The Sioux and Cheyenne -- ALTHOUGH UNINFORMED Americans frequently had the impression that Indian warriors operated like some sort of wild, undisciplined "swarm of bees," as Kill Eagle put it, Sioux and Cheyenne war chiefs actually commanded their men closely. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn, George Herendeen said, "I saw five chiefs, and each one carried a flag for their men to rally around. Some of the flags were red, others yellow, white and blue, and one a black flag. All the chiefs handled their warriors spendidly." John Finerty described how Crazy Horse apparently used mirror flash from high ground to command his men at the Rosebud, and at the Battle of Wolf Mt., Nelson Miles's men heard Crazy Horse's "eagle horn" -- a whistle made of the leg bone of an eagle -- screaming above the blizzard, just before the Indians' last ferocious charge in what proved to be Crazy Horse's last battle.
The Indians used other audible signals as well. Charles DeRudio recalled, "we heard the powerful voice of a savage crying out, making the same sound four times, and after these two signals, we saw 200 or more savages leave the bluffs and ford the river, evidently leaving the ground." William O. Taylor also spoke of the Indian leaders apparently using auditory signals to command their troops. On the morning of June 26, he recalled that "about three o'clock just as it was growing light there came two rifle shots from a low ridge in our front. This may have been the Indians' signal to open fire, for in less time than it takes to write about it a perfect shower of bullets followed from all along their line." The Sioux and Cheyenne even used captured bugles to signal among themselves and confuse the Americans, which worked like a charm, according to Peter Thompson, John Ryan, William O. Taylor and an anonymous wounded survivor. The bugling heard from the Indian side fueled American speculation that there was a white man with the Indians, but Kill Eagle said the buglers were Indian. See Mysteries of the Little Bighorn for more info. * * * RECALLING Crazy Horse's hair-raising openning charge at the Battle of the Rosebud -- which caught the Americans resting, some with their saddle girths loosened -- Mills said, "The Indians came not in a line but in flocks or herds like buffalo, and they piled upon us until I think there must have been one thousand or fifteen hundred in our immediate front." This organic style of attack was not some sort of haphazzard accident; it was all part of a deadly design. Crazy Horse had developed this style of attack to isolate enemy elements so they could be destroyed piecemeal. "The attack was not staged in one mass but relayed in formations," observed William Bordeaux, who added that this was "a style of fighting initiated by Crazy Horse and sometimes successful in encircling troops." After his initial charge was repulsed by the Americans at the Rosebud, Crazy Horse played cat and mouse with Gen.George Crook -- "The Sioux ponies always outdistanced our grain-fed American horses..." recalled Henry Lemly -- until he exposed the Americans' flank, which he promply cut to pieces in the manner described by Mills and Bordeaux. Troops commanded by Guy V. Henry heroically rescued the over-extended American Third Cavalry, but in the process Henry was struck by "a bullet which passed through both cheek bones, broke the bridge of his nose, and destroyed the optic nerve in one eye..." * * * FOOLISH ELK'S eye-witness account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn describes a tactic Crazy Horse used to neutralize the Americans' skirmish line formation, robbing it of its concentrated firepower. To accomplish this, Crazy Horse led a charge late in the Custer fight that hit a portion of an American skirmish line head on, and then split and "slashed at it from both sides" as the warriors rode the length of the Bluecoats' line. * * * PETER THOMPSON'S eye-witness account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn describes the Cheyenne using a clever "stationary wheel" technique to turn a kind of living Gattling gun against the American soldiers early in the Custer fight. Thompson said the Indian warriors rode in a circle, firing as they came closest to the soldiers and then reloading as they circled around the outer part of the wheel away from the firing point. The effect of this tactic would be very different than the "Indians circling the wagons" manuever so often depicted in American movies. If you ride around the wagon trail in a circle, your fire power is scattered and your exposure to enemy fire is constant. If you ride in a circle that turns continuous rifle fire at the contact point, your fire is concentrated to the maximum, and your exposure to enemy fire is minimized. * * * EDWARD PIGFORD'S eye-witness account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn "Says one ruse the Indians got up to draw fire of soldiers on Reno hill was a stuffed dummy in buckskin tied on a pony and the pony lashed up and driven over the ridge toward the soldiers and then turned loose. As the pony ran around, the soldiers for quite a while poured shots at him and his rider at long range." * * * AN UNUSUAL feature of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was the presence of "Suicide Boys" among both the Sioux and Cheyenne forces. The American troopers had certainly never seen anything before like these adolescent kamikazes on horseback, who essentially functioned as a stealth corps of shock troops. Two of the top ten kills on Astonisher.com's "Who Killed Custer - Top Ten List" -- Numbers Four and Seven -- were made anonymous youths who were probably Suicide Boys. * * * ANOTHER unusual feature of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Crow was their deployment of both women warriors and transvestite warriors. Although not numerous, these "irregulars" had considerable impact. Moving Robe, a renowned Hunkpapa Sioux woman warrior, holds down Number 15 on Astonisher.com's "Who Killed Custer -- Top 10 List," and Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a famous Cheyenne woman warrior, was such a force at the Battle of the Rosebud that the Cheyenne named the battle for her. Instead of the "Battle of the Rosebud," the Cheyenne called the great joint Sioux / Cheyenne victory of June 17, 1876, "Where the girl saved her brother (Kse-e se-wo-is-tan-i-we-i-tat-an-e)." * * * THE AMERICAN soldiers who fought at the battles of the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn paid their adversaries the highest praise in military terms. "The [Sioux and Cheyenne] Indians are the best light cavalry in the world," said Marcus Reno after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. "I have seen pretty nearly all of them, and I do not except even the Cossacks." After the Battle of the Rosebud, Anson Mills struck a similar note. Declared Mills, "The [Sioux and Cheyenne] Indians proved then and there that they were the best cavalry soldiers on earth..." -- Bruce Brown
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