Post by carlo on Jul 16, 2017 5:41:41 GMT -5
Here is my take on the incident of December 16, 1876, when a delegation of Lakotas approached Col. Miles' Tongue River Cantonment under a flag of truce, but were killed by Crow scouts a short distance from the post. One source alluded me until a few days back (see amertribes.proboards.com/thread/374/little-big-horn-warriors?page=2), so I could finally finish the write-up today. I have relied only on primary & contemporary sources (Spotted Elk, Important Man, Fool Bear, Black Elk, White Bull, Short Bull, 'Yellowstone' Kelly, Thomas Leforge, Annual Report to the Comm. of Indian Affairs, Col. Nelson A. Miles), cross-checked with several contemporary newspapers and of course with modern era secondary sources.
Near the end of 1876 the Lakota-Cheyenne alliance that defeated Custer was showing signs of division. By December many of Sitting Bull’s followers had already cut their losses and crossed the border into Canada, while in other camps the movement supporting peace negotiations and limiting hostilities was growing on the back of uncertainty and recent defeats on the battlefield.
A few weeks earlier an influential Oglala headman named Packs The Drum had joined Crazy Horse’s village from Red Cloud Agency, having grown frustrated with the lack of support from the other agency leaders to oppose the U.S. Government’s demands to give up the Black Hills. After witnessing the Northern Cheyenne survivors of the recent attack on their village come trudging into camp in the second week of December, Packs The Drum argued that negotiating peace with Colonel Nelson A. Miles, known to the Lakotas as ‘Bear Coat’, was a sensible idea. He may also have felt that instead of waging war, a strong and defiant diplomatic front was needed at the agencies to prevent further land grabbing. With the support of other moderates in Crazy Horse’s camp, Packs The Drum gathered several prominent men to join him, mostly Miniconjous. Spotted Elk, later known as Big Foot, was there, as was Hollow Horn, the Itazipco leader who may have been the keeper of the sacred Buffalo Calf Pipe at the time. About twenty other Lakotas made up the remainder of the group.
From their village at the mouth of Hanging Woman Creek the delegation followed the frozen Tongue north to the confluence with the Elk River, where a military post dubbed the Tongue River Cantonment (later Fort Keogh) was recently established. To support their peaceful intentions they planned to return some sixty horses that were stolen from the post just a few days prior, and even brought robes and furs to trade.
On the icy cold morning of December 16 the group reached the cantonment. Several miles out they passed some white civilians herding the post’s cattle and then rode along with a party of wood cutters for a while. It was clear that the white men understood the Lakotas were friendly.
Upon reaching the bluffs overlooking the post, Spotted Elk suggested that a small group of five headmen led by Packs The Drum should go ahead and the rest would follow later with the horse herd. Packs The Drum selected Fat On The Beef, Lame Red Skirt, Yearling, and Hollow Horn to join him. Although the incident has been well-documented, the details vary per source—most notably, the number of Lakota delegates and their names have been inconsistent. Three individuals are named by all Lakota sources: the Oglala Packs The Drum (or Drum On His Back, Drumpacker, Sitting Bull, and Sitting Bull the Good or Sitting Bull the Minor, to distinguish him from the Hunkpapa Sitting Bull), and the Miniconjous Fat On The Beef (or Gets Fat With Beef, Fat Hide) and Lame Red Skirt (also known as Bad Leg or Red Cloth, to distinguish him from an important Miniconjou headman also named Red Skirt.) The name of Itazipco Hollow Horn is provided by both Black Elk and White Bull, while Spotted Elk, Important Man and Fool Bear remembered that Yearling, another Miniconjou, was one of the five envoys. The others, including Spotted Elk, hang back on the bluffs with the horse herd, while the five envoys proceeded to the post. Bearing a white flag, the Lakotas were confident in a positive outcome. Packs The Drum carried his engraved Henry repeating rifle, a gift he received eighteen months ago from President Grant and now a token of good will.
A little way above the post, on the timbered riverbank, was a camp of sixty to seventy Crow scouts attached to Miles’ command. Two Crow women near the camp noticed the five men approaching and ran back to notify the scouts, twelve of which just arrived from a hunting trip and immediately started out to head off the Lakotas. It is said among the Crows that White Man Runs Him was one of them. “Here [is] a chance to do something important”, they told each other. As the dozen Crows drew near, Hollow Horn expressed his concerns to the other Lakotas and warned that they might be up to something, regardless of the white flag. He proved to be right.
The Crows initially appeared to be friendly and greeted the Lakotas with handshakes, but when they were behind a large woodpile the Crows suddenly leveled their guns and fired at them point-blank. Black Elk later speculated that one of the Crow warriors was married to the woman that was killed that fall by Crazy Horse, and that he was the first to fire his pistol, killing Fat On The Beef in revenge. Packs The Drum, Lame Red Skirt and Yearling were pulled from their horses and were shot and stabbed to death. A few steps behind the others was Hollow Horn, who at the outset of the attack quickly turned his horse around and fled. He was riding a fast mount and initially managed to outrun the pursuing Crows, but on the riverbank he got tangled up in some bushes. Hollow Horn was killed there, along with his horse, in a hail of Crow bullets. The Lakotas on the bluffs were unable to see the attack clearly, but the gunfire, the clouds of dust and then a Crow war song left no doubt that their chiefs were dead. They immediately took flight, abandoning the sixty horses.
Meanwhile the soldiers at the post, unaware of the Lakota delegation, came rushing out to the sound of gunfire but the damage was already done. Colonel Miles was infuriated with his Crow scouts, who in his eyes spoiled a great opportunity to end the war. This “unfortunate affair”, as he called it, would have been avoided if the Crows had heeded his warning of the day before “against committing any act of violence against messengers or other parties coming in for friendly purposes.” The Crows made an effort to condone their actions by pointing out that some of the men had lost relatives in the recent Lakota attack near the Rosebud River. They also claimed that the Lakota delegates fired on one of their women and that they hadn’t seen any white flags. But Miles was unimpressed, scolding the scouts for this “unprovoked cowardly murder.” He ordered the Crows’ guns and twelve of their mounts to be confiscated but, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, the culprits fled all the way back to Crow Agency, while the other scouts, ashamed and worried about repercussions from both Miles and the Lakotas, followed them two days later.
Miles sent the twelve Crow horses and other gifts to the relatives of the slain men in an effort to appease the Lakotas, but to no avail. For the free Lakotas the attack reinforced once more the feeling that the U.S. soldiers wanted to continue the war and that they were not to be trusted. It strengthened their resolve and they concluded that peace negotiations were no longer an option.
Miles later reported that Bull Eagle, a Miniconjou headman who had recently shown to be open to surrender, was one of the dead. Yet Miles did not see the bodies himself but his soldiers “believed” (his quote) they recognized one of the dead as Bull Eagle. They also thought to have recognized Tall Bull, Red, and Red Cloth, while one man remained unidentified. Red Cloth is the same man as Lame Red Skirt, but the other three have been wrongly identified—none of the Lakota sources mention any of these men. For his book Walter Campbell (Stanley Vestal) added Bull Eagle and Tall Bull to the list of casualties himself, probably based on Miles’ report and contemporary newspapers. That Bull Eagle was not one of the casualties is confirmed by Spotted Elk, who referred to him several times in his account yet did not name him as one of the five delegates nor did he mention his death when he described the incident. The New York Tribune reported on July 6, 1877, that “Bull Eagle (one of the chiefs until now supposed to have been killed by the Crows near the Cantonment this spring [sic]), is alive and has joined [Sitting Bull and Black Moon in Canada.]” Bull Eagle eventually returned to live on the Cheyenne River Reservation; any further proof of that would be greatly appreciated.
[Please respect copyrights.]
Near the end of 1876 the Lakota-Cheyenne alliance that defeated Custer was showing signs of division. By December many of Sitting Bull’s followers had already cut their losses and crossed the border into Canada, while in other camps the movement supporting peace negotiations and limiting hostilities was growing on the back of uncertainty and recent defeats on the battlefield.
A few weeks earlier an influential Oglala headman named Packs The Drum had joined Crazy Horse’s village from Red Cloud Agency, having grown frustrated with the lack of support from the other agency leaders to oppose the U.S. Government’s demands to give up the Black Hills. After witnessing the Northern Cheyenne survivors of the recent attack on their village come trudging into camp in the second week of December, Packs The Drum argued that negotiating peace with Colonel Nelson A. Miles, known to the Lakotas as ‘Bear Coat’, was a sensible idea. He may also have felt that instead of waging war, a strong and defiant diplomatic front was needed at the agencies to prevent further land grabbing. With the support of other moderates in Crazy Horse’s camp, Packs The Drum gathered several prominent men to join him, mostly Miniconjous. Spotted Elk, later known as Big Foot, was there, as was Hollow Horn, the Itazipco leader who may have been the keeper of the sacred Buffalo Calf Pipe at the time. About twenty other Lakotas made up the remainder of the group.
From their village at the mouth of Hanging Woman Creek the delegation followed the frozen Tongue north to the confluence with the Elk River, where a military post dubbed the Tongue River Cantonment (later Fort Keogh) was recently established. To support their peaceful intentions they planned to return some sixty horses that were stolen from the post just a few days prior, and even brought robes and furs to trade.
On the icy cold morning of December 16 the group reached the cantonment. Several miles out they passed some white civilians herding the post’s cattle and then rode along with a party of wood cutters for a while. It was clear that the white men understood the Lakotas were friendly.
Upon reaching the bluffs overlooking the post, Spotted Elk suggested that a small group of five headmen led by Packs The Drum should go ahead and the rest would follow later with the horse herd. Packs The Drum selected Fat On The Beef, Lame Red Skirt, Yearling, and Hollow Horn to join him. Although the incident has been well-documented, the details vary per source—most notably, the number of Lakota delegates and their names have been inconsistent. Three individuals are named by all Lakota sources: the Oglala Packs The Drum (or Drum On His Back, Drumpacker, Sitting Bull, and Sitting Bull the Good or Sitting Bull the Minor, to distinguish him from the Hunkpapa Sitting Bull), and the Miniconjous Fat On The Beef (or Gets Fat With Beef, Fat Hide) and Lame Red Skirt (also known as Bad Leg or Red Cloth, to distinguish him from an important Miniconjou headman also named Red Skirt.) The name of Itazipco Hollow Horn is provided by both Black Elk and White Bull, while Spotted Elk, Important Man and Fool Bear remembered that Yearling, another Miniconjou, was one of the five envoys. The others, including Spotted Elk, hang back on the bluffs with the horse herd, while the five envoys proceeded to the post. Bearing a white flag, the Lakotas were confident in a positive outcome. Packs The Drum carried his engraved Henry repeating rifle, a gift he received eighteen months ago from President Grant and now a token of good will.
A little way above the post, on the timbered riverbank, was a camp of sixty to seventy Crow scouts attached to Miles’ command. Two Crow women near the camp noticed the five men approaching and ran back to notify the scouts, twelve of which just arrived from a hunting trip and immediately started out to head off the Lakotas. It is said among the Crows that White Man Runs Him was one of them. “Here [is] a chance to do something important”, they told each other. As the dozen Crows drew near, Hollow Horn expressed his concerns to the other Lakotas and warned that they might be up to something, regardless of the white flag. He proved to be right.
The Crows initially appeared to be friendly and greeted the Lakotas with handshakes, but when they were behind a large woodpile the Crows suddenly leveled their guns and fired at them point-blank. Black Elk later speculated that one of the Crow warriors was married to the woman that was killed that fall by Crazy Horse, and that he was the first to fire his pistol, killing Fat On The Beef in revenge. Packs The Drum, Lame Red Skirt and Yearling were pulled from their horses and were shot and stabbed to death. A few steps behind the others was Hollow Horn, who at the outset of the attack quickly turned his horse around and fled. He was riding a fast mount and initially managed to outrun the pursuing Crows, but on the riverbank he got tangled up in some bushes. Hollow Horn was killed there, along with his horse, in a hail of Crow bullets. The Lakotas on the bluffs were unable to see the attack clearly, but the gunfire, the clouds of dust and then a Crow war song left no doubt that their chiefs were dead. They immediately took flight, abandoning the sixty horses.
Meanwhile the soldiers at the post, unaware of the Lakota delegation, came rushing out to the sound of gunfire but the damage was already done. Colonel Miles was infuriated with his Crow scouts, who in his eyes spoiled a great opportunity to end the war. This “unfortunate affair”, as he called it, would have been avoided if the Crows had heeded his warning of the day before “against committing any act of violence against messengers or other parties coming in for friendly purposes.” The Crows made an effort to condone their actions by pointing out that some of the men had lost relatives in the recent Lakota attack near the Rosebud River. They also claimed that the Lakota delegates fired on one of their women and that they hadn’t seen any white flags. But Miles was unimpressed, scolding the scouts for this “unprovoked cowardly murder.” He ordered the Crows’ guns and twelve of their mounts to be confiscated but, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, the culprits fled all the way back to Crow Agency, while the other scouts, ashamed and worried about repercussions from both Miles and the Lakotas, followed them two days later.
Miles sent the twelve Crow horses and other gifts to the relatives of the slain men in an effort to appease the Lakotas, but to no avail. For the free Lakotas the attack reinforced once more the feeling that the U.S. soldiers wanted to continue the war and that they were not to be trusted. It strengthened their resolve and they concluded that peace negotiations were no longer an option.
Miles later reported that Bull Eagle, a Miniconjou headman who had recently shown to be open to surrender, was one of the dead. Yet Miles did not see the bodies himself but his soldiers “believed” (his quote) they recognized one of the dead as Bull Eagle. They also thought to have recognized Tall Bull, Red, and Red Cloth, while one man remained unidentified. Red Cloth is the same man as Lame Red Skirt, but the other three have been wrongly identified—none of the Lakota sources mention any of these men. For his book Walter Campbell (Stanley Vestal) added Bull Eagle and Tall Bull to the list of casualties himself, probably based on Miles’ report and contemporary newspapers. That Bull Eagle was not one of the casualties is confirmed by Spotted Elk, who referred to him several times in his account yet did not name him as one of the five delegates nor did he mention his death when he described the incident. The New York Tribune reported on July 6, 1877, that “Bull Eagle (one of the chiefs until now supposed to have been killed by the Crows near the Cantonment this spring [sic]), is alive and has joined [Sitting Bull and Black Moon in Canada.]” Bull Eagle eventually returned to live on the Cheyenne River Reservation; any further proof of that would be greatly appreciated.
[Please respect copyrights.]