Slim Buttes
Sitting Bull was too wise not to realize the consequences of his victory. He knew that the soldiers would come again and try to kill him or take him prisoner. He also knew that such a large force of Indians as had gathered at Little Bighorn could not stay together and hope to find sufficient food for both people and horses.
The village moved eastward seeking buffalo, with part of the group moving up the Tongue River, which flows into the Yellowstone east of Little Bighorn, and the rest searching downstream. By August 1, the village had reassembled on Powder River. A few days later, the village split, with bands going in different directions after game. Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapas and some Minicon-jous and Sans Arcs along the Little Missouri to Killdeer Mountain in northern Dakota Territory, where he had fought General Sully in 1864.
By early September, a contingent of Hunkpapas, Oglalas, Miniconjous, and Sans Arcs had congregated near Slim Buttes in Dakota Territory. Sitting Bull was there, in mourning for a son who had died after being kicked in the head, by either a horse or a mule.
Captain Anson Mills, under General Crook (who after receiving reinforcements had taken the field again in August) and with Frank Grouard scouting, discovered a small village of Miniconjous and attacked them. The inhabitants fled to the bluffs overlooking the village and fired down on the soldiers, who took up positions within the village. General Crook soon appeared with his main force, and Sitting Bull arrived to join the fighting as well, shooting from the bluffs and encouraging his warriors. Among the slain were women and children. Soldiers apparently enraged over the deaths of Custer and his men scalped some of the dead. The army moved out the next day. Crook took his troops to Deadwood, before ending his campaign in October at Camp Robinson in Nebraska. From Slim Buttes, Sitting Bull, with the Miniconjous and Sans Arcs who had been traveling with his Hunkpapa followers, turned toward the Yellowstone River.
Nelson Miles in Pursuit
Sitting Bull later led his entourage to Cedar Creek north of the Yellowstone, where they engaged in a buffalo hunt. The peaceful interlude was not to last long, however, as the Fifth Infantry under Colonel Nelson A. Miles was rapidly approaching.
Sitting Bull used Long Feather and Bear’s Face to set up a meeting with Miles, which occurred on October 20. The negotiating party headed by Sitting Bull included White Bull and Jumping Bull.
Miles wore a fur cap and an overcoat trimmed with bear fur on the cuffs and at the collar, earning him the name “Bear Coat.” The discussion broke up but resumed the next day, though to no avail. At about noon, Sitting Bull and his party rose in frustration and left the meeting. Both he and Miles returned to their men and prepared for battle.
The Battle of Cedar Creek was not long in coming. About one o’clock, Miles ordered his men forward. The affair proved to be far different from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, although many of the soldiers had at least brief thoughts of ending up the same way as Custer’s men. The engagement consisted largely of some skirmishing and Sitting Bull’s men steadily pulling back with the soldiers in pursuit. Casualties were light, with one Lakota killed and two soldiers wounded.14
Sitting Bull moved toward the Yellowstone and then, with 30 lodges, turned northward. By the end of October, Sitting Bull and his band were at Big Dry River, 25 miles south of Fort Peck, which had been constructed across the Missouri near where the Big Dry emptied into it. Bear Coat Miles, by now given sole responsibility for catching Sitting Bull, led his troops north from Tongue River in early November and reached Fort Peck by the middle of the month. Sitting Bull, now having gathered approximately 100 Hunkpapa lodges, had his scouts closely monitor Miles’s location. As the soldiers followed the Big Dry toward the Missouri, Sitting Bull led his people eastward to the Red Water, also a tributary of the Missouri.
Because Sitting Bull was unaware that his friend Johnny Bruguier was gathering intelligence for the U. S. military, Bruguier was permitted to move freely about the Hunkpapa camp. On December 3, Bruguier left the camp. Three days later, he met Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin, who commanded three of Miles’s companies. Bruguier told Baldwin where Sitting Bull was located, near the mouth of the Milk River, and formally joined the army as a scout.
Baldwin led his men toward Sitting Bull’s camp on December 7. With the troops advancing, the Hunkpapas were able to cross the ice-covered Missouri to the south bank and take up positions on high ground above the river, from which they fired down on Baldwin’s men. A ferocious storm hit that night, and the soldiers, bitterly cold, marched back to Fort Peck.
Baldwin, his men riding in wagons drawn by mule teams, caught up with Sitting Bull again on December 18 at Ash Creek, southeast of Big Dry River. Most of the Hunkpapa warriors were out hunting, but those still in the camp (which numbered about 120 tipis) made a stand against the advancing soldiers while women and children took to the hills to escape. Several shots from a howitzer, however, sent the men retreating. There was no loss of life, but Sitting Bull lost his village and almost everything in it, including meat, blankets, several hundred buffalo robes, the tipis themselves, and a large number of horses and mules.
World History
