Red Devils -24 Sitting Bull and the End of the Essay

I decided to end my essay with the information that Mr. Hudson gave me about his paper’s interview with Chief Sitting Bull. (I am not quoting all of it, as I didn’t think it mattered as much, as the information has already been published by the paper.)

INTERVIEW WITH SITTING BULL

Here he stood, his blanket rolled back, his head upreared, his right moccasin put forward, his right hand thrown across his chest.

I arose and approached him, holding out both hands. He grasped them cordially.

"How!" he said. "How!"

Sitting Bull is about five feet ten inches high. He was clad in a black and white calico shirt, black cloth leggings, and moccasins, magnificently embroidered with beads and porcupine quills. He held in his left hand a fox skin cap, its brush drooping to his feet.

To gain time and not to dwell importunately on a single point, I asked Sitting Bull to tell me something of his early life. In the first place, where he was born?

"I was born on the Missouri River; at least I recollect that somebody told me so - I don't know who told me or where I was told of it."

"Of what tribe are you?"

"I am an Uncpapa."

"Of the Sioux?"

"Yes; of the great Sioux Nation."

It was at this juncture that I began to question the great savage before me in regard to the most disastrous, most mysterious Indian battle of the century - Custer's encounter with the Sioux on the Bighorn - the Thermopylae of the Plains. Sitting Bull, the chief genius of his bands, has been supposed to have commanded the Sioux forces when Custer fell.

It should be understood, that, inasmuch as every white man with Custer perished, and no other white man, save one or two scouts, had conferred lately with Sitting Bull or any of his chiefs since the awful day, this is the first authentic story of the conflict which can possibly have appeared out of the lips of a survivor. It has the more historical value since it comes from the chief among Custer's and Reno's foes.

"Did you know the Long Haired Chief?" I asked Sitting Bull.

"No."

"What! Had you never seen him?"

"No. Many of the chiefs knew him."

"What did they think of him?"

"He was a great warrior."

"Was he brave?"

"He was a mighty chief."

"Now, tell me. Here is something that I wish to know. Big lies are told about the fight in which the Long Haired Chief was killed. He was my friend. No one has come back to tell the truth about him, or about that fight. You were there; you know. Your chiefs know. I want to hear something that forked tongues do not tell the truth."

"It is well. We thought we were whipped," he said.

"Ah! Did you think the soldiers were too many for you?"

"Not at first; but by-and-by, yes. Afterwards, no."

"Tell me about the battle."

"About what time in the day was the attack?"

 "It was some two hours past the time when the sun is in the center of the sky."

"What white chief was it who came over there against your warriors?"

"The Long Hair."

"Are you sure?"

"The Long Hair commanded."

"But you did not see him?"

"I have said that I never saw him."

"Why do you think it was the Long Hair who crossed first and charged you?"

"A chief leads his warriors."

"Was there a good fight there?”

"It was so," said Sitting Bull, raising his hands. "I was lying in my lodge. Some young men ran into me and said: `The Long Hair is in the camp. Get up. They are firing into the camp.' I said, all right. I jumped up and stepped out of my lodge."

 "So the first attack was made then, upon the lodges of the Uncpapas?"

"Yes."

"Here the lodges are said to have been deserted?"

"The old men, the squaws and the children were hurried away."

"Toward the other end of the camp?"

"Yes. Some of the Minneconjou women and children also left their lodges when the attack began."

"Did you retreat at first?"

"Do you mean the warriors?"

"Yes, the fighting men."

"Oh, we fell back, but it was not what warriors call a retreat; it was to gain time. It was the Long Hair who retreated. My people fought him in the brush and he fell back. The river was where the big fight was fought, a little later. After the Long Hair was driven back to the bluffs he took this route and went down to see if he could not beat us there."

"When the fight commenced at the river, what happened?"

"Hell!"

"You mean, I suppose, a fierce battle?"

"I mean a thousand devils."

"The village was by this time thoroughly aroused?"

"The squaws were like flying birds; the bullets were like humming bees."

 "You say that when the first attack was made, the old men and the squaws and children ran down the valley toward the left. What did they do when this second attack came?"

"They ran back again to where the abandoned lodges are," answered Sitting Bull.

"And where did the warriors run?"

"They ran to the fight - the big fight."

"So that, in the afternoon, after the fight, you say that the squaws and children all returned, and that the warriors, the fighting men of all the Indian camps, ran to the place where the big fight was going on?"

"Yes."

"Why was that? Were not some of the warriors left in front of these entrenchments on the bluffs? Did not you think it necessary - did not your war chiefs think it necessary - to keep some of your young men there to fight the troops who had retreated to those entrenchments?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You have forgotten."

"How?"

 "You forget that only a few soldiers were left by the Long Hair on those bluffs. He took the main body of his soldiers with him to make the big fight down here on the left."

"So there were no soldiers to make a fight left in the entrenchments on the right hand bluffs?"

"I have spoken. It is enough. The squaws could deal with them. There were none but squaws and papooses in front of them that afternoon."

"Well then," I inquired of Sitting Bull, "Did the cavalry, who came down and made the big fight, fight?"

Again Sitting Bull smiled.

"They fought. Many young men are missing from our lodges. But is there an American squaw who has her husband left? Were there any Americans left to tell the story of that day? No."

"How did they come on to the attack?"

"I have heard that there are trees which tremble."

"Do you mean the trees with trembling leaves?"

"Yes."

"They call them in some parts of the western country Quaking Aspens; in the eastern part of the country they call them Silver Aspens."

"Hah! A great white chief, whom I met once, spoke these words. 'Silver Aspens,' trees that shake; these were the Long Hair's soldiers.'"

"You do not mean that they trembled before your people because they were afraid?"

"They were brave men. They were tired. They were too tired."

"How did they act? How did they behave themselves?"

At this Sitting Bull again arose. I also arose from my seat, as did the other persons in the room, except the stenographer.

"Your people," said Sitting Bull, extending his right hand, "were killed. I tell no lies about dead men. These men who came with the Long Hair were as good men as ever fought. When they rode up their horses were tired and they were tired. When they got off from their horses they could not stand firmly on their feet. They swayed to and fro - so my young men have told me - like the limbs of cypresses in a great wind. Some of them staggered under the weight of their guns. But they began to fight at once; but by this time, as I have said, our camps were aroused, and there were plenty of warriors to meet them. They fired with needle guns. We replied with magazine guns - repeating rifles. It was so (and here Sitting Bull illustrated by patting his palms together with the rapidity of a fusillade). Our young men rained lead across the river and drove the white braves back."

"And then?"

"And then, they rushed across themselves."

 "And then?"

"And then they found that they had a good deal to do."

"Was there at that time some doubt about the issue of the battle, whether you would whip the Long Hair or not?"

"There was so much doubt about it that I started down there to tell the squaws to pack up the lodges and get ready to move away."

"You were on that expedition, then, after the big fight had fairly begun?"

"Yes."

"You did not personally witness the rest of the big fight? You were not engaged in it?"

"No. I have heard of it from the warriors."

"When the great crowds of your young men crossed the river in front of the Long Hair what did they do? Did they attempt to assault him directly in his front?"

"At first they did, but afterward they found it better to try and get around him. They formed themselves on all sides of him except just at his back."

"How long did it take them to put themselves around his flanks?"

 "As long as it takes the sun to travel from here to here" (indicating some marks upon his arm with which apparently he is used to gauge the progress of the shadow of his lodge across his arm, and probably meaning half an hour. An Indian has no more definite way than this to express the lapse of time).

"The trouble was with the soldiers," he continued; "they were so exhausted and their horses bothered them so much that they could not take good aim. Some of their horses broke away from them and left them to stand and drop and die. When the Long Hair, the General, found that he was so outnumbered and threatened on his flanks, he took the best course he could have taken. The bugle blew. It was an order to fall back. All the men fell back fighting and dropping. They could not fire fast enough, though. But from our side it was so," said Sitting Bull, and here he clapped his hands rapidly twice a second to express with what quickness and continuance the balls flew from the Henry and Winchester rifles wielded by the Indians. "They could not stand up under such a fire," he added.

"Were any military tactics shown? Did the Long Haired Chief make any disposition of his soldiers, or did it seem as though they retreated all together, helter skelter, fighting for their lives?"

"They kept in pretty good order. Some great chief must have commanded them all the while. They would fall back across a coulée and make a fresh stand beyond on higher ground. There was one part driven out, away from the rest, and there a great many men were killed."

 "Did the whole command keep on fighting until the last?"

"Every man, so far as my people could see. There were no cowards on either side."

"Where was the Long Hair for most of the time?"

"I have talked with my people; I cannot find one who saw the Long Hair until just before he died. He did not wear his long hair as he used to wear it. His hair was like yours," said Sitting Bull, playfully touching my forehead with his taper fingers. "It was short, but it was of the color of the grass when the frost comes."

 "Did you hear from your people how he died? Did he die on horseback?"

"No. None of them died on horseback."

"All were dismounted?"

"Yes."

"And Custer, the Long Hair?"

"Well, I have understood that there were a great many brave men in that fight, and that from time to time, while it was going on, they were shot down like pigs. They could not help themselves. One by one the officers fell. Any way it was said that up there where the last fight took place, where the last stand was made, the Long Hair stood like a sheaf of corn with all the ears fallen around him."

"Not wounded?"

"No."

"How many stood by him?"

"A few."

"When did he  fall?"

"He killed a man when he fell. He laughed."

"You mean he cried out."

 "No, he laughed; he had fired his last shot."

"From a carbine?"

"No, a pistol."

"Did he stand up after he first fell?"

"He rose up on his hands and tried another shot, but his pistol would not go off."

"Was anyone else standing up when he fell down?"

"One man was kneeling; that was all. But he died before the Long Hair. All this was far up on the bluffs, far away from the Sioux encampments. I did not see it. It is told to me. But it is true."

"The Long Hair was not scalped?"

"No. My people did not want his scalp."

"Why?"

"I have said; he was a great chief."

With this Sitting Bull wrapped his blanket around him and, after gracefully shaking hands, strode to the door. Then he placed his fox-skin cap upon his head and I bade him adieu.

 VII. Summary and Conclusions

When I started to write this essay, I didn’t know much about General Custer. I knew that my father had liked him, and had counted him as a friend. I knew that many people felt that he had let the army down by his conduct during the final battle, and yet many others claimed that he was a hero who had bad luck on the day.

I learned an enormous amount by doing this project. I learned that George Custer was many men - and that he was a very complex person.

I learned that the Indians had a very just cause for complaint against the American government in general, but also against General Custer and his brother in particular.

They had been forced from their lands time after time. Treaty after treaty with the white government had been broken by the whites. Their main source of food, the buffalo was disappearing from the face of the earth, by the greed and stupidity of men like General Custer who thought that indiscriminately killing buffalo was a good sport. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say, was the government reneging on allowing the Indians in their allotted land, 250,000 acres promised them for free range – including the sacred Black Hills land - for a very greedy white reason - gold had been found there.

 I learned by my research that the battle of the Little Big Horn was much more complicated than I had thought. There were all sorts of things that could have changed the course of history if only they had been done at the time.

But history has written, and the deed is done. The Indians are no longer a threat to the country, but they are not happy in their new enforced imprisonment on reservations. There will probably never be another Indian war. But it is fitting, from my point of view, that the Indians won this one.

I’m sorry for the loss of life on both sides, but I am pleased that the Indians had something to be proud of - something that had my father lived, I would have hoped he would have felt was worth writing about.

I do wish I had met General Custer. He seemed to be a likeable man by Indians as well as his soldiers. I think he was foolish in some of his actions, and careless of the lives of others, but I think he thought he was in the right, but, in the end, his luck ran out.