#GreatSiouxWar

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George Armstrong Custer

George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876) was an officer in the US Army, serving in the cavalry from 1861 to 1865 during the American Civil War and the wars against the Plains Indians 1866-1876. Although he became a widely recognized hero during the Civil War, he is best remembered for his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Custer established a reputation for recklessness, courage, and self-promotion early in the Civil War and, by 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, was a national hero. He blocked the retreat of General Robert E. Lee (l. 1807-1870) in April 1865 and was present at Appomattox Court House when Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant (l. 1822-1885). After the war, he oversaw Reconstruction in Texas before taking command of the newly formed 7th Cavalry in campaigns against the Native Americans of the West.

He led his troops against the Cheyenne people at the Washita Massacre/Battle of the Washita River in November 1868 and, ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, marched his troops into the Black Hills in 1874 where he discovered gold. News of this discovery soon brought more settlers and miners into Sioux and Cheyenne territory, igniting the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25-26 June 1876) Custer and his men were slaughtered by Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux warriors under chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890). Afterwards, thanks in large part to the efforts of his wife, Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer (l. 1842-1933), George Armstrong Custer came to be regarded as a great American hero.

His legacy and reputation held until shortly before the Second World War (1939-45) when scholars began challenging the traditional narrative. Today, Custer is a controversial figure, often condemned for his brutality and ruthlessness. Although Custer should certainly be held accountable for his actions, it must also be recognized that he was primarily advancing the genocidal policies of his government which saw the American Indian as an obstacle to progress, civilization, and Manifest Destiny.

Early Years & West Point

George Armstrong Custer was born on 5 December 1839 in New Rumley, Ohio, to Emanuel Henry Custer, a blacksmith, and his second wife, Marie Ward Kirkpatrick. He was named after a minister as his mother hoped this would encourage him to follow that path. He had three older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage and four full siblings, including Thomas and Boston, who would also join the military and die with him in battle.

He was sent to live with his older half-sister and her family in Monroe, Michigan, to attend school and met the girl who would one day become his wife, Elizabeth Clift Bacon. After graduating, he moved to Hopedale, Ohio, and enrolled at the Hopedale Normal College, pursuing a teaching degree. He began his teaching career in Cadiz, Ohio, in 1856 and boarded at the home of the Holland family, where he fell in love with the daughter, Mary Jane Holland. He hoped to marry her but found little opportunity for advancement in Ohio, so he decided to change careers and apply to West Point Military Academy. Scholar Nathaniel Philbrick comments:

He'd been a seventeen-year-old schoolteacher back in Ohio when he applied to his local congressman for an appointment to West Point. Since Custer was a Democrat and the congressman was a Republican, his chances seemed slim at best. However, Custer had fallen in love with a local girl, whose father, hoping to get Custer as far away from his daughter as possible, appears to have done everything he could to persuade the congressman to send the schoolteacher with a roving eye to West Point.

(47)

Custer entered West Point in July 1857 and, before the end of his first session, had earned 27 demerits. By graduation, he had been given more demerits than any of the other cadets in his class. After graduation in June 1861, he faced court martial for failing to break up a fight between cadets but was only reprimanded as the American Civil War was already underway. Many of Custer's classmates had left to fight for the Confederacy and the Union forces were in dire need of trained officers. Custer was commissioned a second lieutenant and sent to drill volunteers in Washington, D.C.

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[amymcools]

Stone monument, dedicated in 1934, near the site where Crazy Horse was bayoneted. I placed this little spray of sage here, picked in Deep Ravine at the Little Bighorn Battlefield from which Crazy Horse led his charge to split Custer’s forces. This maneuver was key to the successful outcome of the at battle. You can see that the morning breeze is about to waft the sprig away. Hear more about my visit to Fort Robinson following Crazy Horse at https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2017/12/13/new-podcast-episode-2/ #crazyhorse #fortrobinson #nativeamericanhistory #oglalalakota #americanhistory #greatsiouxwar #littlebighorn (at Fort Robinson)

[pavel-nosok]

How to Befriend Crows and Turn Them Against Your Enemies

How to Befriend Crows and Turn Them Against Your Enemies

A few months ago, I endeavored to imprint myself onto a bunch of ducks so they’d think I was their mother. It wasn’t great. All the ducks did was crap all over my house, and, my god, the constant quacking. So I’m moving onto crows. Instead of a gaggle of stupid ducklings following me around, I’m going to have a ton of… Read more…

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Morning Star (Dull Knife) - Eastman's Biography

Morning Star (Vooheheve, l. c. 1810-1883, better known as Dull Knife) was a Northern Cheyenne chief who led his people in resistance to the US government's policies of genocidal westward expansion. He participated in Red Cloud's War (1866-1868), various engagements between 1868-1876, and was defeated at the Battle on the Red Fork (the Dull Knife Fight) in 1876.

Afterwards, he and his people were forced from their homelands in the Dakota territories onto the reservation in modern-day Oklahoma. The conditions there were terrible and many died of disease and starvation. In 1878, Morning Star and Chief Little Wolf (also known as Little Coyote, l. c. 1820-1904) led their people out of the reservation in what has come to be known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, hoping to reach and reclaim their homelands in the region of modern-day Montana.

Little Wolf's band separated from the group, heading toward the Powder River territory, while Morning Star's band continued on, hoping to reach the Sioux chief Red Cloud (l. 1822-1909) and safety at the Red Cloud Agency (later the Pine Ridge Reservation). They were apprehended in October 1878 by the US Cavalry and brought to Fort Robinson where they were imprisoned and told they would have to return south to the reservation. Morning Star told the authorities:

All we ask is to be allowed to live, and live in peace…We bowed to the will of the Great Father and went south. There we found a Cheyenne cannot live. So we came home. Better it was, we thought, to die fighting than to perish of sickness…You may kill me here, but you cannot make me go back. We will not go. The only way to get us there is to come in here with clubs and knock us on the head and drag us out and take us down there dead. (Brown, 332)

Negotiations between Morning Star and authorities went nowhere, and, in early January 1879, it was decided food, water, and firewood rations would be withheld from the prisoners to force their compliance in returning south. The Cheyenne instead broke out, using weapons they had hidden in blankets and clothing, in an event later known as the Fort Robinson Breakout and Fort Robinson Massacre (9 January 1879). 60 Cheyenne were killed, 70 captured and returned to the fort, while Morning Star and a few others escaped and fled to the Red Cloud Agency where they were protected by Red Cloud.

Morning Star was then able to negotiate terms, which resulted in the establishment of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana in 1884, although he would not live to see that, dying in 1883.

Eastman's Biography & Omissions

The Sioux physician, lecturer, and author Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939), includes Morning Star in his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916) by his Sioux name "Dull Knife" (which he is better known by, largely due to Eastman's work). Almost nothing is known of Morning Star's life prior to his participation in Red Cloud's War, and Eastman's biography reflects that.

The work includes anecdotes of the chief's younger years but focuses on his life after 1875 and, especially, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus and Fort Robinson Massacre. For unknown reasons, considering the usual accuracy of Eastman's biographies, he claims that Morning Star (Dull Knife) was killed at Fort Robinson in 1879 when it is known he lived until 1883, dying of natural causes. No explanation for this is available. The rest of the work is considered accurate, however, especially regarding Cheyenne support for the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.

Many details are omitted, however, including how Morning Star was among the chiefs present at the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which ended Red Cloud's War and promised the Sioux their ancestral lands in the region of modern-day South Dakota, part of North Dakota, and Nebraska. This treaty was not honored by the US government, leading to further hostilities and, eventually, the Great Sioux War.

Morning Star was not present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Battle of the Greasy Grass, 25-26 June 1876) but was inspired by the victory of Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890), Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877), and Sioux war chief Gall (l. c. 1840-1894) to again take up arms against the US military. He and Little Wolf were defeated by troops under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie (l. 1840-1889) and his Pawnee allies at the Battle on the Red Fork (the Dull Knife Fight) on 25 November 1876.

It was this defeat that led to the Northern Cheyenne being forcibly removed to the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in "Indian Territory" of modern-day Oklahoma in April 1877. The terrible conditions there then resulted in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878.

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Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Battle of the Little Bighorn (25-26 June 1876) is the most famous engagement of the Great Sioux War (1876-1877). Five divisions of the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876) were wiped out in one day by the combined forces of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors under the Sioux chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890).

Custer located Sitting Bull's camp by the banks of the Little Bighorn River (known to the local Native Americans as the Greasy Grass) in modern-day Montana but had no idea how large it was or how many warriors were present. Having been given a free hand to wage total war against the Plains Indians, Custer divided his command as he had in 1868 at the Washita Massacre. His plan was to attack the camp from opposite sides and close on it in a pincer movement, capturing the women and children as hostages, and forcing whatever warriors had not been killed to surrender. He sent Captain Frederick Benteen (l. 1834-1898) to scout, and Major Marcus Reno (l. 1834-1889) to position himself to strike at the far side.

When Reno launched his attack, however, he was met by a large force of warriors under Sioux war chief Gall (l. c. 1840-1894). Benteen, who had been ordered to bring ammunition to Custer's position, instead tried to support Reno but wound up joining him in retreat. While Gall was driving back Reno and Benteen, Sioux war chief Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877) led a charge against Custer's position.

Custer and all five companies with him were killed in what has come to be known as "Custer's Last Stand." The battle was a decisive Native American victory but could not be capitalized upon because of the public outcry for revenge for the death of Custer, a popular hero of the American Civil War who had also made a name for himself as an Indian Fighter.

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn (also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass), the Native American leaders went their separate ways to avoid capture and execution. The last major engagements of the Great Sioux War were US victories (or a draw, in the case of the Battle of Wolf Mountain), and, with the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and others pushed onto reservations, the Great Plains were open for colonization.

Background

According to the Yanktonai Sioux Chief Lone Dog's Winter Count (a yearly account of events from 1800-1870), "White soldiers made their first appearance in the region" in 1823-1824 (Townsend, 128). The Sioux had little to do with them until 1854 when 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan arrived at the camp of Sioux Chief Conquering Bear (l. c. 1800-1854) and demanded the surrender of a man he claimed had stolen a cow from a passing wagon train of Mormons. Conquering Bear refused the demand, Grattan's men opened fire (mortally wounding Conquering Bear), and the Sioux then slaughtered Grattan and the 30 troops under his command in what came to be known as the Grattan Fight or the Grattan Massacre, leading to the First Sioux War of 1854-1856.

Prior to the Grattan Fight, the US government had negotiated land rights and territories with several nations of Plains Indians, including the Sioux and the Cheyenne, through the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which stipulated, among other terms, that the United States had no claim on the lands occupied by those nations. Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle (l. c. 1803-1868) was among those who signed the treaty, which was never honored by the United States and was broken in 1858 when gold was discovered in the region, prompting Pike's Peak Gold Rush and an influx of settlers. Further encroachments led to the Colorado War (1864-1865), during which Black Kettle's peaceful village, flying the American flag and the white flag of truce, was attacked in the Sand Creek Massacre of 29 November 1864.

Black Kettle at Sand Creek

Stone Rabbit (CC BY-SA)

As more settlers claimed Native American lands as their own, Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud (l. 1822-1909) launched Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) in defense of his people's land and to force the United States to honor its treaty. The war concluded with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 but, that same year, Black Kettle, his wife, and between 60-150 Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered by troops under Custer's command at the Washita Massacre on 27 November. The treaty of 1868 established the Great Sioux Reservation, but this was broken when, in 1874, Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills, sacred to the Sioux (and other nations) and part of the lands promised them. The Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876 that resulted from Custer's find ignited the Great Sioux War when the US government demanded the Sioux sell the Black Hills and the Sioux refused.

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Great Sioux War

The Great Sioux War (also given as the Black Hills War, 1876-1877) was a military conflict between the allied forces of the Lakota Sioux/Northern Cheyenne and the US government over the territory of the Black Hills and, more widely, US policies of westward expansion and the appropriation of Native American lands.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had established the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, and promised this land to the Sioux in perpetuity. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, the treaty was ignored by the US government, leading to the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876. The Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho responded with armed resistance in raids on wagon trains, skirmishes, and five major battles fought between March 1876 and January 1877:

Battle of Powder River (Reynolds Battle) – 17 March 1876

Battle of the Rosebud (Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother) – 17 June 1876

Battle of the Little Bighorn (Battle of the Greasy Grass) – 25-26 June 1876

Battle of Slim Buttes – 9-10 September 1876

Battle of Wolf Mountain (Battle of Belly Butte) – 8 January 1877

In between these, were so-called minor engagements with casualties on both sides but, after June 1876, greater losses for the Sioux and Cheyenne. The final armed conflict of the Great Sioux War was the Battle of Muddy Creek (the Lame Deer Fight, 7-8 May 1877), by which time the Sioux war chief Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877) had already surrendered and the chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890) and Sioux war chief Gall (l.c. 1840-1894) and others had fled to the region of modern-day Canada. Although the war was over by May 1877, ending in a victory for the US military, some bands of Sioux and Cheyenne continued to struggle against reservation life until the Wounded Knee Massacre of 29 December 1890 broke their resistance.

Background

Although the first armed conflict between the Plains Indians and Euro-Americans was in 1823, problems between the Sioux and the US military began on 19 August 1854 with the Grattan Fight (Grattan Massacre), when 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan led his command of 30 soldiers to the camp of Chief Conquering Bear (l. c. 1800-1854) to demand the surrender of a man they claimed had stolen a cow from a Mormon wagon train.

Conquering Bear refused to surrender anyone, offering compensation instead, and, as the negotiations broke down, Grattan's men fired on the Sioux, mortally wounding Conquering Bear, and the Sioux warriors retaliated, killing Grattan and all of his command. The US military responded with campaigns against the Sioux in the First Sioux War of 1854-1856, which also included actions against their allies, the Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Tensions escalated after the opening of the Bozeman Trail in 1863, the establishment of forts to protect white settlers using the trail, and the Sand Creek Massacre of 29 November 1864. Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) was launched in response to the construction of these forts and the policies of the US government, concluding with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which established the Great Sioux Reservation (modern-day South Dakota and parts of North Dakota and Nebraska), including the Black Hills – a site sacred to the Sioux – which was promised to them for "as long as the grass should grow and the rivers flow."

When Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876) discovered gold in the Black Hills in 1874, the Fort Laramie treaty was broken as over 15,000 white settlers and miners streamed into the region during the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876. The US government offered to purchase the Black Hills, but the Sioux would not sell. More settlers arrived, the government ignored Sioux demands that the 1868 treaty be honored, and the Great Sioux War began in March of that year, with the Reynolds campaign on the Powder River.

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Black Elk on the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Black Elk (l. 1863-1950) of the Oglala Lakota Sioux was twelve years old at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on 25 June 1876. He gives his account of the famous conflict in the work Black Elk Speaks (1932), and, even at a distance from the event, his memory is supported by earlier narratives.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn (also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass/Fight of the Greasy Grass, 25-26 June 1876) is the most famous engagement of the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and is commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand as the Civil War hero and Indian fighter Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876) was defeated and killed there by opposing forces led by Sioux warriors Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877) and Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890). The engagement was a decisive victory for the Sioux but would be their last in the war as, afterwards, the US military sought retaliation.

Black Elk would be 13 on 1 December of 1876, but, according to his own account, he was still considered a "boy" in June of 1876 as he had not yet faced an enemy in battle or taken his first scalp. This would all change at the Battle of the Little Bighorn when he was forced to engage with the hostile forces of the US military and was commanded by an older warrior to take an enemy's scalp.

His narrative of the chaos and confusion of the battle, given to the American poet and writer John G. Neihardt (l. 1881-1973) in 1932, is supported by the account given by the Sioux warrior Rain-in-the-Face (l. c. 1835-1905) to the Sioux physician and author Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939) as given in Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916). Rain-in-the-Face, according to Eastman's account, notes:

In that fight, the excitement was so great that we scarcely recognized our nearest friends! Everything was done like lightning. (137)

This version of the battle is also given by others, including the Northern Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg (l. c. 1858-1940) and Sioux war chief Gall (l.c. 1840-1894). Gall is referenced by Black Elk below in rallying the warriors against the charge of Major Marcus Reno (l. 1834-1889), who was the first to assault the camp of the Sioux and their Cheyenne-Arapaho allies on 25 June 1876.

The significance of Black Elk's account, aside from what it has to say about the confusion of the battle, is widely recognized as an accurate depiction of how the Plains Indians, specifically the Sioux, felt about the westward expansion of the United States onto their ancestral lands. The Sioux, as Black Elk says, regarded the lands as theirs, not only according to their own traditions but through the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and yet the soldiers of the US government kept coming to attack and drive them from it.

Text

The following passage comes from Black Elk Speaks, pp. 65-70, from the 2014 Bison Books edition of the work. The first two paragraphs reference the Battle of the Rosebud (17 June 1876) and the Battle of Powder River (17 March 1876), the latter recognized as the first engagement of the Great Sioux War.

Crazy Horse whipped Three Stars on the Rosebud that day, and I think he could have rubbed the soldiers out there. He could have called many more warriors from the villages, and he could have rubbed the soldiers out at daybreak, for they camped there in the dark after the fight.

He whipped the cavalry of Three Stars when they attacked his village on the Powder River that cold morning in the Moon of the Snowblind . We were in our own country all the time and we only wanted to be let alone. The soldiers came there to kill us, and many got rubbed out. It was our country, and we did not want to have trouble.

We camped there in the valley along the south side of the Greasy Grass before the sun was straight above; and this was, I think, two days before the battle. It was a very big village, and you could hardly count the teepees. Farthest up the stream toward the south were the Hunkpapa and the Oglala were next. Then came the Miniconjou, the San Arcs, the Blackfeet, the Shyelas; and last, the farthest toward the north, were the Santee and Yankton. Along the side towards the east was the Greasy Grass, with some timber along it, and it was running full from the melting snow in the Bighorn Mountains. If you stood on a hill, you could see the mountains off to the south and west. On the other side of the river, there were bluffs and hills beyond. Some gullies came down through the bluffs. On the westward side of us were lower hills, and there we grazed our ponies and guarded them. There were so many they could not be counted.

There was a man by the name of Rattling Hawk who was shot through the hip in the fight on the Rosebud, and people thought he could not get well. But there was a medicine man by the name of Hairy Chin who cured him.

The day before the battle, I had greased myself and was going to swim with some boys when Hairy Chin called me over to Rattling Hawk's teepee and told me he wanted me to help him. There were five other boys there and he needed us for bears in the curing ceremony because he had his power from a dream of the bear. He painted my body yellow, and my face too, and put a black stripe on either side of my nose from the eyes down. Then he tied my hair up to look like bear's ears and put some eagle feathers on my head.

While he was doing this, I thought of my vision, and suddenly I seemed to be lifted clear off the ground; and while I was that way, I knew more things than I could tell, and I felt sure something terrible was going to happen in a short time. I was frightened.

The other boys were painted all red and had real bear's ears on their heads.

Hairy Chin, who wore a real bear skin with the head on it, began to sing a song that went like this:

"At the doorway, the sacred herbs are rejoicing."

And while he sang, two girls came in and stood one on either side of the wounded man; one had a cup of water and one some kind of herb. I tried to see if the cup had all the sky in it, as it was in my vision, but I could not see it. They gave the cup and the herb to Rattling Hawk while Hairy Chin was singing. Then they gave him a red cane and, right away, he stood up with it.

The girls then started out of the teepee, and the wounded man followed, leaning on the sacred red stick; and we boys, who were the little bears, had to jump around him and make growling noises toward the man. And, when we did this, you could see something like feathers of all colors coming out of our mouths. Then Hairy Chin came out on all fours, and he looked just like a bear to me. Then Rattling Hawk began to walk better. He was not able to fight the next day, but he got well in a little while.

After the ceremony, we boys went swimming to wash the paint off, and when we got back, the people were dancing and having kill talks all over the village, remembering brave deeds done in the fight with Three Stars on the Rosebud.

When it was about sundown, we boys had to bring the ponies in close, and when this was done it was dark and the people were still dancing around fires all over the village. We boys went around from one dance to another, until we got too sleepy to stay up anymore.

My father woke me at daybreak and told me to go with him to take our horses out to graze and, when we were out there, he said, "We must have a long rope on one of them so that it will be easy to catch; then we can get the others. If anything happens, you must bring the horses back as fast as you can – and keep your eyes on the camp."

Several of us boys watched our horses together until the sun was straight above and it was getting very hot. Then we thought we would go swimming, and my cousin said he would stay with our horses till we got back. When I was greasing myself, I did not feel well; I felt queer. It seemed that something terrible was going to happen. But I went with the boys anyway. Many people were in the water now and many of the women were out west of the village digging turnips. We had been in the water quite a while when my cousin came down there with the horses to give them a drink, for it was very hot now.

Just then we heard the crier shouting in the Hunkpapa camp, which was not very far from us, "The chargers are coming! They are charging! The chargers are coming!" Then the crier of the Oglala shouted the same words, and we could hear the cry going from camp to camp northward clear to the Santee and Yankton.

Everybody was running now to catch the horses. We were lucky to have ours right there just at that time. My older brother had a sorrel, and he rode away fast toward the Hunkpapa. I had a buckskin. My father came running and said, "Your brother has gone to the Hunkpapa without his gun. Catch him and give it to him. Then come right back to me." He had my six-shooter too – the one my aunt gave me. I took the guns, jumped on my pony, and caught my brother. I could see a big dust rising just beyond the Hunkpapa camp and all the Hunkpapa were running around and yelling, and many were running wet from the river.

Then out of the dust came the soldiers on their big horses. They looked big and strong and tall and they were all shooting. My brother took his gun and yelled for me to go back. There was brushy timber just on the other side of the Hunkpapa and some warriors were gathering there. He made for that place, and I followed him. By now, women and children were running in a crowd downstream. I looked back and saw them all running and scattering up a hillside down yonder.

When we got into the timber, a good many Hunkpapa were there already, and the soldiers were shooting above us so that leaves were falling from the trees where the bullets struck. By now, I could not see what was happening in the village below. It was all dust and cries and thunder; for the women and children were running there, and the warriors were coming on their ponies.

Among us there in the brush and out in the Hunkpapa camp, a cry went up, "Take courage! Don't be a woman! The helpless are out of breath!" I think this was when Gall stopped the Hunkpapa, who had been running away, and turned them back.

I stayed there in the woods a little while and thought of my vision. It made me feel stronger and it seemed that my people were all thunder beings and that the soldiers would be rubbed out.

Then another great cry went up out of the dust: "Crazy Horse is coming! Crazy Horse is coming!" Off toward the west and north they were yelling, "Hoka Hey!" like a big wind roaring, and making the tremolo and you could hear eagle bone whistles screaming. The valley went darker with dust and smoke and there were only shadows and a big noise of many cries and hoofs and guns.

On the left of where I was, I could hear the shod hoofs of the soldiers' horses going back into the brush and there was shooting everywhere. Then the hoofs came out of the brush, and I came out and was in among men and horses weaving in and out and going up-stream and everybody was yelling, "Hurry! Hurry!" The soldiers were running upstream, and we were all mixed there in the twilight and the great noise.

I did not see much, but once I saw a Lakota charge at a soldier who stayed behind and fought and was a very brave man. The Lakota took the soldier's horse by the bridle, but the soldier killed him with a six-shooter. I was small and could not crowd in to where the soldiers were, so I did not kill anybody. There were so many ahead of me and it was all dark and mixed up.

Soon, the soldiers were all crowded into the river, and many Lakota too, and I was in the water a while. Men and horses were all mixed up and fighting in the water and it was like hail falling in the river. Then we were out of the river and people were stripping the dead soldiers and putting the clothes on themselves. There was a soldier on the ground, and he was still kicking. A Lakota rode up and said to me, "Boy, get off and scalp him!" I got off and started to do it. He had short hair and my knife was not very sharp. He ground his teeth. Then I shot him in the forehead and got his scalp.

Many of our warriors were following the soldiers up a hill on the other side of the river. Everybody else was turning back down stream, and on a hill away down yonder, above the Santee camp, there was a big dust, and our warriors whirling around in and out of it just like swallows, and many guns were going off.

I thought I would show my mother my scalp and so I rode over toward the hill where there was a crowd of women and children. On the way down there, I saw a very pretty young woman among a band of warriors about to go up to the battle on the hill and she was singing like this:

"Brothers, now your friends have come! Be brave! Be Brave! Would you see me taken captive?"

When I rode through the Oglala camp, I saw Rattling Hawk sitting up in his teepee with a gun in his hands and he was all alone there, singing a song of regret that went like this:

"Brothers, what are you doing that I cannot do?"

When I got to the women on the hill, they were all singing and making the tremolo to cheer the men fighting across the river in the dust on the hill. My mother gave a big tremolo just for me when she saw my first scalp.

I stayed there a while with my mother and watched the big dust whirling on the hill across the river, and the horses were coming out of it with empty saddles.

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Red Horse's Account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Red Horse (Tasunka Luta, l. c. 1822-1907) was a chief of the Miniconjou Lakota Sioux best known for his firsthand account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25-26 June 1876) and his 42 ledger book drawings depicting the engagement. The account was given in 1881, the same year that Red Horse drew the images, which were rediscovered in 2016.

Red Horse Pictographic Account of Little Bighorn

Red Horse (CC BY-ND)

Little is known of Red Horse outside of his participation in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He was a subchief, married twice, and had three children. In his accounts of the battle (there is another beside the one given below), his focus is on the event itself, not his participation in it, although he makes clear that he was in the thick of the fight. In 1881, Dr. Charles E. McChesney of the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology commissioned a study of Native American sign language and art ("picture-writing") which inspired the drawings of Red Horse and his account of the battle, which he gave using sign language which was then translated to English.

The best-known version of the account was published by Garrick Mallery in Picture Writing of the American Indians (1893) along with copies of some of the drawings, but these were not seen by many outside of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the original artwork was sent to the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives where they were carefully stored in drawers and forgotten, until Professor Scott D. Sagan of Stanford University, California, and his research assistant Sarah Sadlier (a Miniconjou Sioux) brought them to light in 2016 when they were featured in the exhibit, Red Horse: Drawings of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, at the Cantor Arts Center, California.

Today, the ledger drawings and account are more widely known and, like the Cheyenne and Arapaho description of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Washita Massacre, Yellow Hair: George Armstrong Custer, present the Native American view of the battle and the wider conflict known as the Indian Wars of the mid- to late 19th century.

Background & Red Horse's Account

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is the best-known engagement of the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and among the most famous in American history. Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876), leading the 7th Cavalry, met the combined forces of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, gathered by the Sioux chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890), near the Little Bighorn River in modern-day Montana. Custer and five divisions of the 7th cavalry were wiped out, and the US government retaliated by pursuing the bands of the Plains Indians, eventually pushing them onto reservations.

The battle was presented in the US press of the time as "the massacre of our troops", as though the 7th cavalry had been out for a jaunt one day when they were suddenly attacked and killed by "savages" for no reason. Actually, the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other nations had been trying to negotiate peaceful relations with the Euro-Americans since the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. This treaty was never honored by the United States, and neither were the others, including the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Westward expansion in the name of Manifest Destiny would not be paused just because the Plains Indians had been living on the land long before the first Europeans reached North America.

Red Horse Depiction of Sioux Casualties at the Little Bighorn

Red Horse & G. Mallery (Public Domain)

Sitting Bull called for the great gathering at the Little Bighorn (known to the Natives as the Greasy Grass, and so their name for the conflict is the Battle of the Greasy Grass) to hold council with the other chiefs and try to find a way to defend their lands from the ongoing invasion. Custer had been sent to find their camp, kill the warriors, and capture the women and children to be held as hostages.

Although he had been warned by his Native American scouts that Sitting Bull's camp was larger – and had more warriors – than anyone had expected, Custer ignored them. He divided his troops to surround the camp – as he had successfully done at the Washita Massacre – and launched the attack, which would result in his death and those of five divisions of his cavalry.

Red Horse's account does not touch on any of these details but focuses on the battle itself. The details he includes match those of other Native American reports later given on the chaos of the conflict, including the one by the Sioux warrior Rain-in-the-Face (l. c. 1835-1905) and the one by the Oglala Sioux medicine man Black Elk (l. 1863-1950) given as Black Elk on the Battle of the Little Bighorn from Black Elk Speaks. Although Red Horse mentions Custer in his account, most of the reports make clear that no one knew Custer was on the field that day owing to the cavalry's swift attack and the dust raised by the horses.

Accompanying Red Horse's account were the 42 ledger book drawings of the battle depicting casualties on both sides, hand-to-hand combat, and each side leaving the field. Ledger art was drawings or paintings done on cloth or paper used in ledgers and was adopted by the Plains Indians in the 1860s. Previously, Native Americans of the region used hides (primarily of buffalo) for their art, but, as the US government systematically exterminated the buffalo herds to deprive the Plains Indians of their major food source, the animals became scarce, and so cloth or paper were used as canvas.

Lakota Chief Red Horse

D.F. Barry (Public Domain)

Ledger art of the Plains Indians depicts many aspects of everyday life including courtship rituals and hunting parties but primarily focuses on battles. The artist was always careful to depict the events in detail and so, as in the case of Red Horse's work, one can tell who the people are, what nation or band the warriors belonged to, and even, roughly, the locale and terrain. Taken together, Red Horse's account and artwork present one of the most interesting depictions of the Battle of the Little Bighorn extant.

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Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Day 1 https://ordinaryphilosophy.com/2017/07/27/little-bighorn-battlefield-national-monument-day-1/ #littlebighorn #littlebighornbattlefield #crazyhorse #custer #blackelk #americanhistory #greatsiouxwar #nativeamericanhistory (at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument)