Crazy Horse's Story of the Battle
An Oglala Sioux's account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

On the battlefield, Crazy Horse's personal bravery was legendary. At the Little Big Horn, for instance, the Arapahoe warrior Waterman said Crazy Horse was the bravest man he ever saw, and the Sioux warrior Little Soldier said "the greatest fighter in the whole battle was Crazy Horse."

But personal bravery was really not the point for Crazy Horse. Unlike many Sioux and Cheyenne warriors -- who lived for the Homeric ecstasy of individualistic heroism on the battlefield -- Crazy Horse was not there for ego or for show; he was there to sieze control of the battle, and kill the enemies of the Dakota and Cheyenne.

The tactical genius of the Plains Indian Wars, Crazy Horse was most dangerous in fluid, rapidly evolving battlefield situations that put a premium on the commander being able innovate, and in this sense Crazy Horse resembled Confererate General Bedford Forrest, the most modern of the great 19th century American generals.

Beginning with the Battle of the Platte River Bridge in 1865 and the Fetterman Massacre two years later -- where Crazy Horse led the decoys for Red Cloud in a battle that saw all the American soldiers killed -- Crazy Horse developed tactics designed to isolate portions of the American force, which then could be destroyed piecemeal, like Royall on the Rosebud and Custer on the Little Bighorn.

Analytical and disciplined, Crazy Horse recognized early on that the Americans' greatest strength on the battlefield was their command structure and corps discipline. And so, while he devised tactics to break down that corps discipline, he also worked to instill it in his own men. Crazy Horse could make a whole battle turn on the flash of a mirror in his hand or the scream of his eagle bone war whistle, as General George Crook learned at the Battle of the Rosebud and General Nelson Miles learned at the Battle of Wolf Mountain.

At the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse twice led his crack troops in charges that shattered the American soldiers' defenses, and began the routs first of Reno in his chaotic flight from the timber and then the collapse of Custer's right flank, which started the Seventh Cavalry's death song. Then Crazy Horse was one of the greatest warriors of all time, standing with the heroes of Homeric legend.

Iron Hawk described how Crazy Horse's flanking charge sent Reno and his men fleeing for their lives, and Flying Hawk described how Crazy Horse personally rode among the American soldiers and "killed a lot of them with his war-club." Then after Crazy Horse disengaged from Reno and turned to attack Custer from behind, Flying Hawk described how Crazy Horse "shot them [American soldiers] as fast as he could load his gun."

Indian pressure on the Seventh Cavalry increased until He Dog and Wooden Leg said more-or-less simultaneous charges from opposite sides of the Calhoun Ridge led by Cheyenne war chief Lame White Man and Sioux war chief Crazy Horse split Custer's right flank. In the deadly melee that followed, Red Feather descibed how Crazy Horse rode between the two split portions blowing on his wild, unearthly Eagle Horn. Crazy Horse drew withering fire but escaping untouched.

And finally, near the end, Ohiyesa said Crazy Horse, Ice Bear and Little Horse led the final charge that annhilated the last Seventh Cavalry survivors on Last Stand Hill, and Flying Hawk remembered how Crazy Horse personally rode after, caught and killed an American soldier who tried to escape on horseback.

Crazy Horse was chosen commander-in-chief of the great Sioux and Cheyenne force the next day -- as he was on the Rosebud nine days before -- and according to Short Bull, Crazy Horse led the Indians' stately withdrawal witnessed by Medal of Honor winner Charles Windolf.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is often viewed as the apogee of Crazy Horse's military career, but actually the Battle of the Rosebud eight days prior was probably his greatest moment. Apart from One Bull -- deputized by Sitting Bull to lead the Hunkpapas -- there was no Indian commander-in-chief at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Indians had not planned to fight; they simply reacted to Custer's unprovoked attack, so Crazy Horse was one of many more-or-less co-equal corps commanders that day, along with Gall, Crow King, Red Horse, Rain In The Face, He Dog, Hump, Big Road, Spotted Elk, Lame White Man, Two Moon, and other notables.

On the Rosebud, however, Crazy Horse was commander-in-chief of the combined Sioux / Cheyenne force that planned the first strike. He and his men rode all night to catch General George Crook in the Valley of the Rosebud, and everyone who saw the Indians' initial charge that day -- 1,500 fiercely painted wariors of the "best cavalry in the world" coming at full gallop and full cry -- never forgot it for the rest of their lives. It was a true "holy shit" moment because Crazy Horse caught Crook's main force off their horses at rest. Here are John Bourke, John Finerty and Henry Lemly's eye-witness accounts.

Crook survived Crazy Horse's initial charge on June 17, 1876 -- thanks to the fierce valor his strong contingent of Crow scouts -- but Crazy Horse's deft use of the fleet and surpemely mobile Sioux and Cheyenne cavalry -- controlled by mirror flash from higher ground -- ultimately secured a grand strategic victory for the free Sioux and Cheyenne, eliminating Crook's army from the subsequent action on the Little Bighorn, and setting up everything that was to come with Custer.

Just as he never allowed the Americans to capture his soul (not many can say that, even to this day), Crazy Horse was never defeated on the battlefield. After fighting General Nelson Miles to a draw at Wolf Mountain in January 1877, Crazy Horse decided that fleeing to Canada with Sitting Bull would only inflict more hardship on his people, so he surrendered, riding into Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on May 6, 1877.

Crazy Horse's surrender was the raison for the story below, which originally ran in the May 7, 1877 Chicago Times. Barely four months later, the U.S. Army murdered Crazy Horse while he was in "protective custody," part of a drumbeat of atrocities and war crimes committed by invading American soldiers against Native Americans that foreshadowed the atrocities and war crimes commited by invading American soldiers against native populations in Afghanistan and Iraq a century and a half later.

In fact, this is a major theme in American history. This is how America makes mujahidin bent on fighting America to the death, for make no mistake about it, Crazy Horse was a holy warrior, the most holy and complete of his time, with the combined dream power of all the elements, as the Sioux understood them.

"When he rode into battle," Kingsley M. Bray wrote in his excellent new biography, Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life, "Crazy Horse was not simply a naked warrior with a curious paint design: his being crackled with the awesome destructive powers of the total cosmos."

CRAZY HORSE SPEAKS

THE CUSTER MASSACRE

AN INDIAN'S DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE
WITH CUSTER ON THE BIG HORN,
AND ITS TRAGIC ENDING

Telegram to Chicago Times from Camp Robinson, Nebraska.

YOUR correspondent has obtained some very valuable information in regard to THE CUSTER MASSACRE from CRAZY HORSE, through Horned Horse as his spokesman, which is authentic, and confirmed by other principal chiefs. I interviewed these chiefs this afternoon, Lieut. Clark arranging for the meeting, and William Hunter acting as interpreter, a man perfectly reliable and thoroughly conversant with the Indian language. This is the Indian version and the first published:

The attack was made on the village by a strong force at 11 o'clock in the morning, at the upper end of the village. This was the force commanded by Maj. Reno, and very shortly afterward the lower end of the village was attacked by another strong force, that commanded by Custer.

The Village Was Divided

into seven different bands of Indians, each commanded by a separate chief and extended in nearly a straight line. The bands were in the order mentioned below, commencing from the lower end where Custer made the attack. First, the Uncpapas, under Sitting Bull; second, the Ogalallas, under Crazy Horse; third, the Minneconjous, under Fast Bull; fourth, the Sans Arcs, under Red Bear; fifth, the Cheyennes, under Ice Bear, their two principal chiefs being absent; sixth, the Santees and Yanktonias, under Red Point, of the Santees; seventh, the Blackfeet, under Scabby Head. The village consisted of eighteen hundred lodges, and at least four hundred wickayups, a lodge made of small poles and willows for temporary shelter. Each of the wickayups contained four young bucks, and the estimate made by Crazy Horse is that each lodge had from three to four warriors. Estimating at three made

A Fighting Force

of seven thousand Indians. This is the lowest estimate that can be made, for there were a good many Indians without shelter, hangers-on, who fought when called upon, and the usual number was much above seven thousand. The attack was a surprise and totally unlooked for. When Custer made his charge the women, papooses, children, and in fact all that were not fighters made a stampede in a. northerly direction. Custer, seeing so numerous a body, mistook them for the main body of Indians retreating and abandoning their village, and immediately gave pursuit. The warriors in the village, seeing this, divided their forces into two parts, one intercepting Custer between their non-combatants and him, and the other getting in his rear. Outnumbering him as they did, they had him at their. mercy, and

The Dreadful Massacre Ensued

Horned Horse says the smoke and dust was so great that foe could not be distinguished from friend. The horses were wild with fright and uncontrollable. The Indians were knocking each other from their steeds, and it is an absolute fact that the young bucks in their excitement and fury killed each other, several dead Indians being found killed by arrows. Horned Horse represented this hell of fire and smoke and death by intertwining his fingers and saying: "Just like this, Indians and white men." These chiefs say they suffered a loss of fifty-eight killed, and over sixty wounded. From their way of expressing it, I should judge that about 60 per cent of their wounded died.

While This Butchery Was Going On

Reno was fighting in the upper part of the village, but did not get in so as to get surrounded, and managed to escape. They say had he got in as far, he would have suffered the same fate as Custer, but he retreated to the bluffs, and was held there until the Indians fighting Custer, comprising over half the village, could join the northern portion in besieging him. These Indians claim that but for

The Timely Arrival of Gen. Terry

they would have certainly got Reno. They would have surrounded and stormed him out or would have besieged and eventually captured him. From what I know of Crazy Horse I should say that he no doubt is capable of conducting a siege. In both the Rosebud fight and the Custer massacre the Indians claim he rode unarmed in the thickest of the fight invoking the blessing of the great spirit on him-that if he was right he might be victorious and if wrong that he might be killed.

The Custer Myth: A Source Book of Custerania, written and compiled by Colonel W.A. Graham, The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA 1953, p 62 - 65

For more information on Crazy Horse, please see the Bogus Crazy Horse Photo page, the Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger and the Winter Count of Crazy Horse's Life.