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The Little Big Horn

The issue in the Sioux War of 1876, in which the most notable event was the Custer disaster, was the demand of the Indian commissioner that the "northern non-treaty Sioux, under the leadership of Sitting Bull ... and such outlaws from the several agencies as have attached themselves to these same hostiles" be compelled to "cease marauding and settle down" on a reservation.

Much of the marauding he referred to had taken place in Montana Territory on the Crow Reservation. Besides attacking the Crows, the nontreaty Sioux, during 1875, had made seventeen attacks on white men, killing nine, wounding ten and killing or driving off 138 head of horses, mules and oxen.

The Secretary of the Interior on December 3, 1875, ordered Indian agents to notify "certain Sioux Indians residing without the bounds of their reservations" that if they did not go to reservations by January 31, 1876, and remain there, "they shall be deemed hostile and treated accordingly by the military force." The injustice of this midwinter ultimatum has often been denounced, but obviously it was aimed at Sitting Bull and his following, and no one seriously believed that he or his band would report at a reservation, regardless of notice. The real purpose of the ultimatum was to turn over the problem of the nontreaty Sioux from the Indian Bureau to the Army.

Commissioner Edward P. Smith's 1874 report estimated Sitting Bull's "wilder portion of this tribe" at 5,000 to 10,000. The report for 1875 split the difference at 7,000, of which, it was said, 4,000 had come into the agencies, leaving Sitting Bull with only 3,000. The commissioner also stated in 1874, and repeated it in 1875, that "except under extraordinary provocation, or in circumstances not at all to be apprehended, it is not probable that as many as five hundred Indian warriors will ever again be mustered at one point for a fight ... Such an event as a general Indian war can never again occur in the United States."

Generals Sherman and Sheridan based their plans for the 1876 campaign on these figures. They should have given more heed to the commissioner's 1874 top estimate of 10,000. The plan was a typical Sheridan containing movement, designed to keep the Indians south of the Yellowstone and away from settlements. Orders issued make it quite clear that there was no plan for the several columns to converge on a concentration of Indians.

Brigadier General George Crook, commanding the Department of the Platte, marched his column out of Fort Fetterman on March 1. On March 17 his cavalry under Brevet Major General Joseph J. Reynolds, colonel of the 3rd, with five companies of his regiment and five of the 2nd, captured and burned an Indian camp on Little Powder River. Frank Grouard, a scout in whom General Crook placed much confidence, identified it as Crazy Horse's camp, and Grouard certainly should have known, for he had once lived in Crazy Horse's camp. The son of a Mormon missionary and a native of Ana, one of the Friendly Islands, he had passed for an Indian when captured by Sioux and had become a friend, or perhaps an enemy, of Crazy Horse. However, Indians have always maintained that Reynolds captured the camp of Two Moon, the Cheyenne. Whoever the Indians were, they rallied and drove Reynolds' troops out so precipitously that he could not be sure of the fate of one or two men left behind. A courtmartial resulted which suspended him from command for a year.

On the same day, March 17, Brevet Major General John Gibbon, colonel of the 7th Infantry, started out from Fort Shaw, Montana Territory, near the Great Falls for which a city would be named. When he reached Fort Ellis (near Bozeman) he learned that Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry had been unable to assemble the 7th Cavalry from its several posts because of snow and cold and that the campaign in the Department of Dakota had been suspended. Moreover, General Custer, who had been scheduled to command it, was in trouble again. He had gone to Washington to testify in a congressional investigation that resulted in the resignation of Secretary of War W. W. Belknap. Custer's testimony contributed nothing to that end, but did anger President Grant, who relieved Custer from command for a technical disobedience of orders. Terry and Sheridan intervened, and Custer was permitted to go on the expedition as a regimental officer only, but not in command of the column.

General Terry, therefore, had assumed personal command, and the expedition left Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17, 1876. It included the 7th Cavalry complete - twelve companies, headquarters, field staff and band - and a complete regiment was a rare sight in the Indian wars. There were also two companies of the 6th Infantry, one of the 17th Infantry and a detachment of the 20th Infantry, manning Gatling guns.

Meanwhile General Gibbon had resumed his march to meet Terry on the Yellowstone. He had six companies of the 7th Infantry, four of the 2nd Cavalry, a twelve-pound Napoleon gun and two .50-caliber Gatling guns, manned by infantry. General Crook started his second march from Fort Fetterman on May 29 with ten companies of the 3rd Cavalry, five of the 2nd Cavalry, three of the 9th Infantry and two of the 4th Infantry. Eight companies of the 5th Cavalry assembled at Fort Laramie in early June to scout between the columns of Crook and Terry.

Crook's Battle of the Rosebud

Crook's immediate objective was a hostile village reported by his Crow scouts, but he failed to surprise it. His Indian allies were not the silent masters of concealment depicted by writers of fiction and television scripts. When they sighted a few buffalo they whooped, yelled and shouted, continuing their noise until the last animal was hunted down. Crook was aware that his presence could no longer be unknown to the foe, and he was right.

On the morning of June 17 his 1,325 soldiers and Crow scouts were attacked by an estimated 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne who charged in a dazzling succession of hit-and-run blows which had the effect of spreading the troops thinly over a front of some three miles as they repelled the several attacks. Crook sent his reserve down the valley of Rosebud Creek in the hope of reaching and destroying the village, but was forced to recall it to bolster his line. Its return took the Sioux in the rear, and they withdrew after fighting that lasted most of the day.

Crook lost ten killed, including one Crow scout, and twenty-one wounded. He reported finding the bodies of thirteen Sioux and Cheyenne on the field; undoubtedly many were carried off, as was Indian custom. Crook held the ground and claimed victory, a fact generally accepted by his contemporaries. Recent writers, however, regard the Battle of the Rosebud as a defeat, and many ascribe the Indian success to the generalship of Crazy Horse. This view assumes that Crook was halted in a movement toward the spot where Custer was annihilated eight days later. But Crook had started with only four days' rations, and after the fight he was low in ammunition and had wounded to care for, so a withdrawal was necessary.

True, Crazy Horse was a leader who inspired followers to fight with him, but this particular battle shows no tactical plan other than that commonly practiced by Indians in defense of their village. Their sudden withdrawal while they were ahead, leaving some of their dead on the field, shows that Crazy Horse did not control them, or the battle. A Cheyenne, questioned years later, said they quit because they were tired and hungry. This seems likely. Considering their losses, it seems doubtful that they were greatly encouraged by their success in halting the troops short of their village.

Hindsight, of course, provides the view that had Crook destroyed the village and scattered the Indians, preventing them from joining Sitting Bull, the course of the campaign would have been greatly altered, and the Custer disaster might have been averted. However, such information was not in the hands of anyone at the time.

Custer's Last Stand

Contemporary opinion gave Sitting Bull credit for generalship in the United States cavalry's greatest defeat in the Indian wars. It was widely assumed that it was he who mobilized the huge Indian force, estimated at from 1,800 to 9,000 warriors - 4,000 seems reasonable - to entrap and ambush Custer.

Indian accounts contradict that view and indicate that the large gathering of warriors was mainly fortuitous. After the Reynolds fight in March the Cheyenne and Oglala had taken refuge in the camp of Sitting Bull, where Lame Deer's Miniconjou joined them. Later came Sans Arc and Blackfoot Sioux to complete the six principal circles of the great encampment. Sitting Bull held to the old ways of life, scorning treaties and reservations, and his influence was great when the hunting was good. Other bands of Cheyenne and small numbers of Wahpeton, Yanktonai, Brules, Assiniboin and Arapaho joined him, as small groups did every summer. That year of 1876 huge herds of buffalo and antelope made it possible for the unusually large assembly to find food and stay together for at least twenty-six days; perhaps for more than a month.

The columns of Terry and Gibbon met on the Yellowstone on June 21, three days after Crook began the withdrawal to his base. Both had some knowledge of the close presence of a large assembly of Indians, but no sure knowledge of its true size. Gibbon's Crow scouts had located an Indian village which Lieutenant James H. Bradley, in charge of the scouting, estimated at 800 to 1,000 warriors. Brevet Colonel Marcus A. Reno, major of the 7th Cavalry, had scouted southward with half the regiment, striking the trail of a large Sioux camp which was estimated to have 800 warriors. Neither intelligence indicated an overwhelming number of warriors. Neither Gibbon nor Reno had shown any desire to attack. And after the campaign ended General Sherman in his official report stated, "There was nothing official or private to justify an officer to expect that any detachment would encounter more than 500, or at the maximum, 800, hostile warriors."

Terry's plan called for Custer's 7th Cavalry as the main striking force. He had left behind the band, the recruits whose horses were unserviceable and the wagon train. He took only a pack train of mules bearing rations and ammunition. His twelve companies, totaling 660 officers and men, were unquestionably a match for 800 or 1,000 Indians. Greater odds were common. Terry's written order prescribed that Custer should make a wide sweep "to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians." Gibbon's column was to cross the Yellowstone and march to the forks of the Big and Little Big Horn, by which move "it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Big Horn, may be so nearly enclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible."

Controversy over whether Custer disobeyed this order centers on two phrases: "The Department commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy," but "desires that you conform to them [Terry's views] unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them."

Custer did not make the wide sweep prescribed in Terry's order. His detractors maintain that he speeded up his march in the hope of grabbing all the glory of victory before Gibbon could arrive. His defenders point to incidents of the march that indicated Indians had discovered his column and maintain that he moved directly towards them to prevent their escape, so heavily emphasized in the order.

On June 25 Custer found the approximate location of the Indian encampment on the Little Big Horn River, which flows out of sight below the surrounding plains. To surprise the enemy, he divided the regiment into three battalions. Brevet Colonel Frederick W. Benteen, captain of Company H, was sent to the left with three companies. Reno, also with three companies, rode straight ahead and came to the Little Big Horn. To his right, downstream, he saw Indian tepees, forded the river and attacked the upper end of the village. Custer, with companies C, E, F, I and L, remained on the plain above the stream. Leading his men parallel to it and out of sight, he apparently intended to strike the lower end of the village, but it stretched on and on - they never reached its end.

Ironically, Indian accounts generally agree that their scouts had not discovered the soldiers' approach and that the attack came as a surprise. There was panic, but perhaps it was the very immensity of the camp that made it impossible for the Indians to run away, forcing them instead to stand and fight.

Reno's charge was stopped, and after a short defensive fight in the woods, he ordered a retreat to the bluffs across the stream. In the disorderly withdrawal, thirty-two men were killed. Benteen, finding his mission pointless, cut back, picked up the pack train guarded by Company B and joined Reno in a defensive hill position.

Custer with his five companies rode on to their last stand. The positions in which the bodies were found indicate that they fought to the end against overwhelming odds. How many they killed is not known. Some Indian accounts say very few, perhaps not as many as died with Custer. Total U.S. casualties of the battle were 263 killed, including 10 civilians and scouts, and 44 wounded. Perhaps 212 of those killed were with Custer, but the exact division of the command is not clear. Those who saw the Indians moving out say their column was three miles long and a half-mile wide. They were gone by the time Gibbon reached Reno's position on the hill.

Buffalo Bill Takes the First Scalp for Custer

Brevet Major General Wesley Merritt was promoted to colonel of the 5th Cavalry on July 1, 1876, and took command that day on the Mini Pusa, near the Black Hills, where the regiment was scouting. When news of the Custer disaster arrived, Merritt was ordered to join Crook, but at the same time he received a report that some 800 Cheyenne had left Red Cloud Agency, presumably to join the hostiles. A "lightning march" of the 5th Cavalry put the troopers across the route of the Cheyenne at Hat Creek. But the ambush Merritt prepared for them was spoiled by two couriers who appeared inopportunely and were discovered by a small group of scouting Cheyenne. To save the lives of the threatened couriers, Buffalo Bill Cody and seven of eight scouts and soldiers charged to the rescue, and it was Cody who shot down the Indian leader Yellow Hand (Hay-o-wei or Yellow Hair). Cody's exploit was widely publicized as "the first scalp for Custer." An immediate charge by the cavalry sent the main body of the Cheyenne fleeing back to the agency.

Merritt reported to Crook with ten companies of his regiment on August 3, and on August 5 a reorganized expedition set off to overtake the hostile Indians. Terry, encamped on the Yellowstone near the Custer battlefield, was reinforced by six companies of the 22nd Infantry under Brevet Colonel Elwell S. Otis and six companies of the 5th Infantry which had been rushed by train and steamboat from Fort Leavenworth under Brevet Major General Nelson A. Miles. Thus reinforced, Terry marched up the Rosebud on August 6, meeting Crook's column on the tenth, but the Sioux had slipped out from between them.

Incessant rain, mud and shortage of rations delayed pursuit. On August 26 the columns separated, Crook turning back toward his own department by way of the Bad Lands and Black Hills. At Slim Buttes on September 9 his advance guard under Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Anson Mills, captain of the 3rd Cavalry, attacked a camp of thirty-seven Miniconjou lodges. Crazy Horse's Oglala got into the fight, but Crook's main body came up and the Sioux were driven off. The chief, American Horse, was killed and the village destroyed.

Winter Campaigns

Crook's column continued its march through the Black Hills and was disbanded at Camp Robinson, Nebraska, but the general immediately set about organizing a winter expedition from troops that had been in garrison during the winter. Its immediate commander was Brevet Brigadier General Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, colonel of the 4th Cavalry. Its 1,400 men included eleven companies of cavalry from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th regiments; eleven companies of infantry from the 4th, 9th, 14th and 25th regiments; and four companies of the 4th Artillery, dismounted, that is, without guns. There were also 400 Indian scouts, Pawnee under Major Frank North, Shoshoni, Arapaho and even a few Sioux and Cheyenne.

On November 25 and 26, 1876, Mackenzie's cavalry struck Dull Knife's camp of Cheyenne at the forks of the Powder, killing thirty Indians and destroying 200 lodges. From walls of the surrounding canyon the Cheyenne kept up a dogged fight until they were driven off by dismounted skirmishers.

While this was transpiring south of the Yellowstone River, General Miles prepared for his winter campaign. He mounted a part of his 5th Infantry on captured Indian ponies and took great care in equipping his regiment with warm clothes. Army blankets were cut into underwear and masks to cover the men's faces. Buffalo robes were made into overcoats. On October 17 he set off north of the Yellowstone seeking Sitting Bull. The chieftain came to meet him. They talked under a flag of truce but reached no agreement. Miles attacked and drove the retreating Hunkpapa for forty-two miles. A part of the band agreed to go to the agencies and surrender, but Sitting Bull and a few followers fled north. His camp was struck again on December 18 by a detachment under First Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin. Early in 1877 Sitting Bull led his band into Canada.

Crazy Horse surrendered on May 6, 1877, and was killed at Fort Robinson on September 5 during an attempt to confine him in the guardhouse. The great Sioux uprising was over. Never again would as many as five hundred Sioux warriors be mustered at any one place for a fight.

Jay Monaghan. The Sioux War of 1876. The Book of the American West. Simon & Schuster New York, NY 1969.

The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian Wars Few figures in American history inspire more interest than the enigmatic George Armstrong Custer. From his early service in the Civil War to his later years fighting Indians on the frontier, Custer's image has been indelibly imprinted on the pages of American history. His last stand at the Little Bighorn has been retold over and over and remains one of the most infamous stories of the American West. Author and historian Thom Hatch has scoured the historical record to prepare this exhaustive compendium of information of and relating to Custer. It will, he believes, come to be known as "the classic reference source" for the enigmatic cavalryman.

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