. Pine Ridge Indian Agency, to Prof. E. P. Wilson, Chadron State College, June 13, 1940, copy provided by James A. Hanson, Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska.

  23. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  24. Ibid.; W. P. Clark, “Sun-Dance,” Indian Sign Language; Bradley private journal, June 26 and 29, 1877,box 1,Bradley Papers (June 29 entry includes quotation); Roberts to Wilson, June 13, 1940.

  25. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; W. P. Clark, “Sun-Dance,” Indian Sign Language; Bradley private journal, June 26 and 29, 1877, box 1, Bradley Papers; Roberts to Wilson, June 13, 1940.

  26. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; W. P. Clark, “Sun-Dance,” Indian Sign Language (second quotation on 363); Bradley private journal, June 26 and 29, 1877, box 1, Bradley Papers (quotations from June 29); Roberts to Wilson, June 13, 1940.

  27. Bradley journal, June 29, 1877.

  28. W. P. Clark, Indian Sign Language, 363.

  29. Lt. Col. P. Lugenbeel to AAG, Dept. of Dakota, June 13, 1877, Military Division of the Missouri, LR, AGO; Report of special commission to select homes for Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Indians, in Board of Indian Commissioners, 9th Annual Report, ARCoIA 1877.

  CHAPTER 23

  1. On the timing of the Miniconjou–Sans Arc Sun Dance, Spotted Tail Agent Lee noted that it was “in full operation” as he penned his report, Jesse M. Lee to CoIA, June 30, 1877, STA, LR, OIA. For oral tradition regarding the dance, see James M. Chase in Morning and Alfred Ribman, in Kadlecek and Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle, 91–93, 143–44, also ibid., chapter 4. It is noteworthy that Kicking Bear and his brothers had evidently surrendered at Spotted Tail. Members of the Wakan tiyospaye of the Oyuhpe band, they were closely related to the Miniconjous. Kicking Bear’s first marriage was to a Sans Arc woman.

  2. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  3. Jesse M. Lee to CoIA, Aug. 2, 1877, STA, LR, OIA (includes enumeration of Elk Head camp, for a total of twenty-two (sic) lodges: thirteen Miniconjou, five Sans Arc, three Oglala, one Hunkpapa). The Red Cloud agent told Lee on July 7 that the party had arrived “since the Sun Dance” : James S. Irwin to Jesse M. Lee, July 7, 1877, STA, LS, BIA, NACPR.

  4. Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 6, 1877, RCA Letterbook, NACPR; Irwin to Lee, July 7, 1877.

  5. These figures set a new baseline for the Crazy Horse village population. The numbers of Miniconjous, Brules, and Sans Arcs are rounded approximations derived from the Crazy Horse village lodges noted as transferred or fleeing from Red Cloud to Spotted Tail in the crisis period August 26–Sept. 16: see “List of Indians transferred from other Agencys [sic],” STA 1877 census, 63–71, BIA, NACPR. In addition to these people, sixty-six lodges of Oglalas (mainly Oyuhpes) joined in the flight. The flight left a rump northern village at Red Cloud Agency, all Oglalas, totaling approximately seventy-five lodges.

  6. Registers of Enlistment in the U.S. Army: Indian Scouts, 1866–1877, AGO. I am indebted to friends Ephriam D. Dickson III and Bob Lee in compiling these data.

  7. Bradley to Crook, July 16, 1877, LR, AGO.

  8. Registers of Enlistment.

  9. Bradley to Crook, July 16, 1877. Clark’s preferment of Crazy Horse and his de facto demotion of Red Cloud seem the best context in which to understand persistent oral traditions that Crazy Horse was to be recognized by the government as the Oglala head chief. See, e.g., Little Killer, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 44; White Rabbit, in Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 181; and Standing Bear’s own remarks in ibid., 179.

  10. New York Tribune, Sept. 7, 1877.

  11. Bradley to Crook, July 16, 1877. On Clark’s absence, see Camp Robinson post returns, July 1877, Fort Robinson Museum, Crawford, Nebraska. While absent, Clark remained on active duty at forts Laramie and Sanders.

  12. Short Bull and He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 25, 40.

  13. Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 51, editorial note 42. This statement probably reflects Hinman’s conversations with interpreter John Colhoff. Hinman remarks that: “The Indians interviewed seem to have been reluctant to state these suspicions in so many words to the white interviewer.”

  14. Little Killer, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 44.

  15. Bradley to Crook, July 16, 1877.

  16. Crazy Horse quotation from He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 24; Bradley to Crook, July 16, 1877.

  17. Clark to Crook, Aug. 1, 1877, LR, AGO.

  18. Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 7, 1877, in Misc. LS by Pine Ridge Agency, 1876–1914, BIA, NACPR. This is Irwin’s delayed monthly report for July, actually penned after the death of Crazy Horse.

  19. On the Larrabee family, see Red Cloud Agency 1876 and 1877 registers, in Buecker and Paul, Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger, 41, 58. Additional details from Rosebud Agency 1887 census, BIA, NARS. For a 1944 statement by Nellie’s younger brother Tom Larrabee, see Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 97–98. Lemly, “Passing of Crazy Horse,” contains some interesting if garbled details. Lemly, stationed at Camp Robinson, mistakenly believed that Nellie was the daughter of Louis Richard. See also Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  20. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; Lemly, “Passing of Crazy Horse,” 318.

  21. Garnett interview, tablet 2, and Pourier interview, tablet 13, Ricker Papers.

  22. Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 7, 1877.

  23. Mrs. Carrie Slow Bear (a. k. a. Many White Horses, Red Cloud’s daughter), in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 42.

  24. Maj. Daniel W. Burke to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, July 23, 1877; Bradley to AAG, Dept. of the Platte, July 23, 1877 (telegram), SW File; Jesse M. Lee to CoIA, Aug. 2, 1877, STA, LR, OIA.

  25. Benjamin R. Shopp to CoIA, Aug. 15, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Irwin to CoIA, Aug. 5 (telegram) and Aug. 11, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA; Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 7, 1877; Clark to Crook, Aug. 1, 1877. These sources strongly suggest that the military census conducted February through May was essentially complete. After transfers and late surrenders, the July 1 population at Red Cloud approximated 5,700 people. Irwin’s new count raised this figure to 6,536. Subsequent counts continued the trend. At the end of his tenure, he transferred to V. T McGillycuddy a ration book that tabulated 7,038 Indians at Pine Ridge Agency in March 1879—an overcounting of approximately 65 percent.

  28. Shopp to CoIA, Aug. 15, 1877.

  CHAPTER 24

  1. “Billy Hunter’s Account,” Bourke diary, vol. 24, 78.

  2. Clark to Crook, Aug. 1, 1877, LRAGO.

  3. Bourke diary, vol. 24, 54.

  4. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877, in Bourke diary, vol. 24, 72–76. At both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies, the chiefs insisted that a larger delegation be approved. Ultimately, twenty-one Lakota and three Arapaho delegates made the trip.

  5. Ibid., quotation at 73. For additional details, see “Billy Hunter’s Account.”

  6. Julia Iron Cedar Woman (Mrs. Amos Clown), in Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 70.

  7. Ibid. On dating: the most precise statement about the date of Crazy Horse and Nellie’s marriage is that of Victoria Conroy (Standing Bear), a granddaughter of Worm’s sister. She stated in 1934 that Crazy Horse and Nellie had been married for “a month or so when he was killed.” See Hardorff, Oglala Lakota Crazy Horse, 30. The marriage therefore took place in late July or early August. Iron Cedar’s reminiscence discloses that Nellie rode to Crazy Horse’s village on a day when the war chief was absent at a council with Lt. Clark. The only known councils in the correct frame are those of July 27 and August 3–4. Although either date might be possible, Garnett’s indication that Crazy Horse’s alienation immediately followed his association with Nellie Larrabe
e suggests that the later dating is correct.

  8. Julia Iron Cedar Woman, in Bordeaux, Custer’s Conqueror, 70

  9. Tom Larrabee, in ibid., 98.

  10. J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 323.

  11. Such a move is directly affirmed by Garnett, whose 1878 account states that “the Indians had started on the hunt” : “Billy Hunter’s Account,” Bourke diary, vol. 24, 78. He Dog’s reminiscence shows that the village had moved to Little Cottonwood Creek before his own defection to join Red Cloud, during the second week of August. He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 20.

  12. Crazy Horse, undated [Aug. 1877], in J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 327. Lee’s rendering is derived from a mid-August letter from Clark to Lee. Its context fits either the council of August 3–4, or, more likely, Clark’s subsequent visit to Crazy Horse’s village.

  13. “Billy Hunter’s Account,” 78. The Camp Robinson post returns for Aug. 1877, Fort Robinson Museum, detail the paymaster’s Aug. 7 visit.

  14. Crazy Horse, in J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 327.

  15. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877, in Bourke diary, vol. 24, 73; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 182. Grouard returned to Red Cloud Agency early in August after scouting duties in the Powder River country.

  16. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers. On Crazy Horse’s lack of sleep from about the second week of August, see Spotted Tail, in Lucy W. Lee’s newspaper account of the death of Crazy Horse, reprinted in Brininstool, Crazy Horse, 62–71.

  17. He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 25; Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  18. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877.

  19. He Dog, in Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 20.

  20. J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 327.

  21. For this week, see “Billy Hunter’s Account,” 78–79. On spies, see especially W. P. Clark, “Court,” Indian Sign Language, 130. Little Wolf belonged to the Oyuhpe band and had come in from the hunting grounds to Red Cloud Agency in spring 1875, in the company of Frank Grouard.

  22. Shopp to CoIA, Aug. 15, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA.

  23. He Dog, in Riley,” Oglala Sources,” 20. See also Short Bull, in ibid., 40. Details are also taken from R. A. Clark, Killing of Chief Crazy Horse, 49–68, especially 60. He Dog’s defection preceded August 18, when Clark remarked that He Dog had “joined Red Cloud” (Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877).

  24. “Billy Hunter’s Account,” 79.

  25. Bradley to AG, Dept. of the Platte, Aug. 15, 1877 (telegram), in Bourke diary, vol. 24, 54.

  26. Details on Crazy Horse’s embassy to the northern village at Spotted Tail Agency are from Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877; Maj. Daniel W. Burke to Bradley, Aug. 16, 1877, folder A, Bradley Papers (transcripts at Fort Robinson Museum, Crawford, Nebraska).

  27. American Horse, in Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA.

  28. Burke to Bradley, Aug. 16, 1877.

  29. Minutes of Lakota speeches made in Washington in September reveal how united was the Spotted Tail Agency line on agency location. See 1877 delegation proceedings, DS, LR, OIA.

  30. Capt. E. A. Koerper, Surgeon, to AG, Dist. of Black Hills, Aug. 20, 1877, STA, LR, OIA.

  31. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877. Unless otherwise noted, subsequent quotations on the August 17–18 councils are from this source.

  32. Lucy W. Lee account, in Brininstool, Crazy Horse, 68.

  33. He Dog, Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 25.

  34. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877.

  35. Irwin to CoIA, Aug. 25, 1877, in ARCoIA, 1877.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877, indicates the comparative status of the Deciders at this time, showing changes from the situation in the spring as outlined by Bourke. See Bourke diary, vol. 20, 1984–85, 1992; also Army and Navy Journal, May 12, 1877.

  38. On the friendship of Little Big Man and Big Road, see Little Big Man to the “President of U.S.,” Aug. 1, 1878, enclosed with James R. O’Beirne to CoIA, Aug. 27, 1878, RCA, LR, OIA.

  39. Clark to Crook, Aug. 18, 1877.

  40. For Clark’s ban on the hunt, see Bourke diary, vol. 24, 54–55. American Horse (in Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA) dates the formation of the Oglala tribal camp to ten or twelve days prior to August 31.

  41. J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 326.

  42. James Irwin to CoIA, Aug. 31, 1877, RCA, LR, OIA. Irwin also asserts that Crazy Horse was “lordly and dictatorial with his own people and other bands of Sioux at this and Spotted Tail Agency” (my emphasis). The unstated context is presumably related to the linked hunt and delegation issues.

  43. American Horse, Irwin to CoIA, Sept. 1, 1877.

  44. Ibid.

  45. See, e.g., speeches of Big Road and Little Big Man to the president, Sept. 25, 1877, DS, LR, OIA.

  46. Miles to AAG, Dept. of Dakota, Aug. 16, 1877(telegram), Main Series, LR, AGO.

  47. The flurry of telegrams generated by the “Sitting Bull Returns!” rumor can be examined in the correspondence files of the Office of the Adjutant General. On September 9 Sheridan finally wired Washington that “General Gibbon has positive information that Sitting Bull is still north of the line and apparently has no intention of coming south.”

  48. Bradley to Mrs. Bradley, Sept. 6, 1877, folder F, box 2, Bradley Papers; AAG, Dept. of the Platte to Sheridan, Aug. 27, 1877 (telegram), LRAGO.

  49. One lodge of Oglalas, head of the family Plenty Horses, was transferred to Spotted Tail Agency on August 25. On August 26, as the crisis deepened, one lodge of Brule (Guts, Brule Loafer band) and one more of Oglalas (Kills the Punch) were also transferred. See “List of Indians transferred from other Agencys [sic],” STA 1877 census, 63, BIA, NACPR. I surmise that by August 31, approximately twenty lodges had followed He Dog from Crazy Horse’s village and assimilated to the Oglala tribal village.

  50. Bradley to Mrs. Bradley, Sept. 6, 1877. See also Bradley private journal, August 31, 1877.

  51. Sandoz, Crazy Horse, 387–91, established the paradigm apologia for Crazy Horse, followed by, e.g., Ambrose, Crazy Horse and Custer, 465–67. By contrast, purely military historians tend to reproduce uncritically the undoctored rumors of the day.

  52. See Walker, Lakota Society, 86.

  53. For details of Black Fox’s role, and those of Kicking Bear and Shell Boy (Last-Born members) on September 4, see chapter 28.

  54. New York Tribune, Sept. 7, 1877.

  CHAPTER 25

  1. The Nez Perce war is most comprehensively treated in Greene, Nez Perce Summer, 1877. An excellent overview is Utley, Frontier Regulars, chap. 16.

  2. Sheridan to Williams, AAG, Dept. of the Platte, Aug. 28, 1877(two telegrams); Williams to Sheridan, Aug. 27, 1877 (telegram); same to same Aug. 28, 1877 (telegram); Sheridan to Crook, Aug. 28, 1877 (telegram); all in Sioux War Papers.

  3. Sheridan to Crook, Aug. 28, 1877 (telegram); Williams, Dept. of the Platte to Sheridan, Aug. 29, 1877 (telegram); Sheridan to Williams, Aug. 29, 1877 (telegram), Sioux War Papers.

  4. Bradley to AG, Dept. of the Platte, Aug. 31, 1877 (telegram; copy in Fort Robinson Museum).

  5. Ibid.; Clark to AG, Dept. of the Platte, incorporated in Williams, Dept. of the Platte to Crook, Aug. 30, 1877(telegram); Sheridan to Williams, Aug. 30, 1877(two telegrams); Williams to Sheridan, Aug. 30, 1877(telegram), all in Sioux War Papers. Billy Garnett, Red Cloud Agency interpreter, seems to have handled some of the arrangements with the agency Oglala chiefs for Clark.

  6. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  7. Lt. Jesse M. Lee to CoIA, Sept. 30, 1877, STA, LS, BIA NACPR; J. M. Lee, “Capture and Death,” 328.

  8. Col. Thomas M. Anderson, “Army Episodes and Anecdotes,” 34, Coe Papers (typescript at Fort Robinson Museum).

  9. Ibid.; “Billy Hunter’s Account,” Bourke diary, vol. 24, 79–80; Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  10. “Billy Hunter’s Account,” 80.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Red Feather, in
Riley, “Oglala Sources,” 30.

  13. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers; DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 175–76. Grouard’s account, self-serving and melodramatized by DeBarthe, is silent on his own complicity or incompetence. Nevertheless, key factual details square with Garnett’s lengthy retrospective account.

  14. Gen. Jesse M. Lee, interview by Walter M. Camp, Oct. 27, 1912, folder 116, Camp Field Notes, Camp Papers, BYU.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Crazy Horse, in Brininstool, Crazy Horse, 68–69.

  17. Louis Bordeaux, affidavit statement before Mellette Co. Judge, South Dakota, Oct. 9, 1912, in “Story of the Death of Crazy Horse, A Noted Chief of the Northern Oglala Sioux, at Fort Robinson, Sept. 6th [sic] 1877,” South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre. This affidavit was made to support Jesse Lee’s bid for the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his conduct during the Crazy Horse crisis.

  18. Louis Bordeaux, interview by Eli. S. Ricker, Aug. 30, 1907, tablet 11, Ricker Papers.

  19. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers.

  20. Bourke diary, vol. 24, 38.

  21. Clark to CoIA, Sept. 10, 1877, STA, LR, OIA.

  22. Army and Navy Journal, Sept. 15, 1877.

  23. “Billy Hunter’s Account,” 80.

  24. Bourke diary, vol. 24, 37.

  25. R.A. Clark, Killing of Chief Crazy Horse, 75–100 (quotation at 76).

  26. Col. Thomas M. Anderson, “Army Episodes and Anecdotes,” 34–35.

  27. See chapters 26–27 for full analysis of alleged plots and conspiracies against Crazy Horse.

  28. Lee interview, Oct. 27, 1912.

  29. Bordeaux affidavit statement, Oct. 9, 1912.

  30. V. T. McGillycuddy in Brininstool, “How ‘Crazy Horse’ Died,” 34. This statement derives from information given McGillycuddy by an anonymous interpreter (elsewhere identified as Louis Bordeaux) on the evening of Sept. 2, 1877.

  31. Ibid.

  32. DeBarthe, Frank Grouard, 176.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Garnett interview, tablet 2, Ricker Papers. All subsequent details and quotations from the meeting with Clark are derived from this source.