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Bruce Brown's 100 Voices... Billy Garnett Remembers Crazy Horse
BILLY GARNETT AND VALENTINE MCGILLYCUDDY REMEMBER CRAZY HORSE
April 15th, 1926 Friend Garnett, Many thanks for information in your recent letter. Can you tell me, was the hostile village on the Little Big Horn, where Custer attacked, in the same location as it was when they came down and attacked us on the Rosebud on June 17th. Are Frank Gruard [Frank Grouard] and Louis Bordeaux both dead? Did Crazy Horse ever have his picture taken? They claim to have one of him now, but I hardly believe it, for I tried hard to have one taken of him in 1877. Was not his father an Oglala, and his mother an Huncpapa? At what agency was Crazy Horse located in 1875 and in the Spring of 1876, when the Indians were organizing the hostile camp. What agency or band did Touch the Cloud belong to, he was the Indian who sat up with me in the Adjutants Office at Fort Robinson when I was caring for Crazy Horse the night he died. How do you spell his name. What agency or band did Little Big Man belong to, and where was he located in the Winter of 1875-6. I am running across chaps now who were on nursing bottles in those days, and who know more about the days of 1876 than I do. Yours, V. T. M'GILLYCUDDY * * *
Dr. V. T. MCGILLYCUDDY. Dear Doctor: I have your letter of April 15, 1926, and you are advised that the hostile village was not on the Little Big Horn when the Indians came over and attacked your outfit on the Rosebud. They were camped on Dead Man in the Lodge Creek, which is a little creek that runs into the Little Big Horn, and is about 25 miles from where you were on Rosebud. The mouth of Dead Man in the Lodge Creek is something like forty miles above the Custer Battle Field. Frank Gruard [Frank Grouard] and Louis Bordeaux are both dead, Frank having died about 18 years ago and Louis about five years ago. Crazy Horse never had a picture taken that I know of, and if there was one taken, some one sneaked up and took it, for he never would consent to be photographed. He was very peculiar about this, and was a very modest man, considering his fighting ability, and bravery. His father was an Oglala and his mother was a Mni-Ko-Wo-Ju. Crazy Horse was never located at any agency, and was out in the hostile camp in 1875 and 1876, but he came to the Red Cloud Agency when he was killed, he belonging to the Oglala band. Touch the Cloud was Chief of the Mni-Ko-Wo-Ju band, having succeeded his father, Lone Horn, though he was with the Oglalas and the Spotted Tail Indians, with his band, during a large part of 1875 and 1876. He helped bring Crazy Horse in to Fort Robinson, and that is how he came to be in the Adjutants Office with you. I think he was a relative of the mother of Crazy Horse, but I have been unable to find any one who knows for sure. Little Big Man was an Oglala, and a great friend of Crazy Horse, and was in his band. You will remember Little Big Man was holding Crazy Horse when he was stabbed, trying to keep him from fighting. He was out with him all during 1875, 76 and 77. I am like you, and am continually finding people who were not born when these events took place; who seem to know more about them than you and I do, who were actually there. Very truly yours, * * * HOTEL CLAREMONT Berkeley, California April 26th, 1926 Friend Garnett, Many thanks for your letter of the 21st, and the information contained therein for it clears several matters of which I have been in doubt. I am surprised at-the names of several of the old timers still alive, particularly of He Dog. I enclose that picture of Crazy Horse recently published, I made up my mind that it was a fake, he evidently posed. Crazy Horse was a strange looking Indian, and I would have known him any where. You can return the picture anytime. Some of these days I intend to write up what I know about the killing of Crazy Horse, he was a good man, and I would trust him any where. Gen. Jesse Lee who was Lieut Lee in those days died a few days ago in Washington, he was completely out of his head for past year. Yours truly, V. T. M'GILLYCUDDY * * * Pine Ridge, So. Dak. Dr. V. T. McGillycuddy. Dear Dr. McGillycuddy: I have been up and down for the last three months, and feel pretty good some times and others I am no good for anything, but I will try and answer your several letters, taking them in the order I received them. I am returning the newspaper clippings and the photograph of the Indian who is supposed to be Crazy Horse. As you know, Crazy Horse was an Indian just a little past 30 years old when he was killed, and this picture is of an old man. Crazy Horse never wore a War bonnett in his life and I am very sure he never had a photograph taken. If I am not mistaken, there was nothing in the picture line but tin types up to the time of his death, the photograph prints having been invented later. The photograph is of a Rosebud Indian named Goes to War, a brother of Hollow Horn Bear of Rosebud, Hollow Horn Bear having been quite a chief before he died. Before the Sioux Indians owned the. Black Hills they were in the country occupied by the Kiwah Indians. The. Crow Indians occupied a country roughly described as the western part of Nebraska, all of Wyoming, and southern Montana. Of course they hunted and fought over more territory than this, but that was their regular range. The Crows never owned the Black Hills, but they used to sneak in there and hunt, pick fruit and get lodge poles. They never had permanent homes there and were always run out by the Sioux as soon as they found they were there. The word Inyan Kara is not a Sioux word, though I am of the opinion that it originally was, and the spelling has been corrupted until it can not be recognized. Inyan is an Indian (Sioux) word, meaning rock or stone. Crazy Horse was not camped on Dead Man in the Lodge Creek, which runs into Tongue River, but was camped on Move Creek, which runs into the Little Big Horn, before they attacked your outfit in the Rosebud fight. They went about 20 miles to make the attack, the camp moving at the same time, down the creek so the fighting men did not have to go back to the old camp after the fight. Very truly yours, The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Three Eyewitness Views with commentary by Carroll Friswold, The Arthur H. Clark Co., Glendale, CA 1976 p 121 - 126
Billy Garnett was an Indian Agency interpreter at the time Crazy Horse was murdered, and McGillycuddy was the Army doctor who tended to the dying Crazy Horse. |
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HOTEL CLAREMONT Berkeley, California
Pine Ridge, So. Dak. 
