Crazy Horse's Reputation
The U. S. military and general public now viewed Crazy Horse as at least the second most significant figure among the Plains Indians, after Sitting Bull, but perhaps superior to the great Hunkpapa leader as a military tactician. His performance first against Crook and then at Little Bighorn bred considerable respect for his ability to employ a variety of military tactics: isolating units, decoying them, infiltrating, using a frontal assault, altering strategy at precisely the right moment. He also was acclaimed for his personal bravery.
Among the Lakotas, Crazy Horse was clearly the principal war leader, second in stature to Sitting Bull, with whom the younger leader had developed a
Close and mutually respectful relationship. They formed a remarkable team: Perhaps the Indian Wars saw none better.
However, as the nonreservation groups faced increasingly difficult challenges on the battlefield and strong pressure to join their former allies at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies in northwestern Nebraska, Crazy Horse steadily lost support for resisting the U. S. government. The next nine months presented Crazy Horse with dual adversaries—one external, the other internal: threats from the U. S. military and the desire of ever more Lakotas to leave their old ways and go into the agencies in hopes of realizing a peaceful existence. Before long, Crazy Horse would seem like a voice crying in the wilderness.
Slim Buttes
By September 8, General Crook, who after receiving reinforcements had taken the field again in August, was running seriously low on rations. Crook dispatched to Deadwood in present-day western South Dakota a pack train of mules, escorted by 150 men under the command of Captain Anson Mills. On September 8, near Slim Buttes, Mills, with Frank Grouard scouting, discovered a Lakota village consisting of 37 tipis. Early the next morning, Mills attacked. Many of the villagers managed to flee the 20 miles to Crazy Horse’s camp. Crook soon arrived on the scene. Late in the afternoon, Crazy Horse and others from his camp arrived and began firing from the surrounding bluffs down onto the soldiers. The fighting continued into the evening when the Oglalas gradually withdrew, although sporadic fighting resumed the following morning. Crook lost three men at Slim Buttes while killing an indeterminate number of Indians, including women, children, and a prominent Lakota leader, Iron Plume (also known as American Horse). Enraged by the recent death of Custer and his men, the soldiers reportedly scalped some of the dead.
Crook moved out the next day, moving south to Deadwood in the Black Hills before heading to Camp Robinson in Nebraska. The battle signaled the Indians’ loss of the Black Hills, less because of the outcome of the Slim Buttes conflict itself than because of the area’s rapid settlement by miners and mining towns. In fact, almost at the same time as the victors of Little Bighorn were making their final military effort to retain the Black Hills, Lakota leaders at Pine Ridge Agency were signing over title to the sacred area.
Battle of Wolf Mountain
Throughout the fall of 1876 and into the winter, Crazy Horse tried to prevent defections to the agencies and attempted to gather sufficient forces to reclaim the military initiative. He turned his attention especially to General Nelson “Bear Coat” Miles, who had begun constructing a military base at the mouth of Tongue River in August 1876.
Crazy Horse planned to revisit the tactic he had used so effectively against Captain Fetterman 10 years earlier. A contingent of Oglala and Cheyenne
Warriors would serve as a decoy to lure Miles out of the Tongue River Cantonment, setting up an ambush that would wipe out his forces. The decoy group arrived at Miles’ base in late December and stole about 150 head of cattle. Miles sent three infantry companies in pursuit, which recaptured about two-thirds of the cattle. Miles subsequently dispatched four additional companies and assumed command of the force, which numbered 436 men of the Fifth and Twenty-Second Infantry. He also had at his disposal two artillery pieces that he covered with canvas in wagon boxes to keep them hidden from Indian scouts.
As Miles approached Crazy Horse’s village, the tipis were hurriedly taken down and the village started moving, drawing Miles forward up the Tongue River. Crazy Horse decided on an ambush from fixed positions as the best way to succeed against the oncoming infantry. By the morning of January 8, Cheyenne and Oglala warriors were positioned along bluffs at what was known as Wolf Mountain near present Birney, Montana, in the southeastern corner of the state.
The terrain was rugged, a foot of snow lay on the ground, and Miles’s troops were 300 miles from the nearest settlement. Miles notes in his memoir, Serving the Republic, that he was acutely aware of the danger to his men, for “defeat would mean disaster and annihilation, and it would have been weeks before our fate would have been known.” Miles, and certainly his men, were reminded of Custer’s fate, with Miles stating that the attackers were determined to succeed in “another massacre” and noting that once the battle began they could be heard yelling to the infantrymen that “‘you have had your last breakfast.’”18
The soldiers were, indeed, at breakfast when the Indians appeared on the bluffs. Miles’ artillery opened fire from across the river, with one of the shells killing Crazy Horse’s mount. Accounts are not definitive, but he may have had as many as nine horses shot out from under him over the years. Jumping onto another horse, the Oglala warrior led a charge across the river to the east side, taking up a position on Belly Butte.
Captain James Casey led a company of infantry up the ridge, and Crazy Horse and his men rushed to meet them, engaging briefly in hand-to-hand combat. The Cheyenne and Oglala force then withdrew to join other warriors farther south. As the battle reached noon, five hours after it had begun, and the weather worsened, turning into a blizzard, Crazy Horse and his men disengaged. Casey, along with Captain Edmond Butler and First Lieutenant Robert McDonald, received the Medal of Honor for bravery during the battle.
Miles could claim victory because he retained control of the battlefield, but that development, as with such engagements as the Battle at the Rosebud, was the result of differing strategies rather than an objective determinant of victory. In fact, the encounter was largely a standoff, with neither side achieving its overall objective of a decisive, war-ending battle.
End of a War
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse reunited in the middle of January along the Tongue River. The meeting, however, was not a prelude to the great
Reunification of the Lakotas that Crazy Horse desired. In addition to growing sentiment against continued warfare, Sitting Bull was preparing to move toward Canada. After his departure, the Oglala leadership decided to send Red Sack to Red Cloud Agency to reopen dialogue with the agency Oglalas. Despite Crazy Horse’s opposition, which included attempts to take the horses of the departing groups and physically intimidate them, Lakotas from several bands, including Oglalas, left in late January, as did a group of Cheyennes under Little Wolf. Others imitated Sitting Bull and started for Canada.
By early February, only 10 tipis of followers remained with Crazy Horse. His party included his wife, Black Shawl; his brother-in-law, Red Feather; his father, Worm; and his stepmothers. Black Shawl was in declining health, suffering from severe coughing; her ailment was later diagnosed as tuberculosis.
Representatives from General Miles arrived at the major Oglala-Cheyenne village near the Bighorn Mountains on February 1, resulting in a deputation from the village leaving for Miles’ base to continue discussions. Meanwhile, a party from Red Cloud Agency led by Hunts the Enemy, a nephew of Red Cloud, had started north to meet with the nontreaty hunting bands. They were treated courteously by Crazy Horse at his camp on Powder River, but he made no specific commitments except to send them on to the main village with the promise that he would abide by what was decided there. After an Oglala consensus developed that further discussions should occur at Red Cloud Agency, Crazy Horse agreed, largely because he had little choice, and said that he would go in to the agency as well during the spring. For three weeks, Crazy Horse largely withdrew from society, apparently meditating on a future that must have looked increasingly bleak and likely seeking some sort of vision to give him hope. Whatever vision he received appears to have been directed especially toward healing his wife. He is reported to have appealed through his spiritual guardian, the red-tailed hawk, and received from the spotted eagle spiritual powers transmitted through later generations on Pine Ridge Reservation as a process of eagle doctoring to treat tuberculosis.
Crazy Horse's Surrender
On or around April 3, 1877, Crazy Horse reached Bear Butte, near Sturgis, South Dakota, where it is generally believed he had been born. He was surrounded by about 155 lodges, mainly occupied by Oglalas. The decision was made to go to the Oglala agency, and word was sent to Red Cloud, who at the time was on his way toward Bear Butte with a peace delegation. The Northerners (or Northerns), as they were called by government officials because of their desire to remain free in the north, began their trek on April 16 and about April 20 met Red Cloud and his delegation. Red Cloud promised that no arrests would take place but stated that the surrender would require the Northerners to relinquish their weapons.
Lieutenant J. Wesley Rosenquest left Camp Robinson near Red Cloud Agency in northwestern Nebraska on April 30 with 10 wagons of rations
And a herd of beef cattle to meet the travelers, who had run out of food. Arriving the next day, Rosenquest was greeted politely by Crazy Horse. The trip resumed on May 3. On May 6, Crazy Horse and his companions, within a few miles of the agency, met a party headed by Lieutenant William P. Clark, military commander of the two agencies along the White River and an aide to General Crook. Crazy Horse shook hands with Clark, Rosenquest, and several others, declaring his commitment to peace.
Crazy Horse reached the agency about 2:00 p. m., leading his warriors but preceded by Red Cloud and the agency Indians who rode with Lieutenant Clark. As they arrived, Crazy Horse and his warriors sang a peace chant with the women and children coming in on the refrain. The women then started setting up camp while Crazy Horse and his men surrendered their horses. Then they started turning in their guns, with Crazy Horse leading the way by laying down a rifle. According to Bourke, some of the leaders placed small sticks on the ground to symbolize the number of guns they possessed and to indicate whether they were pistols or rifles to facilitate Clark’s gathering of guns from the tipis, including three Winchester rifles from Crazy Horse.
That night Frank Grouard accepted his old friend’s invitation to supper and took with him Lieutenant Bourke. As despondent as Crazy Horse surely must have felt, he conducted himself not only with dignity but also with courtesy and graciousness. In On the Border with Crook, Bourke offers a remarkable description of Crazy Horse, beginning with a visual depiction, then proceeding to Crazy Horse’s apparent state of mind, and continuing to a broader view of the great war leader’s values:
I saw before me a man who looked quite young, not over thirty years old, five feet eight inches high, lithe and sinewy, with a scar in the face. The expression of his countenance was one of quiet dignity, but morose, dogged, tenacious, and melancholy. He behaved with stolidity, like a man who realized he had to give in to Fate, but would do so as sullenly as possible.... All Indians gave him a high reputation for courage and generosity. In advancing upon an enemy, none of his warriors were allowed to pass him. He had made hundreds of friends by his charity towards the poor, as it was a point of honor with him never to keep anything for himself, excepting weapons of war. I never heard an Indian mention his name save in terms of respect.19
World History
