Eagle Elk's Memories of Crazy Horse
at the Powder River Campiagn
An Oglala Sioux's eye-witness account

Eagle Elk recollects Crazy Horse's orders at the Powder River Campaign battle fought on September 5, 1865 against U.S. Army troops commanded by Col. Nelson Cole. Here is Kingsley M. Bray's treatment of the Eagle Elk statement, from an interview with John Neihardt, November 27, 1944.

AFTER ALMOST three hours of inconsequential action, Crazy Horse rode to the front. "Just keep away for a little while," he ordered the warriors.

"These soldiers like to shoot. I am going to give them a chance to do all the shooting they want to do. You draw back and I will make them shoot. If I fall off, then you can do something if you feel like it; but don't do anything until I have run by them."

With that, he kneed forward his pony and galloped the length of Cole's defensive square. Firing at will, the troopers snapped off shot after futile shot at the slim figure leaning low over his pony's neck. Opposite the end of their line, Crazy Horse drew rein and briefly rested his mount, still in clear range. Then he galloped back, veering closer to the line of barking Spencers. Still no bullet touched him. A third time he charged, nearer again to the soldier line. A few ragged shots tracked his run, but presently the firing stopped. Even when he made a direct dash toward the line, the guns remained silent, and Crazy Horse swung back to rejoin his stunned comrades. His disarming, wry modesty surfaced: "Now my friends, don't worry," he grinned as they pressed forward to reassure themselves of his safety.

Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life by Kingsley M. Bray, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 2006 p 88

Englishman Kingsley M. Bray's Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life is the best of the new Crazy Horse biographies. A stylish and evocative narrative writer, Bray has probably made his biggest contribution to Crazy Horse studies by somewhat untangling the meaning and sequence of Crazy Horse's visions. Where Mari Sandoz's seminal biography, Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglala, portrays Crazy Horse's first vision as a gift of the Sky Powers in the guise of Thunder, Bray portrays it as a gift of the Earth Powers in the guise of Water. In other words, it was not the gift of Thunder, it was power over Thunder -- a subtle but important distinction which sets the stage for another of Bray's realizations, that through his dream visions Crazy Horse ultimately achieved the power of all the elements, as the Sioux conceived them, making him the most complete mujahidin of his era.