a steep and high hill. Indians were all about them. Shots were going
toward them and coming from them. A friend here told me that Hump
Nose, a Cheyenne two years younger than I was, had been killed on
the west side of the river. My heart was made sad by this news, but I
went on up the hill. I joined with others in going around to the left
or north side of the place where were the soldiers. From our hilltop
position I fired a few shots from my newly-obtained rifle. I aimed
not at any particular ones, but only in the direction of all of them.
I think I was too far away to do much harm to them. I had been there
only a short time when somebody said to me:
“Look! Yonder are other soldiers!”
I saw them on distant hills down the river and on our same side of
it. The news of them spread quickly among us. Indians began to ride
in that direction. Some went along the hills, others went down to
cross the river and follow the valley. I took this course. I guided
my horse down the steep hillside and forded the river. Back again
among the camps I rode on through them to our Cheyenne circle at the
lower end of them. As I rode I could see lots of Indians out on the
hills across on the east side of the river and fighting the other
soldiers there. I do not know whether all of our warriors left the
first soldiers or some of them stayed up there. I suppose, though,
that all of them came away from there, as they would be afraid to
stay if only a few remained.
Not many people were in the lodges of our camp. Most of the women
and children and old Cheyennes were gone to the west side of the
valley or to the hills at that side. A few were hurrying back and
forth to take away packs. My father was the only person at our lodge.
I told him of the fight up the valley. I told him of my having helped
in the killing of the enemy Indian and some soldiers in the river. I
gave to him the tobacco I had taken. I showed him my gun and all of
the cartridges.
“You have been brave,” he cheered me. “You have done enough for one
day. Now you should rest.”
“No, I want to go and fight the other soldiers,” I said. “I can fight
better now, with this gun.”
“Your horse is too tired,” he argued.
“Yes, but I want to ride the other one.”
He turned loose my tired horse and roped my other one from the little
herd being held inside the camp circle. He blanketed the new mount
and arranged the lariat bridle. He applied the medicine treatment
for protecting my mount. As he was doing this I was making some
improvements in my appearance, making the medicine for myself. I
added my sheathknife to my stock of weapons. Then I looked a few
moments at the battling Indians and soldiers across the river on the
hills to the northeastward. More and more Indians were flocking from
the camps to that direction. Some were yet coming along the hills
from where the first soldiers had stopped. The soldiers now in view
were spreading themselves into lines along a ridge. The Indians were
on lower ridges in front of them, between them and the river, and
were moving on around up a long coulee to get behind the white men.
“Remember, your older brother already is out there in the fight,” my
father said to me. “I think there will be plenty of warriors to beat
the soldiers, so it is not needful that I send both of my sons. You
have not your shield nor your eagle wing bone flute. Stay back as far
as you can and shoot from a long distance. Let your brother go ahead
of you.”
Two other young men were near us. They had their horses and were
otherwise ready, but they told me they had decided not to go. I
showed them my captured gun and the cartridges. I told them of the
tobacco and the clothing and other things we had taken from the
soldiers up the valley. This changed their minds. They mounted their
horses and accompanied me.
We forded the river where all of the Indians were crossing it, at
the broad shallows immediately in front of the little valley or wide
coulee on the east side. We fell in with others, many Sioux and a
few Cheyennes, going in our same direction. We urged our horses on
up the small valley. As we approached the place of battle each one
chose his own personal course. All of the Indians had come out on
horseback. Almost all of them dismounted and crept along the gullies
afoot after the arrival near the soldiers. Still, there were hundreds
of them riding here and there all the time, most of them merely
changing position, but a few of them racing along back and forth in
front of the soldiers, in daring movements to exhibit bravery.
I swerved up a gulch to my left, where I saw some Cheyennes going
ahead of me. Other Cheyennes were coming here from the east side of
the soldiers. Although it was natural that tribal members should
keep together, there was everywhere a mingling of the fighters from
all of the tribes. The soldiers had come along a high ridge about
two miles east from the Cheyenne camp. They had gone on past us and
then swerved off the high ridge to the lower ridge where most of them
afterward were killed. While they were yet on the far-out ridge a few
Sioux and Cheyennes had exchanged shots with them at long distance,
without anybody being hurt. Bobtail Horse, Roan Bear and Buffalo
Calf, three Cheyennes, and four Sioux warriors with them, were said
to have been the first of our Indians to cross the river and go to
meet the soldiers. Bobtail Horse was an Elk warrior, Roan Bear a Fox
warrior, and Buffalo Calf a Crazy Dog warrior. They had been joined
soon afterward by other Indians from the valley camps and from the
southward hills where the first soldiers had taken refuge.
Most of the Indians were working around the ridge now occupied by
the soldiers. We were lying down in gullies and behind sagebrush
hillocks. The shooting at first was at a distance, but we kept
creeping in closer all around the ridge. Bows and arrows were in
use much more than guns. From the hiding-places of the Indians, the
arrows could be shot in a high and long curve, to fall upon the
soldiers or their horses. An Indian using a gun had to jump up and
expose himself long enough to shoot. The arrows falling upon the
horses stuck in their backs and caused them to go plunging here and
there, knocking down the soldiers. The ponies of our warriors who
were creeping along the gulches had been left in gulches farther
back. Some of them were let loose, dragging their ropes, but most of
them were tied to sagebrush. Only the old men and the boys stayed all
the time on their ponies, and they stayed back on the surrounding
ridges, out of reach of the bullets.
The slow long-distance fighting was kept up for about an hour and a
half, I believe. The Indians all the time could see where were the
soldiers, because the white men were mostly on a ridge and their
horses were with them. But the soldiers could not see our warriors,
as they had left their ponies and were crawling in the gullies
through the sagebrush. A warrior would jump up, shoot, jerk himself
down quickly, and then crawl forward a little further. All around the
soldier ridge our men were doing this. So not many of them got hit by
the soldier bullets during this time of fighting.
After the long time of the slow fighting, about forty of the
soldiers[30] came galloping from the east part of the ridge down
toward the river, toward where most of the Cheyennes and many
Ogallalas were hidden. The Indians ran back to a deep gulch. The
soldiers stopped and got off their horses when they arrived at a
low ridge where the Indians had been. Lame White Man, the Southern
Cheyenne chief, came on his horse and called us to come back and
fight. In a few minutes the warriors were all around these soldiers.
Then Lame White Man called out:
“Come. We can kill all of them.”
All around, the Indians began jumping up, running forward, dodging
down, jumping up again, down again, all the time going toward the
soldiers. Right away, all of the white men went crazy. Instead of
shooting us, they turned their guns upon themselves. Almost before
we could get to them, every one of them was dead. They killed
themselves.
The Indians took the guns of these soldiers and used them for
shooting at the soldiers on the high ridge. I went back and got my
horse and rode around beyond the east end of the ridge. By the time I
got there, all of the soldiers there were dead. The Indians told me
that they had killed only a few of those men, that the men had shot
each other and shot themselves. A Cheyenne told me that four soldiers
from that part of the ridge had turned their horses and tried to
escape by going back over the trail where they had come. Three of
these men were killed quickly. The fourth one got across a gulch and
over a ridge eastward before the pursuing group of Sioux got close
to him. His horse was very tired, and the Sioux were gaining on him.
He was moving his right arm as though whipping his horse to make it
go faster. Suddenly his right hand went up to his head. With his
revolver he shot himself and fell dead from his horse.
I raced my horse to hurry around to the hillside north of the soldier
ridge. The Indians there were all around a band of soldiers on the
north slope.[31] I got off my horse and fired two shots, at long
distance, with my soldier gun. I did not shoot any more, because the
sagebrush was full of Indians jumping up and down and crawling close
to the soldiers, and I was afraid I might hit one of our own men.
About that time, all of this band of soldiers went crazy and fired
their guns at each other’s heads and breasts or at their own heads
and breasts. All of them were dead before the Indians got to them.
Many hundreds of boys on horseback were watching the battle. They
were on the hills all around, far enough away to be out of reach of
the soldier bullets. The ridge north of the soldier ridge was crowded
with these boys and some old men. When the warriors were crowding in
close to the soldiers on the north slope, one soldier there broke
away and ran afoot across a gulch toward the northward hill. I
suppose he thought there were no warriors in that direction, as all
of them were hidden and creeping through the sagebrush and gullies.
But several of them jumped up and ran after him. Just after he got
across the gulch he stopped, stood still, and killed himself with his
own revolver. A Cheyenne boy named Big Beaver lashed his pony into a
dash down to the dead white man. The boy got the soldier’s revolver
and his belt of cartridges, jumped back upon his pony, and hurried
away again to the hilltop. A Cheyenne warrior scalped the soldier and
hung the scalp on a bunch of sagebrush, leaving it there. While I
was at this part of the field, a Waist and Skirt Indian said to me:
“I think I see the big chief of the soldiers. I have been watching
one certain man who appears to be telling all of the others what to
do.”
He tried to point out this man. But just then another bunch of
soldier horses went running wildly among them, kicking up a great
dust and knocking down or jostling the men. So I did not get to see
the special man the Indian was trying to show me.
I saw one Sioux walking slowly toward the gulch, going away from
where were the soldiers. He wabbled dizzily as he moved along. He
fell down, got up, fell down again, got up again. As he passed near
to where I was I saw that his whole lower jaw was shot away. The
sight of him made me sick. I had to vomit. I did not know him, and I
did not learn whether he died or not.
I had remained on my horse during most of the long time of the
fighting at a distance. I rode from place to place around the
soldiers, keeping myself back, as my father had urged me to do, while
my older brother crept close with the other warriors. I got off and
crept with them, though, for a little while at the place where the
band of soldiers rode down toward the river. After they were dead I
got my horse and mounted again. I stayed mounted until I got around
into the gulch north from the west end of the soldier ridge. By this
time all of the soldiers were gone except a band of them at the west
end of the ridge. They were hidden behind dead horses. Hundreds or
thousands of warriors were all around them, creeping closer all the
time. From the gulch where I was I could see the north slope of the
ridge covered by the hidden Indians. But the soldiers, from where
they were, could not see the warriors, except as some Indian might
jump up to shoot quickly and then duck down again. We could get only
glimpses of the soldiers, but we knew all the time right where they
were, because we could see their dead horses.
I got down afoot in the gulch. I let out my long lariat rope for
leading my horse while I joined the warriors creeping up the slope
toward the soldiers. During all of the earlier fighting, when I had
been most of the time going from place to place on horseback, I had
fired several shots with my rifle captured from the soldier when we
chased them across the river. I also had used my six-shooter. I had
replaced the four bullets expended during the chase of the first
soldiers in the valley. In this second battle I used up the six,
reloaded the six-shooter, and fired all of these additional six shots
at the soldiers. But it is hard to shoot straight when on horseback,
especially when there is much noise and much shooting and excitement,
as the horse will not stand still. When I went crawling up the slope
I could lie down and shoot. I could not see any particular soldier
to shoot at, but I could see their dead horses, where the men were
hiding. So I just sent my bullets in that direction.
A Sioux wearing a warbonnet was lying down behind a clump of
sagebrush on the hillside only a short distance north of where now is
the big stone having the iron fence around it. He was about half the
length of my lariat rope up ahead of me. Many other Indians were near
him. Some boys were mingled among them, to get in quickly for making
coup blows on any dead soldiers they might find. A Cheyenne boy was
lying down right behind the warbonnet Sioux. The Sioux was peeping up
and firing a rifle from time to time. At one of these times a soldier
bullet hit him exactly in the middle of the forehead. His arms and
legs jumped in spasms for a few moments, then he died. The boy
quickly slid back down into a gully, jumped to his feet and ran away.
A soldier on a horse suddenly appeared in view back behind the
warriors who were coming from the eastward along the ridge. He was
riding away to the eastward, as fast as he could make his horse go.
It seemed he must have been hidden somewhere back there until the
Indians had passed him. A band of the Indians, all of them Sioux, I
believe, got after him. I lost sight of them when they went beyond a
curve of the hilltop. I suppose, though, they caught him and killed
him.
The shots quit coming from the soldiers. Warriors who had crept close
to them began to call out that all of the white men were dead. All
of the Indians then jumped up and rushed forward. All of the boys
and old men on their horses came tearing into the crowd. The air was
full of dust and smoke. Everybody was greatly excited. It looked like
thousands of dogs might look if all of them were mixed together in a
fight. All of the Indians were saying these soldiers also went crazy
and killed themselves. I do not know. I could not see them. But I
believe they did so.
Seven of these last soldiers broke away and went running down the
coulee sloping toward the river from the west end of the ridge. I was
on the side opposite from them, and there was much smoke and dust,
and many Indians were in front of me, so I did not see these men
running, but I learned of them from the talk afterward. They did not
get far, because many Indians were all around them. It was said that
these seven men, or some of them, killed themselves. I do not know,
as I did not see them.[32]
After the great throng of Indians had crowded upon the little space
where had been the last band of fighting soldiers, a strange incident
happened: It appeared that all of the white men were dead. But there
was one of them who raised himself to a support on his left elbow.
He turned and looked over his left shoulder, and then I got a good
view of him. His expression was wild, as if his mind was all tangled
up and he was wondering what was going on here. In his right hand he
held his six-shooter. Many of the Indians near him were scared by
what seemed to have been a return from death to life. But a Sioux
warrior jumped forward, grabbed the six-shooter and wrenched it from
the soldier’s grasp. The gun was turned upon the white man, and he
was shot through the head. Other Indians struck him or stabbed him.
I think he must have been the last man killed in this great battle
where not one of the enemy got away.
This last man had a big and strong body. His cheeks were plump. All
over his face was a stubby black beard. His mustache was much longer
than his other beard, and it was curled up at the ends. The spot
where he was killed is just above the middle of the big group of
white stone slabs now standing on the slope southwest from the big
stone. I do not know whether he was a soldier chief or an ordinary
soldier. I did not notice any metal piece nor any special marks on
the shoulders of his clothing, but it may be they were there. Some of
the Cheyennes say now that he wore two white metal bars. But at that
time we knew nothing about such things.
One of the dead soldier bodies attracted special attention. This was
one who was said to have been wearing a buckskin suit. I had not seen
any such soldier during the fighting. When I saw the body it had been
stripped and the head was cut off and gone. Across the breast was
some writing made by blue and red coloring into the skin. On each arm
was a picture drawn with the same kind of blue and red paint. One of
the pictures was of an eagle having its wings spread out. Indians
told me that on the left arm had been strapped a leather packet
having in it some white paper and a lot of the same kind of green
picture-paper found on all of the soldier bodies. Some of the Indians
guessed that he must have been the big chief of the soldiers,
because of the buckskin clothing and because of the paint markings on
his breast and arms.[33] But none of the Indians knew then who had
been the big chief. They were only guessing at it.
The sun was just past the middle of the sky.[34] The first soldiers,
up the valley, had come about the middle of the forenoon. The earlier
part of the fighting against these second soldiers had been slow, all
of the Indians staying back and approaching gradually. At each time
of charging, though, the mixup lasted only a few minutes.
I took one scalp. As I went walking and leading my horse among the
dead I observed one face that interested me. The dead man had a long
beard growing from both sides of his face and extending several
inches below the chin. He had also a full mustache. All of the beard
hair was of a light yellow color, as I new recall it. Most of the
soldiers had beard growing, in different lengths, but this was the
longest one I saw among them. I think the dead man may have been
thirty or more years old. “Here is a new kind of scalp,” I said to a
companion. I skinned one side of the face and half of the chin, so as
to keep the long beard yet on the part removed.[35] I got an arrow
shaft and tied the strange scalp to the end of it. This I carried in
a hand as I went looking further.
[Illustration: LIMPY, A CHEYENNE VETERAN OF CUSTER’S LAST BATTLE,
STANDING AT THE LITTLE BIGHORN FORD WHERE THE INDIANS CROSSED TO MEET
THE CUSTER SOLDIERS]
Somebody told me Noisy Walking was badly wounded. I went to where he
was said to be, down in the gulch where the band of soldiers nearest
the river had been killed in the earlier part of the battle. He
was my same age, and we often had been companions since our small
boyhood. White Bull, an important medicine man, was his father. I
asked the young man: “How are you?” He replied: “Good.” But he did
not look well. He had been hit by three different bullets, one of
them having passed through his body. He had also some stab wounds in
his side. Word had been sent to his relatives in the camp west of the
river, and it was said his women relatives were coming after him with
a travois. I moved on eastward up the gulch coulee.
I discovered almost hidden the dead body of an Indian. I did not go
up close to it, but I could see the scalp was gone. That puzzled me.
Could this be a Crow or a Shoshone? I had not known of there being
any Indians belonging to these soldiers killed here. As I stood there
looking, it seemed there was something familiar about the appearance
of that body. I backed away and went to find my brother Yellow Hair.
We two returned to the place. We got off our horses and walked to
the dead Indian. We rolled the body over and looked closely.
“Yes, it is Lame White Man,” my brother agreed.
We called other Cheyennes. Several of them came. All of them promptly
confirmed our identification. All of us were satisfied some Sioux
had scalped him, or maybe had killed him, finding him in among the
soldiers and supposing him to be a Crow or a Shoshone belonging to
them. We knew he had gone with the young men in their charge upon
the soldiers there. Perhaps he had gone farther than the others and
was killed on his way back to us, the killer mistaking him for an
attacking enemy Indian. A bullet had gone in at his right breast and
out at his back. He also had many stab wounds. He was still dressed
in his best clothing, none of it having been taken. The Cheyennes
never made any inquiries among the Sioux concerning the case. We just
kept quiet about it.
My brother took the blanket from his horse and covered the body of
the favorite Cheyenne warrior chief. A young man hurried away to go
across the river and tell his people. When I came back to the place
an hour or so afterward the dead man’s wife and three or four women
helpers had come with a horse dragging a travois. Four of us young
men rolled the body into the blanket and put it upon the buffalo
hide stretched across the lodgepoles. The women set off with it
toward the river.
I helped likewise in putting my friend Noisy Walking upon the
swinging bed when his father and mother and other women came after
him. Judging by his appearance then, this was the last good act I
ever should do for him. Various groups of women, many more of the
Sioux than of the Cheyennes, were on the field searching for and
taking away their dead and wounded men. Two Sioux had been killed
in this same first charge upon the soldiers. I did not like to hear
the weeping of the women. My heart that had been glad because of the
victory was made sad by thoughts of our own dead and dying men and
their mourning relatives left behind.
I noticed decorations on the shoulders and stripes on the arms of
some of the soldier coats. I did not think of their meanings. I did
not hear any of the Indians there talk about any meanings for these
special marks. If I thought about it at all, I may have thought
these were particular medicine ways the soldiers had for preparing
themselves. It was a long time after that day before I learned that
the wearers of these were the soldier chiefs.
Each Indian horse used for going into the battle had only a blanket
strapped upon its back and a lariat rope about the neck. In riding,
the lariat was looped into the horse’s mouth, or was looped over the
head and then into the mouth, for a bridle. The surplus of the long
rope was coiled and tucked into the rider’s belt. If a man fell from
his horse the coil would be jerked from his belt, so he would not
be dragged. Also, the uncoiling as the horse might move away would
leave a long rope trailing after it, so it was easy to recapture the
animal. That was the regular Indian way of riding.
Warbonnets were worn by twelve Cheyennes among the three hundred or
more of our warriors in the battle. It may be I have forgotten a few
of them, but as I recollect it our warbonnet men on that day were
these:[36] Crazy Head, Crow Necklace, Little Horse, Wolf Medicine,
White Elk, Howling Wolf, Braided Locks, Chief Coming Up, Mad Wolf,
Little Shield, Sun Bear and White Body. Three of these were little
warrior chiefs. Ten of the warbonnets had trails. Sun Bear had a
single buffalo horn projecting out from the front of his forehead
band. Crazy Head was a big chief of the tribe, had been a great
fighter in past times, but was not now a warrior chief. While he had
on his warbonnet here, I suppose he stayed in the background and let
the young men do the fighting. Chief Lame White Man was not wearing
a warbonnet on this occasion. It was not usual for a man of his high
standing to go into the battle as he did. I suppose he did so because
he had not there any son to serve as a warrior.