On The Little Big Horn

(Cont. from last week)
Counting the Coups

Then, as I looked across the valley where then this monster village stood, it was not hard to picture this same Sitting Bull, with Rain-in-the-face, Gall, Two Moon, Crow King, Crazy Horse, White Bull, and others of the Sioux and Cheyennes, hastily arranging the scalp pole upon which scalps were hung by the score. The warriors speedily assemble to “count their coups” and the scalp dance begins. There in the evening of that eventful day, campfires gleam and muffled sounds of rattle and tom-toms echo back from valley to hill and from hill to valley. The wild war notes from thousand of throats unite and the braves glide around in their weird ceremony like evil spirits. Old men with war clubs, bounding about like young deer, strike these scalp poles, and with bead-like eyes, they renew their youth, while with fiendish delight, they gloat over the stiffened forms of the white troopers lying on the nearby hill. Intoxicated with victory, over a race they hate, the savage exultation of these warriors knows no bounds. On they go with tom-toms pealing, the muffled sound of thousands of moccasined feet stamping time to the blood-curdling music. Howling dogs take up the direful cries, and wolves on yonder hills repeat the echo to the farther mountains.
It is pandemonium broke loose. Such signal victory has loosened demons chained for a thousand years. Gaudy feathers, war-bonnets, and even human blood bedeck the visage of the dancers. haggard squaws a century old reel around the death ring. Hard by, there lie forty-two warriors silent in death, and the wails that come from mourners resemble the agony of lost souls.
Thus joy and sorrow mingle together on the Little Big Horn, whose placid waters glide by, crimsoned with the blood of redman and white.
The ghoulish festivities wear on into the night, and are still in progress until the news of approaching armies causes a hasty desertion of the great village; Cheyenne and Arapaho fleeing south and Sioux starting, in around about course, to Canada where they hope to remain safe from punishment for their crime.
Standing there on the crest of Custer Hill, the horror of the slaughter seemed greater than I had ever before realized. It was like treading on holy ground. That such a horrible disaster should be possible even in 1876 seems incredible to those not familiar with Indian warfare and primitive tactics. And, many historians and a few military leaders have seen fit to criticize. Since there were no survivors, the exact details of Custer’s plans, his course in the affray and such details will remain forever a closed book. So far as History relates the fact is very evident that Custer did not expect nearly so large nor so well armed a force of warriors as he encountered. It is also evident that he was ignorant of the difficulties which Reno and Benteen would have to encounter on the rough and unprotected trail that was to lead them to their point of attack.
The detailed account of the Custer expedition has appeared so often in print that every Montanan is quite familiar with the high points, at least. Historians have ventured conjecture; survivors of the other commands under Terry have made many conflicting statements. All told, the public is little wiser today, as a result of the tales of these so-called historians than the public was fifty years ago.
The story told by the Indian of the disaster, has very seldom appeared in print. Especially is this true of Sitting Bull’s own description of the fight.
Sitting Bull’s story came to light some few years ago in an article by W. J. Randall, as having been told by the old warrior leader to Major Crozier, a retired officer of the Royal Mounted Police. When the Sioux, under Sitting Bull, fearing reprisals, fled to Canada, following the Battle of the Little Big Horn, they encamped near Wood mountain. Major Crozier, according to Mr. Randall, was then in command of Fort MacLeoud, and upon the arrival of the Sioux, was transferred to the Wood mountain post. The major had many conversations with Sitting Bull, for he had been assigned the task of persuading the Sioux leader to return to the United States. On one occasion, the old warrior narrated his story of the battle as follows:

Sitting Bull’s Story of Battle

During the summer previous to the one in which Custer attacked us, he sent a letter to me telling me that if I did not go to an agency he would fight me, and I sent word back to him by his messenger that I did not want to fight, but only to be left alone. I told him at the same time that if he wanted to fight that he should go and fight those Indians who wanted to fight him. Custer then sent word again (this was in the winter), ‘You would not take my former offer, now I am going to fight you this winter.’ I sent back word and said just what I had said before, that I did not want to fight, and only wanted to be left alone, and that my camp was the only one that had not fought against him.
“Custer again sent a message. ‘I am fitting up my wagons and soldiers and am determined to fight against you in the spring.’ I then thought I would try him again, and sent him a message saying that I wanted, first of all to go to British territory, and after I had been there and came back, if he still wanted to fight me, I would fight then. Custer then sent back word and said: ‘I will fight you in eight days.’ I then saw it was no use; that I would have to fight, so I sent him word back:
“‘All right; get all your men mounted, and I will get all my men mounted; we will fight; the Great Spirit will look on, and the side that is in the wrong will be defeated.’

Indians Make Ready for Battle

“I began to get ready, and sent 20 young men to watch for the soldiers. Five soon came back with the word that Custer was coming. The other fifteen stopped to watch his movements. When Custer was quite close ten young men came in. When he advanced still closer, two more of them came in, leaving three still to watch the troops.
“We had got up a medicine dance for war in camp, and just as it was coming to an end two of the young men who had stayed out came in with the word that Custer and his troops were very close and would be on the camp in the morning. That night we all got ready for battle. My young men buckled on their ammunition belts and we were busy putting strong sticks in our ‘coup sticks.’

Story of the Battle

“Early at sunrise, two of the young men who had been out a short distance on the prairie came to me and told me that from the top of a high butte they had seen the troops advancing in two divisions. I then had all the horses driven into the camp and corralled between the lodges. About noon the troops came up and at once rushed upon the camp.
“They charged in two separate divisions, one on the upper end and the other charged about the middle of the camp.
“The latter division struck the camp in the center of the 250 lodge of the Uncapapa Sioux, and close to the door of my own lodge. At the time the troops charged I was making medicine for the Great Spirit to help us fight, and as I heard the noise and knew what it was I came out. When I got to the outside of my lodge I noticed that this division had stopped suddenly close to the other side of the Uncapapa camp and then they sounded a bugle and the troops fired into the camp. (Here Sitting Bull made a peculiar noise with his mouth and clapped his hands to imitate the firing of the soldiers.)
“I at once set my wife upon my best horse, put my war-bonnet on her head and told her to run away with the rest of the women. She did so, but in her hurry forgot to take the baby (a girl). After she had gone a little way she thought of the child and came back for it. I gave the child to her and she went off again. I now put a flag upon a lodge pole, and lifting it as high as I could I shouted out as loud as I was able to my men: ‘I am Sitting Bull; follow me.’
“I then rushed at the head of them up to where I thought Custer was and just as I got close up to the troops, they fired again. (Sitting Bull again imitated for some length of time the firing of the troops.) When I saw that the soldiers fired from their saddles and did but little damage to us, I ordered all my men to rush through their ranks and break them, which they did, but failed to break the ranks, although we suffered as little damage as before. I then shouted to them to try again, and putting myself at the head of my men we went at them again. This time, although the solders were keeping up a rapid firing (from their horses) we knocked away a whole corner and killed a great many, though I had only one man killed.
“After this we charged the same way several times, and keep driving them back for about a mile, killing them very fast. After forcing them back, there only remained five soldiers of this division and the interpreter alive. Print this post