The Sioux and Cheyenne -- ALTHOUGH UNINFORMED Americans frequently had the impression that Sioux and Cheyenne warriors operated like some sort of wild, undisciplined "swarm of bees," as Kill Eagle put it, many 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 splendidly." 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 war whistle made of the leg bone of an eagle -- screaming above the incoming blizzard moments before the Indians' last ferocious attack in what proved to be Crazy Horse's last battle.
Sioux war chief Crow King described how the Indian commanders used audible signals to direct their men, as did Charles DeRudio, who 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." Another time, Peter Thompson recalled, "The silence was suddenly broken by a loud command given by a hostile chief, which was followed by a terrific volley and a great many of our horses and mules passed over the range." 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 and John Stands In Timber said the buglers were Indian. See Mysteries of the Little Bighorn for more info. * * * RECALLING Crazy Horse's hair-raising opening 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 haphazard 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 promptly 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 they too suffered grievous casualties. Henry himself 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..." THE SIOUX AND CHEYENNE were aware of the shell ejection problems that plagued rifles used by Americans troops in the 1860s and 1870s, including the Springfield .45-.55 caliber single-action carbine with which the Seventh Cavalry was equipped at the Little Bighorn. The problem, according to Seventh Cavalry survivor Charles Windolf, was that the spent cartridges sometimes wouldn't eject from the gun, especially once it had been fired a number of times. "But when fired rapidly the breech became foul and the greasy cartridges often jammed and could not be removed by the extractor," recalled Windolf. "This meant that the empty shell had to be forced out by the blade of a hunting knife." Peter Thompson experienced the problem at the outset of the Custer fight, but lived to tell the tale. After firing at an Indian in Medicine Tail Coulee and missing, he recalled, "I threw open the breech lock of my carbine to throw the shell out, but it was stuck fast. Being afraid that the Indian would escape, I worked at it in a desperate manner and finally got it out far enough to use my thumb nail, which proved affective. The cartridge was very dirty, a nice predicament for a man to be in when at close quarters with an enemy." Others were not so lucky. Here is Red Feather's description of the death of a American officer in the Custer fight because the "cartridges stuck in the [officer's] gun because it was too smoked from shooting." And Rain In The Face, one of the few who correctly recalled that the Seventh Cavalry troopers were NOT carrying sabers that day (despite being depicted that way in a hundred American illustrations of the battle), also recalled, "Their guns wouldn't shoot but once -- the thing wouldn't throw out the empty cartridge shells." It appears that Crazy Horse was the first among the Sioux and Cheyenne to systematically exploit the shell ejection failure problem. Eagle Elk recalled an incident from the Powder River campaign of 1868: "Then Crazy Horse came along. He said, "Just keep away for a little while. 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." According to Russell Freedman's The Life and Death of Crazy Horse, Crazy Horse used the same ploy at the Battle of Arrow Creek on August 14, 1872. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Billy Garnett said Crazy Horse spoke again of letting the Americans get their guns hot in the speech he gave to his warriors just before leading them into battle against Reno. According to Garnett, Crazy Horse said "he wanted Reno's men to get their guns hot so they would not work so well." * * * FOOLISH ELK'S eye-witness account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn describes another 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. * * * BUT CRAZY HORSE was not the only dangerous and innovative commander among the Sioux and Cheyenne. 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 Americans. This took place near the beginning of the Custer fight, before Crazy Horse disengaged from Reno and got into the action against Custer. 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" maneuver so often depicted in American "wild West" 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. Based on Cheyenne descriptions of the war chiefs who commanded the early action against Custer's decapitated command, the "living Gattling gun" that Thompson saw could have been the work of Cheyenne war chiefs, Contrary Big Belly, Comes In Sight and/or Lame White Man. Nor was Crazy Horse the only tactician among the Sioux and Cheyenne. According to Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull, Gall quickly realized at the Siege of the Greasy Grass that Reno's men would have to expose themselves to fire to get water, so he stationed his marksmen there along the creek that was their only access to water. The deadly sniping of the Americans' water volunteers by the Sioux provided some of the most heroic moments of the battle for the Americans. Here is Medal of Honor winner Peter Thompson's account. * * * 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. Who'd expect these children to rush into the arms of death for the glory of killing an American? [Note: Nineteenth century American had never seen anything like this, but of course it has a very contemporary flavor to 21st century American, which continues to make mujahidin with its illegal, immoral, atrocity-laced wars of invasion.] 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)." See Women Warriors for more info. * * * 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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