the soldiers had come. We looked where had been the little shelter
camps after the battle with them. We went then across the river
and over to the ridge where we had killed all of the soldiers. The
weather was clear and chilly, but not cold. There was no snow on the
ground. We led our horses as we walked all over the battle field.
Each man told the others of his own experiences during the fight. I
showed them where Noisy Walking had been found and where my brother
and I came upon the body of Lame White Man. The places where all of
the killed Cheyennes and many of the Sioux had fallen were known by
some one or other of us. We visited all of these places and talked of
the dead Indian friends.
Dirt and sagebrush mounds now were at the places where had been the
dead soldiers. In a few places we could see some parts of their
bodies exposed. But mostly the graves were good, except they had no
stones piled over them. At one end of many different ones of the
graves was a straight board stuck into the ground, to stand up there.
They were straight boards, not crosses. Dead horses were lying in
decay here and there among the graves. Wolves had been eating at the
horses. I did not notice any place where it appeared wolves had been
at the graves.
I found a folding knife that had belonged to some soldier. Another of
our party found a Sioux sheathknife. Soldier boot bottoms and other
pieces of soldier belongings were scattered here and there. I saw
some broken Cheyenne spears. There were many hundreds of arrows lying
all along the ridge and on its sides. Some were Cheyenne arrows, but
mostly they were from the bows of the Sioux.
I hunted specially for cartridges. The others also picked them up,
but they were getting them to give to friends. I was the only one of
this party having a soldier rifle. There were lots of empty shells,
and from place to place we picked up loaded ones. Near a dead horse
I found a whole pasteboard boxful of good cartridges. There were
forty of them in the box. The box had been rotted by rain and had
fallen apart, but the cartridges were good. They only needed to be
wiped dry. I filled my belt and put the remainder into my pockets.
Others found other boxfuls.
We went on southward over the hills to the place where the first
soldiers had hidden themselves on the hilltop. We found other
cartridges here. After having looked a while at this place we forded
the river to the west side and walked about over the valley where the
first fight had taken place. One other man and myself were the only
two in this party who had been in this battle. We told our companions
about how we chased the soldiers and killed them. I showed them right
where I had taken my rifle from the soldier and where I had helped in
killing the Corn Indian. I pointed out to them the place where I was
hidden and where was the soldier when I shot him as he was dipping up
water. I told of my getting the wet tobacco from a hip pocket and the
metal money from another pocket. They laughed when I told of having
thrown aside the wet paper money the soldier had folded and laid into
a little paper box.
We slept this night only a little distance up the valley from this
first battle ground. Here we made for ourselves the same kind of
little brush shelters we had been making each night. We slept by twos
or in groups, to keep warm.
The next morning we set out over the divide eastward toward the
Rosebud. We followed the same trail regularly used by the Indians
traveling this region, the same that had been used by the soldiers
in coming to us. Four more sleep camps we made in going on eastward
to Tongue river and up this valley. Somewhere below the mouth of
Hanging Woman creek our scouts caught sight of Indians coming down
the valley. All of us got to where we might see. Most of the Indians
were afoot. Only a few had horses. We watched and wondered. Who were
these people?
The band of walking Indians were our Cheyennes, the whole tribe. They
had but little food. Many of them had no blankets nor robes. They had
no lodges. Only here and there was one wearing moccasins. The others
had their feet wrapped in loose pieces of skin or of cloth. Women,
children and old people were straggling along over the snow-covered
trail down the valley. The Cheyennes were very poor.
Our people told us of soldiers and Pawnee Indians having come to the
camp far up Powder river where we had left them. The Cheyennes had
to run away with only a few small packs, as our small band had done
on lower Powder river during the late winter before this time. The
same as we had done, they had to see all of their lodges burned and
most of their horses taken. Many of our men, women and children had
been killed. Others had died of wounds or had starved and frozen to
death on the journey through the mountain snow to Tongue river. Three
Cheyenne women and a boy had been captured by the Pawnees.[47]
The tribe were hunting now for the Ogallala Sioux, where Crazy Horse
was the principal chief. These Sioux were somewhere in this region.
We crossed to the east side of Tongue river just above the present
white man town of Ashland, Montana, and went over the benches to
Otter creek. After a night of sleep here we moved on eastward over
the little mountains. Travel and sleep, travel and sleep, we kept
going. Eleven sleeps the tribe had journeyed when we arrived at the
place on Beaver creek where now is a white man trading store and a
postoffice called Stacey. Here we found the Ogallalas.
The Ogallala Sioux received us hospitably. They had not been
disturbed by soldiers, so they had good lodges and plenty of meat and
robes. They first assembled us in a great body and fed us all we
wanted to eat. To all of the women who needed other food they gave a
supply. They gave us robes and blankets. They shared with us their
tobacco. Gift horses came to us. Every married woman got skins enough
to make some kind of lodge for her household. Oh, how generous were
the Ogallalas! Not any Cheyenne was allowed to go to sleep hungry or
cold that night.
We had traveled and hunted much during past times with these Sioux
people. At all times there was some one or more families of them with
us or some of our Cheyennes with them. Of our friendly intermarrying,
there was more connection with the Ogallalas than with any other
tribe. Their people during the summer and fall had been going to and
from the agency more than ours had been. Our few incoming Cheyennes
had brought us some news about the soldiers we had fought on the
Little Bighorn. But the Ogallalas informed us more fully. From them
we learned that the big chief of the soldiers was Long Hair, the
same man who several years before this time had fought the Southern
Cheyennes.
After we had rested with the Ogallalas a few days the chiefs
counciled together and decided that the tribes should join in
movement up the Tongue river. All of us then followed our back trail
over to Otter creek and on to Tongue river. We moved slowly and
hunted along the way. The Cheyennes got a new supply of buffalo meat
and many more skins for enlarging their lodges. We crossed Tongue
river on the ice, to the east side. Not far up the valley we went
back over the ice, to the west side. We traveled then on up the
benchland trails, to Hanging Woman creek. The Ogallalas had some
cattle they had taken from white people or from soldiers. These
were butchered along the way. They had yet also a few of the horses
taken at the battle on the Little Bighorn. But these horses that had
been so fat and strong were now poor and weak. Most of them already
had died. They did not know how to find winter food like the Indian
ponies could find it.
At Hanging Woman creek it was decided the two tribes would separate.
The Ogallalas would go eastward up this stream. The Cheyennes would
continue on up the Tongue river valley. As usual, a few Cheyennes
joined the Sioux and a few of their people decided to come with us.
My sister Crooked Nose started with the other people. Chiefs Crazy
Horse and Water All Gone and a few other Ogallalas came to us. Just
as the tribes were about to separate, some scouts brought in the
report:
“Soldiers are coming!”
The two bands of Indians began to come again together. The warriors
mingled themselves as being of one tribe. The women and children and
older men of both sets of people moved together up the Tongue river.
The young men put themselves behind their fleeing people. Somebody
said to me:
“They have captured some women. Your sister is one of them.”
My heart jumped when this news came to me. I lashed my horse into
a run toward where it was said they had been captured. There I saw
tracks of soldier horses. The trail led to the river ice. On the
opposite side of the river, the west side, were soldiers. They began
shooting at me. I had to get away. I did not see any of the women, so
I supposed they had been killed. My heart then became bitter toward
these white men.
I hid my horse in the brush at the foot of a ridge where some
warriors were on its top. I walked up there. Many Indians were hidden
behind rocks and were shooting toward the soldiers. I chose for
myself a hiding place and did the same. I had my soldier rifle and
plenty of cartridges. Many soldiers were coming across on the ice, to
fight us. But we had the advantage of them because of our position on
the high and rocky ridge.
Big Crow, a Cheyenne, kept walking back and forth along the ridge
on the side toward the soldiers. He was wearing a warbonnet. He had
a gun taken from the soldiers at the Little Bighorn battle. He used
up his cartridges and came back to us hidden behind the rocks, to ask
for more. Cheyennes and Sioux here and there each gave him one or two
or three. He soon got enough to fill his belt. He went out again to
walk along the ridge, to shoot at the soldiers and to defy them in
their efforts to hit him with a bullet. All of us others kept behind
the rocks, only peeping around at times to shoot. Crazy Horse, the
Ogallala chief, was near me. Bullets glanced off the shielding rocks,
but none hit us. One came close to me. It whizzed through the folds
of my blanket at my side.
Big Crow finally dropped down. He lay there alive, but apparently in
great distress. A Sioux went with me to crawl down to where he was
and bring him into shelter. Another Sioux came after us. When we got
to the wounded man I took hold of his feet and the two Sioux grasped
his hands. The three of us crawled and dragged him along on the snow.
Bullets began to shower around us. We let loose our holds and dodged
behind rocks. When the firing quieted, we crept out and again got
him. My brother just then called out to me: “Wooden Leg, come, we
are going away from here.” I let loose again and went to my brother.
The two Sioux continued to drag Big Crow.
The Indians moved back and forth, down and up, fighting the soldiers
at different times all day. After darkness came, the fighting
stopped. The group where I was built a little fire, so we might warm
ourselves. As soon as the light of it showed, the bullets began to
sing over our heads. We quickly threw snow upon the fire. Then we
moved to another place. I got down where I had left my horse. It was
still there. I mounted and joined my friends. All of the Indians left
there during the night. Some of the Ogallalas already had gone on up
Hanging Woman creek. Chiefs Crazy Horse and Water All Gone, with many
lodges of their people, attached themselves to the Cheyennes. We went
up Tongue river. We traveled all night and all the next day before we
stopped to camp.
We did not know where these soldiers had come from.[48] We did not
know either how far they might follow us. But our scouts remaining
behind saw them go back down Tongue river. At the camp, Big Crow’s
relatives went about inquiring for him. I told where I last had seen
him. Finally, they found the two Sioux who had been with him when I
left him. These men said he was dead. That was our one man lost in
the battle. Two Sioux were killed.
The missing Cheyennes were: Sweet Woman, an old woman, age fifty or
older. Lame White Man’s widow and her two girls. Little Chief’s wife,
their girl and their boy. My sister Crooked Nose, past twenty-one
years old. A boy belonging to some other family. There were four
women and five children. These were said to be in one group together,
and all were captured by the soldiers. We were not sure, though, but
some of them or all of them might have been wounded or killed.
The Cheyennes and the few Ogallalas now with us traveled far up
Tongue river. We found plenty of buffalo there. We went on west to
the upper Little Bighorn. After camping and hunting there, we went
farther west to the Bighorn at the mouth of Rotten Grass creek. We
did not stay here long. We returned to the Little Bighorn. Most of
the last part of the winter was spent in camp on this valley. All of
the time during the next few months we had good hunting. Soldiers did
not trouble us nor we did not trouble them.
Almost the entire Northern Cheyenne tribe was in this winter camp on
the upper Little Bighorn. Little Wolf, Dull Knife, Dirty Moccasins
and Old Bear, our four old men chiefs, were here. Charcoal Bear,
the medicine chief, had kept possession of the sacred buffalo head
through all of our distress. We had now as good a medicine lodge for
it as we ordinarily had. This lodge was at its usual place at the
back part of the space within our horseshoe camp circle. All of the
people had good lodges. In every way we were living yet according to
our customary habits. We were not bothering any white people. We did
not want to see any of them. We felt we were on our own land. We had
killed only such people as had come for driving us away from it. So,
our hearts were clean from any feeling of guilt.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] In fact, his wife and others to whom he was well known assert
that General Custer was not wearing his hair long at the time he was
killed. For some time before that occasion he had kept his hair cut
short.--T. B. M.
[45] The small loss is explainable by the extensive suiciding among
the soldiers.--T. B. M.
[46] Fort C. F. Smith.
[47] This Powder river fight was on November 26th, 1876.--T. B. M.
[48] These soldiers were commanded by Colonel Nelson A. Miles. They
had come from Fort Keogh, which he had established on the Yellowstone
just above the mouth of Tongue river. This fight was on January 1,
1877.--T. B. M.
XII
_Surrender of the Cheyennes._
Just before the grass began to show itself in the early part of the
spring, two visitors arrived at our camp on the Little Bighorn. One
of these was our captured old woman, Sweet Woman. The other was a
half-breed Sioux we called White.[49] Each had a horse to ride and
each was leading a pack horse. In their packs were tobacco and other
things, for gifts to the principal chiefs. The visitors said they had
been sent out from the soldier fort at the mouth of Tongue river,
to invite us to come there and surrender peaceably. They brought a
promise from Bear Coat,[50] the soldier chief there, that we should
not be harmed and should be given plenty of food.
Sweet Woman told us all of the captives were well. She said they had
been treated well, that they had a lodge for themselves and that Bear
Coat had a soldier guard near their lodge at all times to keep other
soldiers from bothering them. This Sweet Woman was a sister of White
Bull’s wife. She was a widow. Her husband had been dead many years.
He had been a black man, and the name for him was Black Man. As a
boy he had been captured by the Cheyennes. She was a tall and thin
woman, but she was healthy.
Our chiefs counciled about this proposal. It was decided quickly that
we might as well go in that direction. The final decision could be
made at some other place. We moved then eastward by camps and sleeps
of one night each. We stopped one night at the mouth of Hanging Woman
creek, where we had fought the soldiers in the middle of the winter
before. Some other young men and I climbed up among the rocks where
we had fought. We searched for Big Crow’s body. We found it. It was
lying with the back partly propped up against a bush in a thin group
of small pines. The right hand was up and behind the head. The left
hand was over the breast. We could not decide whether he had been
dead when left there or had put himself into this position and had
frozen to death. We stretched out the dead man and covered him with
stones. His people felt better when we told them what we had done.
The half-breed Sioux traveled with us to Tongue river. Some of the
chiefs decided to go with him to the soldier fort and find out what
might happen to the Cheyennes if all should go there. They left us
and went down the valley. The Cheyennes going on this journey of
peacemaking were: Old Wolf and Crazy Head, tribal big chiefs.
Little Creek and Two Moons, little chiefs of the Crazy Dog and Fox
warrior societies. White Bull, a medicine man but not a chief. The
Elk warriors did not send any chief.
[Illustration: BIG BEAVER, A VETERAN CHEYENNE WARRIOR, STANDING AT
THE SPOT WHERE HE SAW THE LAST CUSTER SOLDIER KILLED JUNE 25, 1876]
The tribe and the Ogallalas with us kept on moving eastward. At
Powder river it was decided to wait for the return of the chiefs
who had gone to the fort. The Ogallalas with us separated from us
and traveled on. Most of them said they were going to the agency.
A little band of them went down Powder river. All of the Cheyennes
remained in tribal circle camp on the west side of Powder river,
above the mouth of Little Powder river, only a short distance above
the place where we had been burned out a year before this time.
The four chiefs came back to us at this Powder river camp. White Bull
was not with them. They told us he had stayed with the soldiers, to
scout for them in hunting for Indians. This news did not please us.
As we looked at it, the surrendering to the soldiers was good if
one felt like doing this. But an offer to help them to kill friends
showed a bad heart.
I was affected more, though, by other news the chiefs brought. It
was concerning my sister Crooked Nose, one of the captives. When the
chiefs were only a part of the first day out in coming back from the
fort, somebody followed them to tell them about her. She had been
very sad in heart because of a belief she never again would see her
people. She had felt better when the chiefs came, but when they went
away again she fell into deep grief. Her sorrow was so great that she
got out her hidden six-shooter I had given to her and shot herself
dead. My heart almost stopped beating when I heard about her death in
this way. She had been a good sister, kind to everybody.
Seven Cheyennes from the agency came to the camp on Powder river.
They had one tepee lodge but no women were with them. They came only
to tell us we ought to surrender at the agency. They said all of
the Indians there were being fed well, were being treated well in
every way. Nobody was being punished in any manner for past conduct
in warfare against the soldiers. To my father and to most of the
Cheyennes this sounded more attractive than the invitation to go
to the Elk river fort.[51] Our people were better acquainted with
conditions at the agency. Besides, the Ogallalas had the same agency
with us, so these people also would be there. Our old men counciled
about whether the tribe should surrender. And, if so, where they
should go. It was decided to let every Cheyenne choose for himself.
Little Wolf and the other principal chiefs chose to go to the agency.
Charcoal Bear, the medicine chief, said the sacred buffalo head and
the medicine lodge should follow them. Their choice influenced the
course of most of the tribe. My father said we ought to go with them.
For two or three days, I believe, the chiefs and the people talked
about the matter. Finally, the main body of the tribe set off toward
the agency. A smaller part of it determined to go to the Elk river
soldier fort. These were convinced by Two Moons and White Bull’s
relatives that they would receive better treatment there.
But not all of the Cheyennes were ready yet to surrender at any
place. Fourteen or fifteen men, six or seven of them having wives and
children, separated off to go westward. White Hawk, a little chief
of the Elk warriors, was with them. They said they were going to
join the Minneconjoux Sioux, who then were in camp on Rosebud creek
or on a branch of it that afterward was called Lame Deer creek. The
principal chief of these Minneconjoux Sioux was Lame Deer.
I joined another band still desiring most the freedom we considered
to be ours by right. Thirty-four Cheyennes made up this band. Last
Bull, leading chief of the Fox warrior society, was the big man of
our party. His warrior followers at this time were from all three
of the societies. The people making up this group of further hunters
were these:
Last Bull, his wife and two daughters.
Many-Colored Braids, his wife, two daughters and a son.
Little Horse, his wife, two daughters and a son.
Black Coyote, his wife and small daughter.
Dog Growing Up, his wife and one small boy.
Fire Wolf, Yellow Eagle, Spotted Wolf, Chief Going Up a Hill, White
Bird, Buffalo Paunch, Big Nose, Meat, Medicine Wolf, Horse Road,
Little Shield, Yellow Horse, my brother Yellow Hair and myself Wooden
Leg. All of these were unmarried young men.
Five tepee lodges were taken along and set up at each camping place,
by the wives of the five married men. The unmarried young men slept
mostly unsheltered, or at each camping they made for themselves
little willow or tree branch lodges. They did their own cooking, most
of the time, but often some young man would give a part of his meat
to some woman as payment to her for cooking his meat for him. I dwelt
all the time in the lodge of Last Bull, as a member of his family.
He felt very friendly to me because of my having helped his wife and
children at the time the soldiers came to the Cheyenne camp the year
before, on Powder river.
Every man in this band had a good gun of some kind. I had my rifle
taken from the soldier. I had not used up much of the ammunition I
had found on the battle grounds at that time and afterward. I did not
do any more shooting than was necessary in getting plenty of meat. I
was saving my cartridges for fighting whatever soldiers might come.
We traveled and hunted all about the country on the upper Powder
river and the upper Tongue river. We had to be moving often, because
game was not plentiful. Every day scouts were out trying to locate
buffalo. All of the time they were on the lookout too for soldiers or
for Crows or Shoshones. We were not loafing idly. We were working and
earning our living.
A baby boy was born to the wife of Black Coyote at one of the camps.
The wife of Many-Colored Braids took care of her, as medicine woman.
As we moved from place to place, the young woman and her baby were
put into a travois bed. The other women helped in taking down and
setting up her lodge. Her personal name was Calf Road. She was
specially famous because she had fought as a warrior with her husband
Black Coyote at the battle with the soldiers on the upper Rosebud.
Now there were thirty-five people in our band.
I was sent alone from this band one time to scout for buffalo. I
took with me a pack horse to bring back whatever meat I might get. I
had on the led horse a soldier pack saddle belonging to Last Bull. I
stayed out three sleeps. I saw a few deer and antelope but no buffalo.
We were having a good many days of hunger. Our horses had plenty of
grass, but our own ribs were becoming thin. Our clothing was wearing
out, and we could not get enough of skins to renew them and to keep
our beds and our lodges in good order. My soldier coat and breeches
were gone, and my last shirt and cloth breeches were almost in
tatters. The only good article of wear I had now was my big white hat
I had captured at the Rosebud battle.
A Cheyenne named Yellow Eagle added himself to us. He had been at
the agency not long before. We decided to have him and White Bird go
there together and spy out the conditions. They went. In a week or so
they were back among us.
“Good treatment, plenty of food, blankets, everything, nobody
punished,” they reported.