Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (24 page)

For whatever reasons, Sitting Bull was widely believed in the East to be the single most influential leader among the so-called hostile Indians. Crazy Horse was as highly regarded by the non-treaty Lakota bands, but he was not nearly as well known among the whites, and his own band of followers was considerably smaller, largely as a consequence of his reclusive nature. That Sitting Bull
had become the first among equals in keeping with the plan that Four Horns had devised cemented the war chiefs notoriety.

By the end of 1875, the government leaders concerned with the maintenance of peace on the western plains, civil and military alike, were convinced that all-out war was the only solution to their problems. The War Department was actively engaged in drawing up plans for an offensive the following spring, one that was intended to put an end for all time to the Sioux wars and bring civilization at long last to the plains.

There was constant pressure from the railroads, which were having great difficulty completing their construction because of the incessant harassment of work crews. Where the track had ben successfully laid, trains themselves were subjected to attack without warning, which made them less attractive to potential customers. Raids by Lakota bands were costing the railroads money, and they wanted the raids stopped at any cost. Ever sensitive to the concerns of business, the government was determined to do everything in its power to give the railroads what they wanted. If peace meant breaking promises made to savages, then that was a small enough price to pay, and certainly one that no one would object to—no one whose opinion counted, in any event.

President Grant had convened a meeting of his principal advisers on Indian policy, including Zachariah Chandler, the Secretary of the Interior; E. P. Smith, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and William Belknap, the Secretary of War. The
result of the meeting was a foregone conclusion, and everyone in attendance knew it. They knew, after all, what was expected of them, and Chandler drafted an order that served as the opening shot in the great war to pacify the western plains. It was sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and read: “Referring to our communication of the 27th ultimo, relative to the status of certain Sioux Indians residing without the bounds of their reservation and their continued hostile attitude towards the whites, I have to request that you direct the Indian agents at all Sioux agencies in Dakota and at Fort Peck, Montana, to notify said Indians that unless they shall remove within the bounds of their reservation (and remain there), before the 31st of January next, they shall be deemed hostile and treated accordingly by the military force.”

The directive, which did not even reach the Standing Rock Agency until December 22, was silent on several relevant questions, however. It did not explain how the so-called hostile bands were to be notified in time to make the deadline, since the directive left less than sixty days, not only for the word to be passed, but for compliance. Nor did the Secretary much bother with the questionable assumption that the Lakota who had signed no treaty even had a reservation to go to.

Also overlooked in the Secretary’s desire to solve this most vexing of problems was the reality that even treaty Lakota strayed beyond the perpetually shrinking boundaries of the Sioux reservation
in order to track buffalo herds. Hunting was absolutely essential to supplement the meager rations authorized by the government, which more often than not were short-weighted and inedible if they were delivered at all.

Sitting Bull could no doubt have disabused the Secretary of the Interior of several mistaken assumptions, but as usual the Indians were not consulted about their own lives. And both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, each of whom had his own agency, could and frequently did testify as to the futility of attempting to go through official channels in order to correct these abuses.

The military was more than happy to see this retreat from the abortive and frequently sabotaged “peace policy” President Grant had tried on first coming to office. The officer corps had a few scores to settle, such as the Grattan and Fetterman affairs, and the lower ranks were full of would-be Grattans, anxious to settle things at gunpoint.

But the government moved slowly, and it was months before the full significance of the decision would become apparent to either side in the slowly escalating conflict.

Sitting Bull was more than two hundred and fifty miles from Standing Rock on December 22. The winter, which promised to be more severe than usual, had already begun in earnest. Messengers had to carry the news hundreds of miles through snowdrifts, howling winds, and sub freezing temperatures. Off and on for the next few weeks, the snow mounted, making those bands even further away than Sitting Bull’s
Hunkpapas inaccessible until spring. By that time, were they disposed to honor the requirements, they would already be in violation of the directive and months beyond the unreasonable deadline.

But Sitting Bull was in no mood to observe any limits the white government meant to impose on him. He knew that there was no food at the agencies, because his own camp was full of treaty Indians who had left them rather than starve. Despite the government’s inability to determine whether or not Sitting Bull had even been apprised of the directive, he was declared hostile on February 7, 1876, and orders were issued to subdue him by force.

Unfortunately for the army, however, the snows were so deep and the weather conditions so inhospitable that a punitive expedition was unable to penetrate into the northwestern reaches along the Powder, where Sitting Bull was camped, by marching up the Missouri River valley. In view of the weather, the commander of the expedition, General George Crook, whom the Lakota called Three Stars for his rank insignia, decided to pursue other bands declared hostile and then living off the reservation by approaching them from the south, where the weather was more moderate.

On March 1, 1876, Crook led his column out of Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. Crook’s initial target was not Sitting Bull but Crazy Horse, and he had information—mistaken however—that Crazy Horse was camped a few miles above the mouth of the
Little Powder River. Crook did not realize that the camp in question was actually inhabited by Cheyennes under Chief Two Moon.

It took the column nearly three weeks to reach its destination, and the battle, which began on March 17, would complicate the war still further by bringing the Cheyennes into it. Colonel J. J. Reynolds, who led the attack, managed to take the camp for a short period, capturing a large number of Cheyenne ponies as well, but he panicked and was unable to hold the camp or the horses for long once the Cheyenne regrouped. All he managed to do was provoke Two Moon and ensure that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse would have another powerful and respected ally. He was court-martialed for his failure, but the damage was done.

The weather continued to be severe. Bands of Oglala and Cheyenne drifted into Sitting Bull’s camp during the rest of March and early April, and when he heard the news of the unprovoked attack on Two Moon’s Cheyennes, he knew that he could no longer postpone the inevitable. Haunted by his vision of the herd of skeletal buffalo, and fearful that he might be leading his people into a war that would bring about their destruction, he realized that he had no choice; the white man would not let his people live as they chose, or where they chose, and the alternative proposed by the representatives of the Great Father was no choice at all.

Sitting Bull was incensed by the attack on the Cheyennes. He knew that the moment he had
been dreading was now at hand. As soon as the weather broke, he sent runners all across the plains, to every Lakota camp, and to the Cheyenne, as well. He even reached out to the Arapaho. The messengers rode until their ponies dropped, and at every camp the message was the same: “It is war. Come to my camp on the Rosebud River and we will have one big fight with the Long Knives.”

Roving bands of nontreaty Indians began to pour into Sitting Bull’s camp, swelling it to hundreds of lodges, then to more than a thousand. It became a flood as some bands of treaty Lakota, off the reservation for a buffalo hunt made necessary by the near starvation they suffered on the agency’s meager rations, joined the Hunkpapa and Oglala hostiles. By early June, Sitting Bull knew that the fight would be soon, and that its outcome might very well determine the future of his people.

This was the chance Sitting Bull needed to impress upon his allies the need to organize their forces in a way that would enable them to fight more effectively against the Long Knives with their centralized command structure. But such an understanding could not be accomplished by an act of will. It was necessary to persuade, cajole, even bargain—whatever it would take to make the other chiefs see things as he did.

It was nearly time for the sun dance, and Sitting Bull wanted to have his ducks in a row before the great ceremony. A council was called, and a huge council lodge erected by combining several
dwellings. All the great nontreaty chiefs were there: Crazy Horse and Low Dog from the Oglala, Lame Deer and Black Moon from the Miniconjou, Spotted Eagle and Black Eagle of the Sans Arcs, Four Horns and Black Moon from the Hunkpapa. The Cheyenne were represented by Two Moon, Ice, and Little Horse, and there was a sizable contingent of warriors from Spotted Tail’s Brules, as well as Two Kettles, Blackfeet Sioux, and Yanktonais. Even Inkpaduta was there with his Santee Sioux.

Once the pipe had been smoked, Sitting Bull took the floor. He looked at Ice and smiled. “Our Cheyenne brothers are here with us, and we welcome them. As our guests, they should have the honor of choosing their leader for the coming war before we choose our own leader.”

The Cheyenne chiefs did not hesitate. Two Moon, whose camp had been hit by Crook’s column in March, was named the war leader for all the Cheyennes. Now came the difficult moment of choosing an overall leader for the Lakota.

One after another, each Lakota chief spoke his piece. Crazy Horse, in his intense way, seemed to set the tone. He was not in a mood for wasted oratory. “The man to lead the Lakota is the man who called us here,” he said. “Sitting Bull.” And he sat back down without another word. Four Horns agreed, and Black Moon merely added his own endorsement. When all the Lakota chiefs who wished to speak had spoken, there was still only one name under consideration.

Two Moon got to his feet then and said, “It
does not seem as if you will have trouble making your decision. You have the right man—the man who called us here. He is your war chief, and you follow him where he leads. I don’t see any reason for you to choose another. It is Sitting Bull.”

The vote was unanimous, and word spread like wildfire among the warriors. There was some grumbling among those who were affiliated with some chief other than Sitting Bull, but no one seriously objected. Sitting Bull was well known to them all, and his reputation was formidable. The consensus seemed to be that if they had to follow one man into a battle that might determine the future of their people, they had the man they wanted to follow.

It was time to prepare, and Sitting Bull set to work immediately. He sent the warriors out in every direction with instructions to gather horses. He cautioned them to be conservative, taking just a few head at any one location. He did not want his men to be caught, and he knew that bands of Lakota were seldom followed for a handful of stolen horses. Any raid large enough to draw the attention of the army might accidentally reveal the existence of the huge camp and compromise the war plans before he was ready.

And he told each and every band of warriors dispatched for horses the same thing: “If you meet a white man, kill him. Spare no one. Let not one live. Not one.”

Some of the treaty bands were getting nervous and wanted to leave, but Sitting Bull could not
permit it. The Blackfeet Sioux chief Kill Eagle approached Sitting Bull one evening a few days after the election, and Sitting Bull scowled at him. “I know why you are here,” he said. “You and your people want to go home. But you cannot. No one can leave. We cannot let the Long Knives know what we are planning, and you know that if you are allowed to leave, someone in your band will talk. Word will get out no matter what you do.”

“But my people are afraid of the Long Knives, they …”

Sitting Bull cut him off with a glare. “If the Long Knives come, it will not be your people alone who will die. And if the Long Knives learn of our plans before we are ready, we cannot win. This is our last, best chance to send the white man back where he came from. I won’t allow you to take that chance away from us.”

Kill Eagle started to bluster. “I am a free man. I go where I want. I …”

Sitting Bull gave him a baleful smile. Then he shook his head. “No. You are not a free man now. You and your people will stay. Until I say you can leave.” And before Kill Eagle could object, Sitting Bull dispatched
akicitas
from the Strong Heart Society to see to it that the Blackfeet stayed put.

Sitting Bull was now the most powerful war leader on the plains, with more men under his direct command than any other war chief before or since. And he knew that he could not afford to be soft. What he did from now on would determine
whether the Lakota lived free or as prisoners on the reservation. The odds were against him, overwhelmingly so, and he knew it. But he’d never backed down from a fight, not with the Crows or the Shoshone or the Hohe. And he was not prepared to shrink from the challenge of the Long Knives, either.

Rosebud River Valley
1876

F
OR SITTING BULL, NO ENDEAVOR
as significant as the coming war could be undertaken without supplication to
Wakantanka,
and there was no better way to solicit assistance than the sun dance. Sitting Bull resolved to hold the greatest sun dance ever, with participation from all of the allied tribes—not just the bands of Lakotas, but the Cheyennes and the Arapaho as well.

He planned to dance himself. He had done so before, but never when so much was at stake. It seemed to him that sacrifice was in order. Once more, he turned to his friend Crazy Horse for counsel, and the two men went off alone, ostensibly to hunt, but really because Sitting Bull felt that he had to get the best advice he could—and there was no better man for that than Crazy Horse. Four Horns wanted to come along, but Sitting Bull forbade it. “Someone has to be here to speak for me
until I get back,” he said. “The people know you and respect you. They know that words from your lips come from my own.”