Andy

Research Report on Crazy Horse

March 26, 2001

 

Crazy Horse:

Legendary Warrior

            The Indian wars of the American west were some of the last great conflicts on American soil.  These battles stretched from the Comanches to the south, to the Sioux on the Great Plains and the Blackfeet up near the Canadian border.  The Sioux Indians were some of the last to surrender to the American soldiers.  Along with the closely related Cheyenne’s, these Indians fought the military in the greatest battle of the war, The Little Bighorn.  The fearless Chief called Crazy Horse led one of the denominations of the Sioux, the Oglala.  He courageously resisted all the ways of the white men to the point that he wouldn’t let them take his picture.  He boldly led his people into the face of battle after battle, fighting for their freedom.  He was truly one of the greatest Chiefs of all time (Crazy Horse S2, 1).   

Crazy Horse was born circa 1842, near present day Rapid City South Dakota.  Which is right in the shadow of the Black Hills, a sacred place for the Sioux.  His childhood name was Curly he was a lot smaller than most of the kids his age (Crazy Horse S1, 1).

Curly had an older friend in the camp whose name was Hump.  Hump was one of the village’s most fearless warriors.  He taught Curly how to shoot his bow and arrow, and how to walk silently while he was in the woods.  Hump taught Curly the traits of all warriors, Curly learned them well.  After his father, Hump was probably the most influential person in Curly’s life.

Curly received his first horse before the age of ten.  After Curly had received his first horse, he learned to ride with the best of him.  He was able to ride backwards and do many tricks.  When Curly was eleven years old he was allowed to go on his first hunting trip with the older warriors.  He shot a large bull but the animal didn’t die, it charged at Curly and Curly shot him again, right between the eyes (Meadowcraft 7-30).

Crazy Horse had a very notable family.  His father’s name was the same as his son’s later name, Crazy Horse.  His father was a very important man in the tribe.  He was the Head Medicine Man of the Oglala Sioux.  He was the one that asked Hump if he would train his son, Curly to become an honorable and fearsome warrior.  A warrior that all of the Teton Sioux would be proud of.  The older Crazy Horse also seams to have done a great job interpreting his son’s Vision Quest (Crazy Horse S1, 1).

Crazy Horse’s mother’s name is not known.   She died when Crazy Horse was a very young kid.  Unlike Crazy Horse’s father she was from the Brule Sioux, which meant that Crazy Horse spent about half of his childhood with the Brule Sioux and the other half with the Oglala Sioux.  Crazy Horse preferred spending his time with the Oglala, because he got training from Hump while he was there (Meadowcraft 7-26).

Crazy Horse’s uncle was a very notable person.  He was Crazy Horse’s mom’s brother, he was known as Spotted Tail, and he was a very revered warrior Chief for the Brule, but as Larry McMurty pointed out, the older he got, the more he leaned toward a peaceful resolution to conflicts.  So peaceful in fact that he was against fighting Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (McMurty 1).

Shortly after he killed his first buffalo Curly went on his vision quest.  While he was out wandering in the woods his vision came to him.  He saw a rider on horseback, in the middle of a storm.  The rider’s hair was unbraided and long, the rider wore a small stone behind his ear.  There was hail dotted on his body and a lightning zigzag across his face then a red hawk flew overhead.  Curly could tell the rider was a warrior, but he carried no scalps.  When Curly came back to his camp his father interpreted that the dream meant that he was going to be a great warrior.

A little while after his Vision Quest he got to go on his first raid against the neighboring enemy tribe.  Curly dotted hail on his body, put a lightning streak on his face, a round stone behind his ear and wore a red hawk feather in his hair.  The raid was successful and Curly showed extreme courage and bravery, but Curly received a leg wound.  His father interpreted that he had received this wound because unlike the warrior in his dream he had taken two scalps.  It is commonly believed that from that day to his death he never took another scalp again.  Something else very important happened the night after the raid.  His father had decided that Curly had shown such great bravery that that he was ready for a real name.  He gave his son his own name, Crazy Horse (Crazy Horse S1, 1-2).

About when Crazy Horse was twenty years of age he played a very important role in The Fetterman Fight, the bloodiest battle out west up to 1866.  William Fetterman was fresh out of the Civil War, and he was sent out west to Fort Reno, an outpost on the Bozeman Trail.  Crazy Horse was very upset when this fort was built because it was in the middle of their buffalo ranges.  They started to make attacks on the supplies that were coming from Fort Laramie to Fort Reno.  After a few of there attacks Colonel Carrington who was in charge at Fort Reno ordered Fetterman to take eighty men and attack the Indian raiders, but he told him not to follow the Indians over the ridge because he didn’t want Fetterman to get ambushed.  This time the Indians attacking the supply train were being used as decoy’s, to lure Fetterman over the ridge, pretending there were only a few of them.  These decoyers were led by Crazy Horse, as Fetterman attacked them they slowly retreated down the ridge and Fetterman was eager to finish off this small Indian band, so he followed Crazy Horse down the ridge.  Once down into the valley a far superior force of Sioux Warriors dashed down the valley’s surrounding hills, and surrounded his troops.  It was estimated that about 40,000 arrows were shot by the Sioux in the Battle.  The soldiers didn’t stand a chance and all of them along with Fetterman died.  They took about sixty of the Indians with them.  The whole battle only lasted about forty minutes.  Crazy horse’s role in the battle was a very vital one (McCune 1-12).

In 1876 Crazy Horse was named Supreme War and Peace Chief of the Oglala’s.  Also at that time he had a large influence with the Northern Cheyenne because his first wife was from that tribe.  About March of that year many Indians started to head towards the Little Bighorn River where Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Sioux was gathering a large force to battle with the American soldiers.  Around this time General Crook made a surprise attack on a village that he believed was Crazy Horse’s.  He was mistaken and it would cost him later on.  By June all of the Indian had made it to the encampment on the Little Bighorn.  Chief Sitting Bull had a vision where he saw soldiers falling to the ground from the sky going headfirst.  All of the Indians there thought that this meant that they would win the battle that was coming up.  A few days later the Indian scouts reported that there was an army coming up to them from the Southeast.  This was Crook’s detachment.  Crazy Horse along with some other influential War Chiefs took some of their Warriors to meet Crook.  Crazy Horse met the U.S. cavalry at Rosebud Creek.  His warriors caught the soldiers by surprise and charged into their camp.  The soldiers were spread far apart and on both sides of the creek.  Crook’s Shoshone and Crow scouts fought very hard and according to Larry McMurty “probably saving Crook from the embarrassment of an absolute rout.”  Crook very nearly formed a battle line once or twice, but Crazy Horse and his warriors kept charging through the line.  Crook tried most of the day to mount a strategic comeback but failed.  At the end of the day, the Indians turned back toward their encampment satisfied that they had prevented Crook from going towards their camp.  Since the Indians had left the battlefield after it was over, Crook claimed that he and his troops had won the battle that day, but all of my sources agree that Crazy Horse and the Indians had won the battle.  People disagree on how many of Crook’s soldiers died, but it was probably about thirty whites and twenty Indian scouts.  The Sioux lost around thirty all together.  This may not sound like a lot of people but as Larry McMurty put it “it is hard to keep in mind that when Indian fought Indian a death count of more than three or four was unusual (McMurty 1-5).

About one week after the battle of the Rosebud, Oglala scouts informed Crazy Horse that Custer was near.  There are not many hard facts about the Battle of the Bighorn.  Mainly because none of the American soldiers survived, and interviewers didn’t start interviewing Indians until nearly 20 years after the Battle took place.  There are not many hard facts about what happened at the battle, most of the available information is speculation.  Most of the Indians accounts put Crazy Horse in an impossible number of places.  A popular belief was that Crazy Horse sealed off Custer’s escape route, by taking the hill known as Last Stand Hill.  The other important Chief, Gall says this is where he saw Crazy Horse.  Almost all of the other influential chiefs say that Crazy Horse was nowhere near Custer, they say that he was helping to hold off Major Reno from joining the battle.  I am quite sure that we will never positively know where Crazy Horse was during this historic battle.  I am also sure wherever he was he played an influential role (Michno 45-47).

After a hard winter in 1877 Crazy Horse led 800 followers to the Red Cloud Agency in Northwest Corner of Nebraska.  After his wife got ill he decided to go to the Spotted Tail Agency in Wyoming.  When they got there he was arrested because of rumors of a rebellion.  The soldiers started to lead him off to the stockade when he realized this, he tried to get out of the soldiers grasp and so the soldiers ran him through the stomach with a bayonet (Crazy Horse S1, 4).

Although Crazy Horse was neither as large or fierce looking as Gall, he made up for his size and impression by using the his inner ferocity to keep the whites off his tribal lands a few years longer.  He is now being honored for his commitment to his people with his own memorial that will be roughly the size of Mount Rushmore.  Korzak Ziolkowski was in charge of the operation but he died a couple years back, and his wife has been running it since.  He refused government help because they had a hand in Crazy Horse’s death so it is moving along slowly.  Crazy Horse will always be remembered by the Oglala as the best Chief of all time.  “Crazy Horse has been called one of the greatest soldiers of his day – the bravest of the brave (Crazy Horse S2, 1; Spence 62; Crazy Horse S3, 1).