at Wounded Knee. General Ruger states that the band numbered about
340, including about 100 warriors, but Major Whitside, to whom they
surrendered, reported them officially as numbering 120 men and 250
women and children, a total of 370. (_War, 15_; _G. D., 38_.) This
agrees almost exactly with the statement made to the author by Mr
Asay, a trader who was present at the surrender. General Miles says
that there were present 106 warriors, a few others being absent at the
time in search of the party under Kicking Bear and Short Bull. (_War,
16._) Among those who surrendered were about 70 refugees from the
bands of Sitting Bull and Hump. (_G. D., 39._) No exact account of the
dead could be made immediately after the fight, on account of a second
attack by another party of Indians coming up from the agency. Some of
the dead and wounded left on the field were undoubtedly carried off by
their friends before the burial party came out three days later, and of
those brought in alive a number afterward died of wounds and exposure,
but received no notice in the official reports. The Adjutant-General,
in response to a letter of inquiry, states that 128 Indians were killed
and 33 wounded. Commissioner Morgan, in his official report, makes the
number killed 146. (_Comr., 36._) Both these estimates are evidently
too low. General Miles, in his final report, states that about 200
men, women, and children were killed. (_War, 17._) General Colby, who
commanded the Nebraska state troops, says that about 100 men and over
120 women and children were found dead on the field, a total of about
220. (_Colby, 4._) Agent Royer telegraphed immediately after the fight
that about 300 Indians had been killed, and General Miles, telegraphing
on the same day, says, “I think very few Indians have escaped.” (_G.
D., 40._) Fifty-one Indians were brought in the same day by the troops,
and a few others were found still alive by the burial party three days
later. A number of these afterward died. No considerable number got
away, being unable to reach their ponies after the fight began. General
Miles states that 98 warriors were killed on the field. (_War, 18._)
The whole number killed on the field, or who later died from wounds and
exposure, was probably very nearly 300.
According to an official statement from the Adjutant-General, 31
soldiers were killed in the battle. About as many more were wounded,
one or two of whom afterward died. All of the killed, excepting
Hospital Steward Pollock and an Indian scout named High Backbone,
belonged to the Seventh cavalry, as did probably also nearly all
of the wounded. The only commissioned officer killed was Captain
Wallace. He received four bullet wounds in his body and finally sank
under a hatchet stroke upon the head. Lieutenant E. A. Garlington, of
the Seventh cavalry, and Lieutenant H. L. Hawthorne, of the Second
artillery, were wounded. (_War, 19._) The last-named officer owed his
life to his watch, which deflected the bullet that otherwise would have
passed through his body.
Below is given a complete list of officers and enlisted men who were
killed, or died of wounds or exposure, in connection with the Sioux
campaign. The statement is contained in an official letter of reply
from the Adjutant-General’s office dated May 26, 1894. Unless otherwise
noted all were of the Seventh cavalry and were killed on December 29,
the date of the battle of Wounded Knee. In addition to these, two
others, Henry Miller, a herder, and George Wilhauer, of the Nebraska
militia, were killed in the same connection. With the 6 Indian police
killed in arresting Sitting Bull, this makes a total of 49 deaths on
the government side, including 7 Indians and a negro:
Adams, William.
Bone, Albert S. (corporal, died of wounds).
Casey, Edward W. (first lieutenant Twenty-second infantry,
January 7).
Coffey, Dora S. (first sergeant).
Cook, Ralph L.
Corwine, Richard W. (sergeant major).
Costello, John.
Cummings, Pierce.
De Vreede, Jan.
Dyer, Arthur C. (sergeant).
Elliott, George (died of wounds, January 13).
Francischetti, Dominic (December 30).
Forrest, Harry R. (corporal).
Frey, Henry.
Grauberg, Herman (died of wounds, December 30).
Haywood, Charles (Ninth cavalry, colored, December 30).
High Backbone (Indian scout).
Hodges, William T. (sergeant).
Howard, Henry (sergeant, died of wounds, January 23).
Johnson, George P.
Kelley, James E.
Kellner, August.
Korn, Gustav (blacksmith).
Logan, James.
McClintock, William F.
McCue, John M.
Mann, James D. (first lieutenant, died of wounds, January 15).
Meil, John W. (killed in railroad accident, January 26).
Mezo, William S.
Murphy, Joseph.
Nettles, Robert H. (sergeant).
Newell, Charles H. (corporal, died of wounds).
Pollock, Oscar (hospital steward).
Regan, Michael.
Reinecky, Frank T.
Schartel, Thomas (First artillery, killed in railroad accident,
January 26).
Schwenkey, Philip.
Stone, Harry B. (died of wounds, January 12).
Twohig, Daniel.
Wallace, George B. (captain).
Zehnder, Bernhard (died of wounds).
The heroic missionary priest, Father Craft, who had given a large
part of his life to work among the Sioux, by whom he was loved and
respected, had endeavored at the beginning of the trouble to persuade
the stampeded Indians to come into the agency, but without success,
the Indians claiming that no single treaty ever made with them had
been fulfilled in all its stipulations. Many of the soldiers being
of his own faith, he accompanied the detachment which received the
surrender of Big Foot, to render such good offices as might be possible
to either party. In the desperate encounter he was stabbed through the
lungs, but yet, with bullets flying about him and hatchets and warclubs
circling through the air, he went about his work, administering the
last religious consolation to the dying until he fell unconscious
from loss of blood. He was brought back to the agency along with the
other wounded, and although his life was despaired of for some time,
he finally recovered. In talking about Wounded Knee with one of the
friendly warriors who had gone into the Bad Lands to urge the hostiles
to come in, he spoke with warm admiration of Father Craft, and I asked
why it was, then, that the Indians had tried to kill him. He replied,
“They did not know him. Father Jutz [the priest at the Drexel Catholic
mission, previously mentioned] always wears his black robe, but Father
Craft on that day wore a soldier’s cap and overcoat. If he had worn his
black robe, no Indian would have hurt him.” On inquiring afterward
I learned that this was not correct, as Father Craft did have on his
priestly robes. From the Indian statement, however, and the well-known
affection in which he was held by the Sioux, it is probable that the
Indian who stabbed him was too much excited at the moment to recognize
him.
[Illustration: PL. XCVIII
AFTER THE BATTLE]
The news of the battle was brought to the agency by Lieutenant Guy
Preston, of the Ninth cavalry, who, in company with a soldier and an
Indian scout, made the ride of 16 or 18 miles in a little over an hour,
one horse falling dead of exhaustion on the way. There were then at the
agency, under command of General Brooke, about 300 men of the Second
infantry and 50 Indian police.
The firing at Wounded Knee was plainly heard by the thousands of
Indians camped about the agency at Pine Ridge, who had come in from
the Bad Lands to surrender. They were at once thrown into great
excitement, undoubtedly believing that there was a deliberate purpose
on foot to disarm and massacre them all, and when the fugitives—women
and children, most of them—began to come in, telling the story of the
terrible slaughter of their friends and showing their bleeding wounds
in evidence, the camp was divided between panic and desperation.
A number of warriors mounted in haste and made all speed to the
battle-ground, only about two hours distant, where they met the troops,
who were now scattered about, hunting down the fugitives who might
have escaped the first killing, and picking up the dead and wounded.
The soldiers were driven in toward the center, where they threw up
entrenchments, by means of which they were finally able to repel the
attacking party. With the assistance of a body of Indian scouts and
police, they then gathered up the dead and wounded soldiers, with
some of the wounded Indians and a few other prisoners to the number
of 51, and came into the agency. In the meantime the hostiles under
Two Strike had opened fire on the agency from the neighboring hills
and endeavored to approach, by way of a deep ravine, near enough to
set fire to the buildings. General Brooke, desiring to avoid a general
engagement, ordered out the Indian police—a splendidly drilled body
of 50 brave men—who gallantly took their stand in the center of the
agency inclosure, in full view of the hostiles, some of whom were their
own relatives, and kept them off, returning the fire of besiegers with
such good effect as to kill two and wound several others. The attacking
party, as well as those who rode out to help their kinsmen at Wounded
Knee, were not the Pine Ridge Indians (Ogalala) but the Brulé from
Rosebud under the lead of Two Strike, Kicking Bear, and Short Bull. On
the approach of the detachment returning from Wounded Knee almost the
entire body that had come in to surrender broke away and fell back to a
position on White Clay creek, where the next day found a camp of 4,000
Indians, and including more than a thousand warriors now thoroughly
hostile. On the evening of the battle General Miles telegraphed to
military headquarters, “Last night everything looked favorable for
getting all the Indians under control; since report from Forsyth it
looks more serious than at any other time.” (_G. D., 41._) It seemed
that all the careful work of the last month had been undone.
At the first indication of coming trouble in November all the outlying
schools and mission stations on Pine Ridge reservation had been
abandoned, and teachers, farmers, and missionaries had fled to the
agency to seek the protection of the troops, all but the members of
the Drexel Catholic mission, 5 miles northwest from the agency. Here
the two or three priests and five Franciscan sisters remained quietly
at their post, with a hundred little children around them, safe in the
assurance of the “hostiles” that they would not be molested. While the
fighting was going on at Wounded Knee and hundreds of furious warriors
were firing into the agency, where the handful of whites were shivering
in spite of the presence of troops and police, these gentle women and
the kindly old German priest were looking after the children, feeding
the frightened fugitive women, and tenderly caring for the wounded
Indians who were being brought in from Wounded Knee and the agency.
Throughout all these weeks of terror they went calmly about the duties
to which they had consecrated their lives, and kept their little flock
together and their school in operation, without the presence of a
single soldier, completely cut off from the troops and the agency and
surrounded by thousands of wild Indians.
Some time afterward, in talking with the Indians about the events
of the campaign, the warrior who had spoken with such admiration of
Father Craft referred with the same affectionate enthusiasm to Father
Jutz, and said that when the infuriated Indians attacked the agency
on hearing of the slaughter at Wounded Knee they had sent word to the
mission that no one there need be afraid. “We told him to stay where
he was and no Indian would disturb him,” said the warrior. He told how
the priest and the sisters had fed the starving refugees and bound up
the wounds of the survivors who escaped the slaughter, and then after a
pause he said: “He is a brave man; braver than any Indian.” Curious to
know why this man had not joined the hostiles, among whom were several
of his near relatives, I asked him the question. His reply was simple:
“I had a little boy at the Drexel mission. He died and Father Jutz put
a white stone over him. That is why I did not join the hostiles.”
While visiting Pine Ridge in 1891 I went out to see the Drexel school
and found Father John Jutz, a simple, kindly old German from the
Tyrol, with one or two other German lay brothers and five Franciscan
sisters, Americans. Although but a recent establishment, the school
was in flourishing condition, bearing in everything the evidences of
orderly industry. Like a true German of the Alps, Father Jutz had
already devised a way to make jelly from the wild plums and excellent
wine from the chokecherry. While talking, the recess hour arrived and
a bevy of small children came trooping in, pushing over one another
in the effort to get hold of a finger of the good father, or at least
to hold on to his robe while he led them into another room where one
of the sisters gave to each a ginger cake, hot from the oven. The room
was filled with the shouts and laughter of the children and the father
explained, “Children get hungry, and we always have some cakes for the
little ones at recess. I let the boys be noisy in the playroom as long
as they don’t fight. It is good for them.” Looking at the happy, noisy
crowd around the black-gowned missionary and sister, it was easy to
see how they had felt safe in the affection of the Indians through all
the days and nights when others were trembling behind breastworks and
files of soldiers. Referring to what the Indians had told me, I asked
Father Jutz if it was true that the hostiles had sent word to them not
to be afraid. He replied, “Yes; they had sent word that no one in the
mission need be alarmed,” and then, with a gentle smile, he added, “But
it was never our intention to leave.” It was plain enough that beneath
the quiet exterior there burned the old missionary fire of Jogues and
Marquette.
[Illustration: PL. XCIX
BATTLEFIELD OF WOUNDED KNEE]
The conflict at Wounded Knee bore speedy fruit. On the same day, as
has been said, a part of the Indians under Two Strike attacked the
agency and the whole body of nearly 4,000 who had come in to surrender
started back again to intrench themselves in preparation for renewed
hostilities. On the morning of December 30, the next day after the
fight, the wagon train of the Ninth cavalry (colored) was attacked
within 2 miles of the agency while coming in with supplies. One soldier
was killed, but the Indians were repulsed with the loss of several of
their number.
On the same day news came to the agency that the hostiles had attacked
the Catholic mission 5 miles out, and Colonel Forsyth with eight
troops of the Seventh cavalry and one piece of artillery was ordered
by General Brooke to go out and drive them off. It proved that the
hostiles had set fire to several houses between the mission and
the agency, but the mission had not been disturbed. As the troops
approached the hostiles fell back, but Forsyth failed to occupy the
commanding hills and was consequently surrounded by the Indians, who
endeavored to draw him into a canyon and pressed him so closely that he
was obliged to send back three times for reinforcements. Major Henry
had just arrived at the agency with a detachment of the Ninth cavalry,
and on hearing the noise of the firing started at once to the relief of
Forsyth with four troops of cavalry and a Hotchkiss gun. On arriving
on the ground he occupied the hills and thus succeeded in driving off
the hostiles without further casualty, and rescued the Seventh from its
dangerous position. In this skirmish, known as the “mission fight,”
the Seventh lost one officer, Lieutenant Mann, and a private, Dominic
Francischetti, killed, and seven wounded. (_War, 20; G. D., 42._)
The conduct of the colored troops of the Ninth cavalry on this occasion
deserves the highest commendation. At the time of the battle at Wounded
Knee, the day before, they were in the Bad Lands, about 80 or 90 miles
out from Pine Ridge, when the order was sent for them to come in to aid
in repelling the attack on the agency. By riding all night they arrived
at the agency at daylight, together with two Hotchkiss guns, in charge
of Lieutenant John Hayden of the First artillery. Hardly had they
dismounted when word arrived that their wagon train, coming on behind,
was attacked, and they were obliged to go out again to its relief,
as already described. On coming in again they lay down to rest after
their long night ride, when they were once more called out to go to the
aid of the Seventh at the mission. Jumping into the saddle they rode
at full speed to the mission, 5 miles out, repelled the hostiles and
saved the command, and returned to the agency, after having ridden over
100 miles and fought two engagements within thirty hours. Lieutenant
Hayden, with his Hotchkiss, who had come in with them from the Bad
Lands, took part also with them in the mission fight.
On the same evening Standing Soldier, an Indian scout, arrived at the
agency with a party of 65 Indians, including 18 men. These were a part
of Big Foot’s or Short Bull’s following, who had lost their way during
the flight from Cheyenne river and were hunting for the rest of the
band when captured by the scouts. They were not aware of the death
of Big Foot and the extermination of his band, but after having been
disarmed and put under guard they were informed of it, but only in a
mild way, in order not to provoke undue excitement. (_G. D., 43._)
Immediately after the battle of Wounded Knee, in consequence of the
panic among the frontier settlers of Nebraska, the Nebraska state
troops were called out under command of General L. W. Colby. They
were stationed at the most exposed points between the settlements and
the reservation and remained in the field until the surrender of the
hostiles two weeks later. The only casualty among them was the death
of private George Wilhauer, who was accidentally shot by a picket.
(_Colby, 5._)
On New Year’s day of 1891, three days after the battle, a detachment of
troops was sent out to Wounded Knee to gather up and bury the Indian
dead and to bring in the wounded who might be still alive on the field.
In the meantime there had been a heavy snowstorm, culminating in a
blizzard. The bodies of the slaughtered men, women, and children were
found lying about under the snow, frozen stiff and covered with blood
(plate +XCVIII+). Almost all the dead warriors were found lying near
where the fight began, about Big Foot’s tipi, but the bodies of the
women and children were found scattered along for 2 miles from the
scene of the encounter, showing that they had been killed while trying
to escape. (_Comr., 37; Colby, 6._) A number of women and children
were found still alive, but all badly wounded or frozen, or both, and
most of them died after being brought in. Four babies were found
alive under the snow, wrapped in shawls and lying beside their dead
mothers, whose last thought had been of them. They were all badly
frozen and only one lived. The tenacity of life so characteristic of
wild people as well as of wild beasts was strikingly illustrated in
the case of these wounded and helpless Indian women and children who
thus lived three days through a Dakota blizzard, without food, shelter,
or attention to their wounds. It is a commentary on our boasted
Christian civilization that although there were two or three salaried
missionaries at the agency not one went out to say a prayer over the
poor mangled bodies of these victims of war. The Catholic priests had
reasons for not being present, as one of them, Father Craft, was lying
in the hospital with a dangerous wound received on the battlefield
while bravely administering to the dying wants of the soldiers in the
heat of the encounter, and the other, Father Jutz, an old man of 70
years, was at the mission school 5 miles away, still attending to his
little flock of 100 children as before the trouble began, and unaware
of what was transpiring at the agency.
[Illustration: PL. C
BURYING THE DEAD]
[Illustration: +Fig. 79+—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Blue Whirlwind and
children (1891).]
[Illustration: +Fig. 80+—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Marguerite
Zitkala-noni (1891).]
A long trench was dug and into it were thrown all the bodies, piled one
upon another like so much cordwood, until the pit was full, when the
earth was heaped over them and the funeral was complete (plate +C+).
Many of the bodies were stripped by the whites, who went out in order
to get the “ghost shirts,” and the frozen bodies were thrown into the
trench stiff and naked. They were only dead Indians. As one of the
burial party said, “It was a thing to melt the heart of a man, if it
was of stone, to see those little children, with their bodies shot
to pieces, thrown naked into the pit.” The dead soldiers had already
been brought in and buried decently at the agency. When the writer
visited the spot the following winter, the Indians had put up a wire
fence around the trench and smeared the posts with sacred red medicine
paint (plate +CI+).
[Illustration: PL. CI
GRAVE OF THE DEAD AT WOUNDED KNEE]
[Illustration: +Fig. 81+—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Jennie Sword (1891).]
A baby girl of only three or four months was found under the snow,
carefully wrapped up in a shawl, beside her dead mother, whose body was
pierced by two bullets. On her head was a little cap of buckskin, upon
which the American flag was embroidered in bright beadwork. She had
lived through all the exposure, being only slightly frozen, and soon
recovered after being brought into the agency. Her mother being killed,
and, in all probability, her father also, she was adopted by General
Colby, commanding the Nebraska state troops. The Indian women in camp
gave her the poetic name of Zitkala-noni, “Lost Bird,” and by the
family of her adoption she was baptized under the name of Marguerite
(figure 80). She is now (1896) living in the general’s family at
Washington, a chubby little girl 6 years of age, as happy with her
dolls and playthings as a little girl of that age ought to be.
Another little girl about 5 years of age was picked up on the
battlefield and brought in by the Indian police on the afternoon of the
fight. She was adopted by George Sword, captain of the Indian police,
and is now living with him under the name of Jennie Sword, a remarkably
pretty little girl, gentle and engaging in her manners (figure 81).
[Illustration: +Fig. 82+—Survivors of Wounded Knee—Herbert Zitkalazi
(1892).]
A little boy of four years, the son of Yellow Bird, the medicine-man,
was playing on his pony in front of a tipi when the firing began. As
he described it some time ago in lisping English: “My father ran and
fell down and the blood came out of his mouth [he was shot through the
head], and then a soldier put his gun up to my white pony’s nose and
shot him, and then I ran and a policeman got me.” As his father was
thus killed and his mother was already dead, he was adopted by Mrs Lucy
Arnold, who had been a teacher among the Sioux and knew his family
before the trouble began. She had already given him his name, Herbert
Zitkalazi, the last word being the Sioux form of his father’s name,
“Yellow Bird.” She brought him back with her to Washington, where he
soon learned English and became a general favorite of all who knew
him for his affectionate disposition and unusual intelligence, with
genuine boyish enthusiasm in all he undertook. His picture here given
(figure 82) is from a photograph made in Lafayette park, Washington,
in 1892. His adopted mother having resumed her school work among his
tribe, he is now back with her, attending school under her supervision
at Standing Rock, where, as in Washington, he seems to be a natural
leader among those of his own age. When we think of these children
and consider that only by the merest accident they escaped the death
that overtook a hundred other children at Wounded Knee, who may all
have had in themselves the same possibilities of affection, education,
and happy usefulness, we can understand the sickening meaning of such
affairs as the Chivington massacre in Colorado and the Custer fight on
the Washita, where the newspaper reports merely that “the enemy was
surprised and the Indian camp destroyed.”
[Illustration: PL. CII
BATTLEFIELD AFTER THE BLIZZARD]