Crazy Horse's Story of the Battle
Although it contains the closest thing we have to Crazy Horse's version of what happened at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse never actually spoke with the Chicago Times reporter who wrote the story. Instead, he communicated through a spokesman, Sioux war chief Horned Horse. Imagine it -- Crazy Horse rode into Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on May 6, 1877 at the head of a procession of people and ponies that stretched on for miles, but somehow he managed to escape capture by the American press! It's as if he was never there -- at his own surrender -- but that was typical of Crazy Horse. In fact, Crazy Horse is the only great figure in American history who never allowed his soul to be captured, as the Sioux conceived it, meaning he never allowed his image to be captured in life, either by photograph or artist's hand. The only evocative eye-witness description of Crazy Horse that appeared in the American media during his lifetime was an anonymous New York Sun reporter's 1877 observation that "his eyes are exceedingly restless and impress the beholder fully as much as does his general demeanor."
Iron Hawk and Standing Bear described how Crazy Horse's first flanking charge of the battle "broke Reno's left wing" in the timber and sent 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 he disengaged from Reno, Crazy Horse led his combined Sioux and Cheyenne force to flank Custer's retreating men. Flying Hawk described how Crazy Horse "shot them [American soldiers] as fast as he could load his gun" while he studied the situation. Then He Dog and Wooden Leg said Crazy Horse and Cheyenne war chief Lame White Man led more-or-less simultaneous charges from opposite sides of the Calhoun Ridge which split Custer's right flank. In the deadly melee that followed, Red Feather described how Crazy Horse rode between the two split portions blowing on his wild, unearthly Eagle Horn. Crazy Horse drew withering fire but escaped untouched. And finally, near the end, Ohiyesa said Crazy Horse, Ice Bear and Little Horse led the final charge that annihilated 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 joint Sioux and Cheyenne army the next day -- as he was on the Rosebud nine days before -- and according to Short Bull, Crazy Horse led the Indians' stately withdrawal from the Little Bighorn 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. At the Little Bighorn, there was no Indian commander-in-chief. 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 equal corps commanders that day, including Gall, Crow King, Red Horse, Rain In The Face, He Dog, Hump, Big Road, Spotted Elk, Lame White Man, Two Moon, and other notables. See Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn for more info. On the Rosebud, however, Crazy Horse was commander-in-chief of the combined Sioux / Cheyenne force and 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 warriors 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 opening charge on June 17, 1876 -- thanks to the fierce valor of his Crow and Shoshoni scouts -- but Crazy Horse's deft use of the fleet and supremely 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. See Crazy Horse at the Rosebud for more info. 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 by the Americans. After fighting General Nelson Miles to a draw in his last battle 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, with nearly 1,000 followers 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 committed 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 was made, and how America made and continues to make mujahidin bent on fighting America to the death, for Crazy Horse was a holy warrior as much as any Islamic jihadist, posessing 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 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
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. |
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